Emma stood up and went to the window.

“So do you want to marry him?” her father asked.

She whirled around. “Who said anything about marrying anyone?”

“No one, but you’ve been wandering around the house like a lost soul since you came back. A good fellow is he, this Italian?”

She ran to him and hugged him. “A very good fellow.”

“Wants to marry you, does he?”

“That’s what I mean to find out.”

Marco was surprised to find his hand was shaking. He was afraid. This mattered too much to him. He stared unseeing out of the window of the train, his body tense, his hands flexed around an unread newspaper. Smoke from the puffing engine drifted past the window and the wheels clacked rhythmically, sounding out her name with their clickety-clack.

The man opposite moved his leg and Marco shifted to give him room. He’d forgotten how cramped these English railway compartments were. Five or so to a side, two doors at each end, luggage rack overhead. Locked into an unwelcome proximity between stations. No corridor, no way to stretch your legs, no view of other travelers save those in your compartment. In a way, it was a good thing to be a prisoner. Once committed to the journey, there was little opportunity to turn back.

Emma had no idea he was coming. He wondered if the days had dragged as interminably for her as for him. He could have cabled, or telephoned when the ferry docked, but the same fear had made him hesitate. Suppose she told him to go away, that she didn’t want to see him? Now she was safely back in her tidy English woods, with her tidy English life, maybe the whole delirious time spent with him was a bad dream.

Did it matter to her that they had known each other only a matter of days? He remembered his literature teacher explaining how the classical playwrights had compressed everything into a span of twenty-four hours. Well, he was right about how much you could cram into little more than a day and a night. The three unities, of place, time and theme. Wasn’t that what had happened between him and Emma? Tragedy, fear, ecstasy, danger had tumbled over themselves to insinuate themselves into the scenario being played out.

The man across the narrow aisle folded his newspaper and reached above his head for a briefcase. The cadence of the wheels changed as the train began to slow. A miniature railway station like a child’s toy came into view and the train came to a halt with a loud hiss of steam.

A porter hurried by, shouting the name of the station.

His fellow traveler stepped to the door and lowered the window by its strap to reach out for the door handle. As the door swung open, he turned to Marco. “I think this is your stop, sir. Couldn’t help hearing you mention it to the collector.”

He gave a brusque nod as if embarrassed that he’d broken the code of silence and stepped down to the platform. Marco gathered his portmanteau and his coat and followed him out into the fresh, cool air of the English summer evening.

He found a car to take him through the narrow lanes to Lord Bicester’s estate. The driver wore a flat, tweed cap and muddy Wellington boots. He smelled of hay and animals and had a country burr to his speech.

“They must have forgot to send the car for you, sir,” he said. “Did you change your train?”

“No,” Marco answered. “I wasn’t able to give them an exact date for my arrival. They know I can find my way.”

“Ah.” The man’s voice was noncommittal. “Foreign, aren’t you, sir? Been here before?”

“I’ve lived in England, but I don’t know this part of the country.”

“Ah. Friend of the family, sir?”

Marco suppressed a smile. Everyone always wanted to know all about a stranger. His own village was exactly the same. “Not of the family, no. I’m a friend of Lady Emma.”

“Ah.” The driver braked for a blind spot on a corner and tooted the horn. “Lovely young lady that. You’re not the first young man to come to see ‘er.” He gave a belly laugh.

Marco found it hard to join in the mirth. “I suppose not,” he said with a weak smile. “Er, I don’t suppose there are other guests right now?” Why hadn’t he thought of the possibility that Emma had resumed her lifestyle, including suitors and a social whirl?

“No, sir, I don’t believe there are. Real quiet it’s been since Lady Emma came home.” His voice dropped. “They say she was kidnapped and tortured, poor lady. Them foreigners treated her very badly.”

Was that the story Emma was telling? His heart sank.

Just then the house came into view, a huge pile with turrets and hundreds of windows glinting in the setting sun. Deer grazed in the park, and sculpted lawns stretched into the distance.

The driver slowed to a crawl and drew to a halt in front of the steps leading to the main door. Marco got out and took a deep breath. He had faced guns and treachery without fear, but the thought of seeing Emma again was enough to make him want to get back into the car and drive away. How could one small woman terrify him to this extent?

He dug in his pocket for some money and turned toward the house. At that instant Emma herself appeared from around the corner, her arms full of cut flowers.

“Mr. Goodfellow,” she called, “I thought I heard the car. Who-” She stood stock still when she saw Marco, then cast the flowers to the ground. She came at him on a run and he caught her in his arms, smothering her with kisses.

“Why didn’t you let me know?” She laughed, yet tears moistened her cheeks.

He breathed in her essence, her own special perfume. “I didn’t know what to say. Are you pleased to see me?”

“Pleased?” She held him away from her. “I’ve missed you so much. I was planning to come back to Italy. Come.” She kissed him hard and deep, then tucked his hand under her elbow and picked up his bag. “Come and meet Daddy. I’ve told him a lot about you.”

They had put his bag in a room at the end of a long corridor and he’d been resigned to spending a lonely night until Emma had whispered a promise in his ear before dinner. True to her word, she’d appeared like a ghost in a robe of white muslin when the house was dark and silent.

She found him waiting for her, hoping for her. She slid into the bed beside him and they held each other without speaking, savoring the feel of their limbs, inhaling the long lost scent of their skin. The room was in total darkness and they could feel, touch and breathe in the heady scent of their bodies, but see nothing.

“Daddy liked you.” Emma snuggled against him in the darkness.

“How could you tell?” Lord Bicester had subjected him to a barrage of questions about his family, his property, his political views. He’d escaped to his room after dinner feeling battered and convinced that he would be on the next train back to London after breakfast.

“Lots of ways.” She stroked his chest. “He asked you lots of questions-”

“That was good?”

“Oh, yes. If he hadn’t liked you he would have eaten without saying a word. Then he offered you a glass of his best port.”

“I see I have a lot to learn about English fathers.” As he spoke, he lightly traced the tip of his finger down the side of her neck, over the pulsing artery and down to her collarbone, finding the sensitive hollow at the base of her throat. He felt the movement of her jaw under his fingers as she swallowed.

“Concentrate on the daughters first,” she said.

Like a blind man, he let his fingers wander over her curves and hollows, sensing her by touch alone. Slowly he slid the muslin from her shoulders, imagining every inch of soft, pearly flesh. It nearly killed him to wait, but wait he did, listening to her breathing, until her breasts were free of any covering. He cupped a lovely globe in each hand and brought the pebbly nipple to his mouth as if tasting a glass of fine wine. Her nipples were hard and erect, and he took each one between his lips in turn, circling it with his tongue, sucking it into his mouth.