Marco was responding to her compliance about the beating, sending her a message of confidence. She was to be allowed out of the cell, trusted not to run. For some reason, this was a crucial time for him. She had understood that, and Marco knew she wouldn’t go back on her word.

Plus there was an offer of clean clothes and a bath. This was too good to refuse. Though how they could get a bathtub up here, she couldn’t imagine. While these thoughts raced through her head, she followed Irena and her companion out of the cell. Two guards, armed with long rifles, stood at the entrance to the caves, and one fell into step behind them as the three women left the shelter. Irena turned left and took a path Emma hadn’t noticed before. It climbed gently away from the caves and soon led to a deep cleft between two large outcrops of rock. Emma turned to look behind her. The guard halted a few paces back, his rifle held at the ready. Emma saw the tension in his fingers on the stock. He probably thought he would be duty-bound to shoot her dead if she took a step away from the path.

Mountains ringed the spot, shutting out any view of what lay in the distance. She knew the way back to the coast ran due west, but there was no sign of the track, or of the shimmering sea she had glimpsed on the way up. The silence was broken only by the sound of their steps on the stony path until a bird started from the underbrush almost beneath their feet. It took off with a clatter of wings and a protesting squawk.

Back in the moment, Emma turned back to the two girls. “What is your name?” she asked Irena’s friend.

“Teresa,” she replied. “I’m Marco’s sister-in-law.”

Sister-in-law! It hit her like a blow to the solar plexus. His wife’s sister? In reflex she stopped walking. Her lips felt numb, but she gathered her courage to summon up the words, asking for an explanation. Of course, Teresa could be the wife of Marco’s brother, not the sister of his wife. If he had a brother. Was this girl married? Did she dare to ask? Suppose the answer was that Marco had a pretty little wife waiting for him somewhere?

Before she could force out the question, Teresa moved ahead, seemingly unaware of the effect of her announcement, and continued to chat cheerfully. “I am so happy to practice my English. The last book I read was The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot. So interesting. Have you read it?”

Emma’s head spun at the change of subject. Her reading interests had centered mainly on Vogue and Field and Stream. She sometimes glanced at The Lady. And she’d read Hamlet at school. “I’ve heard of it,” she said, struggling to focus her roiling thoughts.

Irena stopped a few paces ahead of them before Teresa could delve any farther into Emma’s abysmal ignorance of English literature or Emma could ask the question burning in her brain.

The question she had to ask, but the answer to which she dreaded.

Emma and Teresa drew level with Irena and found themselves at the edge of a pool. Steam rose lazily into the air and the water shone a deep green.

“Ecco le acque calde,” Irena said with a gesture towards the water.

“ Hot springs,” Teresa explained. “The Romans had baths all over the country because the land has many volcanoes and streams that come warm from the earth. They never built baths up here, but this water is as good as anything in Rome.”

Emma nodded. Maybe after the bath, when her emotions had settled down, she could ask if Marco had a wife. Getting the bad news now or in a half hour wouldn’t make any difference.

Emma looked at the two young women. Teresa’s face wore a sympathetic smile, but Irena looked away, shifting her feet uncomfortably. How thrilled were they at ministering to a woman who had apparently endangered them all by her flight? However nice they were, it wouldn’t change anything about the beating that awaited her.

Teresa took Emma’s arm. “Come, signora. You will bathe and change clothes and then we will give you something to eat at the caves. I am sure you are hungry.”

Emma sighed. She knew she should have felt the pangs of hunger. She couldn’t remember when she last ate. Was it down in Enrico’s hovel? She had a flash of memory of Marco slicing juicy ham and feeding it to her. The suggestion of food now sounded too much like the condemned woman’s last meal. Her stomach churned at the thought.

Teresa shook out a sheet and held it to make a screen from the guard. Emma followed the movement of the girl’s fingers. She wore no rings. How usual was it for married women to go without a wedding band? Not often, in this very Catholic country.

Irena tugged at Emma’s tunic, muttering something, a frown still on her pretty face.

No point in looking a gift horse in the mouth, Emma told herself. Let’s take one thing at a time. Refusing to bathe and change her clothes would not alter a single thing about the beating Marco had promised her, or about the fact he could well be married. With a sigh, she nodded to Irena, pulled the tunic over her head and then loosened the drawstring of her skirt.

Someone had placed rocks to form steps down into the warm depths. The mineral-laden water felt smooth on her skin. It was no more than waist deep, and she found a low ledge on which to sit, so the water lapped her breasts. She settled back, luxuriating in the soothing pool, allowing her tense muscles to relax. The heated water laved her thighs, and caressed her between her legs, freshening the tender flesh. She dipped her head back, letting the water run through her hair.

Too soon, the nagging thoughts crowded in.

Before she’d reformed her life, before the German spies had frightened her half to death in England and had inadvertently brought Johnny and Gillian together, any good-looking, amusing young man had been fair game. Except the married ones. Even during the Game she had always been careful never to sleep with a man still living with his wife. Even Lady Ellersby had known that, and only invited her to the sessions with no married men. She had nothing but contempt for those who cheated on their wives. Her cousin’s husband had stepped out of line with an actress and she’d seen the hurt he’d caused. Marriage might not always be with the one who made your heart flutter-there were other considerations like family and heritage after all-but once you’d taken the vows, it was for better or worse.

Despite her own standards, the men she’d been with had usually only one thing in mind, treating her as a beautiful, desirable object. The only man who had never wanted to take from her, the only one she’d ever been comfortable with, that she trusted or wanted to trust, had been her father. Despite her bold exterior, deep down she was afraid to let anyone behind the façade. She’d soon discovered that going to bed did not mean intimacy. In fact it was a good way to avoid it. In a life crowded with men, none had ever bothered to find out that beneath the glittering surface of Emma the socialite, lurked Emma the woman who longed for a soul mate. No one had ever come close to meeting her hidden dreams, to making her lift the curtain of her true self. Until Marco.

She closed her eyes. She had told Marco she thought him an honorable man. Had she been horribly wrong? Had he been laughing at her all the time, slyly triumphant that it had proved so easy to seduce an Englishwoman, to tame her arrogance? Had his defiance of his people been a sham, calculated to win her confidence so he could stuff his cock inside her and hear her beg for more?

She shifted in the water as a wave of humiliation swept through her. She’d let him tie her on the horse, allowed his hands to stroke and caress her until she climaxed at his mere touch, then she’d ridden him in the cell, driving them both to a fever pitch of desire, even though he’d talked of giving her a public beating.