‘I wanted it so much that I blinded myself to the truth. I told myself I had to be right. When I tasted those grapes I found what I wanted to find. Idiot! Stupid, conceited clown!’

She was shocked by the agony of self-condemnation in his voice.

‘I thought I could order things to be as I wanted.’ He gave a crack of mirthless laughter. ‘You’d think I’d have learned better than that by now, wouldn’t you?’

‘Please, don’t be so hard on yourself,’ she begged. ‘So you let your pride get in the way-’

‘Not pride, arrogance. I wouldn’t listen, would I? And now I’ve brought down my best hopes, and damaged the farm.’

‘But the rest of the harvest was good-’

‘Oh, yes, we won’t go under. We’ll survive, but not as prosperously as we should have done, because I was blind and pig-headed-because it mattered so much I couldn’t see anything else.’

‘But what mattered that much?’ she asked.

He stared. ‘How can you ask? Isn’t it obvious?’

‘Not to me.’

‘I might have wiped out my debt to you, or most of it. For weeks I’ve lived and breathed that. I’ve thought of nothing else but the moment when I could repay you.

‘I told you I could have got the best price if I’d been right. And I blew it. All I can do now is pay you instalments, but I’ll still be deep in your debt.’

‘Oh, I see,’ she said. His words had raised a hideous possibility. She had been deceiving herself. He wanted her sexually, but he’d never lost the hope of getting rid of her in the end.

‘You don’t see at all,’ he said with soft vehemence.

‘You wanted to pay me off. Then everything would have been all right, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes, because then I could have said things to you that I can’t say while I’m your debtor. How can a man tell a woman what she means to him when he owes her money?’

She grew still, trying to see his face in the shafts of moonlight that slanted between the trees.

‘I suppose-that depends on what she means to him,’ she whispered.

He touched her face. ‘More than I can find words for. I’ve dreamed of the moment when I had no monetary reason for marrying you, because then you could believe that I loved you. All this time I’ve wanted to say something, but I told myself it must wait until I had money.’

‘To hell with your money!’ she said vehemently. ‘I don’t want it, I want you, and if you weren’t blinded with pride you’d have known that long ago.’

‘Would I?’ he asked with a touch of wistfulness that sounded strange from him. ‘Then perhaps I’m not a very perceptive man.’

‘There’s no perhaps about it,’ she breathed. ‘Why must the mortgage be so important?’

‘It’s important to me to come to you with my head high.’

‘You’ll always have your head high. Do you think I’d suspect you of being mercenary? How could I after you fought so hard to drive me off?’ She tried to lighten his mood with a mild joke. ‘Nobody could ever accuse you of sweet-talking me.’

He gave a brief smile, but she could tell he was only half ready to hear her.

‘I know you’re stubborn and hard and awkward,’ she said, ‘but would you really turn your back on me because of this?’

Sombrely he shook his head. ‘I could never turn my back on you,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I told myself I could, but it isn’t true. I must love you. I cannot help myself. But I wanted it to be right between us.’

Tenderly she touched his face. ‘You fool,’ she said softly. ‘You dear fool, don’t you know that it will be right between us if we love each other? Not because of money. Rinaldo, listen to me. What has money to do with us? From the first moment it got in the way, blinding us to what should have been obvious.’

‘I know you’re right. But it hurts me here-’ he pointed to his heart ‘-that I can’t approach you as an equal.’

‘Do you love me as much as I love you? Because if you do, we’re equals in the only way that matters.’

‘A thousand times more. I thought I was so complete in myself before you came. You showed me that I wasn’t. That’s why I fought you so hard. I’ve never fought anyone as hard as I’ve fought you.’

‘That’s how I know you love me,’ she whispered.

‘Ah, you understand-’

He had said he would not approach her with love while he was still her debtor, but now he knew that he had no choice. She had carried him over the barrier by the strength of her faith. He had nothing to do now but surrender.

To this fiercely self-sufficient man surrender was hard, all but impossible. But she could make it easy by turning it into a triumph.

He drew her to him again, exploring with hands and lips, and now she was free to yield to him utterly. Her fingers caressed the back of his neck, rejoicing in a freedom long desired and now achieved.

Gradually she could feel the tension drain out of him. She parted her lips invitingly, letting him in to explore her. The feel of his tongue against the inside of her mouth stimulated her to fever pitch and she seized him with a hand on each side of his head, falling back against the earth and drawing him with her.

The light robe slipped away easily, then her thin nightgown. Beneath it she was naked and, as though the sight inspired him, Rinaldo began to strip off his clothes. She helped him eagerly. This was no time for false modesty. She wanted him and she wasn’t ashamed to let him know it. Her arms were wide open to receive him as he lay beside her, running his hands over her body.

‘I’ve wanted to do this for so long,’ he said hoarsely.

How could any man’s touch be so gentle yet so demanding in the same moment? There was fire in every caress. She turned her body this way and that, letting him know silently what she wanted from him.

The earth beneath was full of the scent of ripeness. The springtime and the long ripening of summer was over. It was harvest now, for them as for the land.

He kissed her everywhere, meaning to inflame her passion until she was ready for him, but she was already there, impatient of delay. When he moved over her she parted her legs in willing acceptance. Then he was inside her, his weight pressing her into the soft earth.

Her love possessed her completely, driving out all else except the feeling that this man was hers to cherish, to fulfil, and even to protect. Protecting him must be done in secret, for it was something he would not understand. But her passion need be a secret no longer, and she claimed him totally, with a full heart that was all his.

Afterward they lay together, shaking, clasping each other as if for safety. It took time to come down from the heights. The view had been lovely, opening prospects that would last all their lives.

Rinaldo kissed her tenderly. ‘Let’s go inside,’ he said softly. ‘We have only begun.’

He took her hand, drawing her to her feet and helping her on with her clothes. Quietly they slipped through the trees and across to the house, where they climbed the stairs to her room, and closed the door.

Alex awoke to find herself tightly clasped in Rinaldo’s arms. After keeping her at a wary distance he had finally abandoned his defences totally, drawing her in and making her a part of himself, as though he would never release her.

The night that had just passed was a fevered blur in her memory. They had possessed each other again and again, slaking a passion too long denied. After each loving they would sleep for a little and awaken with renewed desire. Their final sleep was one of exhaustion.

They awoke reluctantly, not wanting to let each other go.

‘I suppose we have to get up,’ he whispered.

‘Yes, it’s a new day.’

‘A new day for us. I shall never let you go. You do know that, don’t you. If you wanted to leave me, it’s too late now.’

She smiled blissfully. ‘That’s all right then.’

He kissed her. ‘It’s not going to be easy. I love you, but it isn’t going to turn me into sweetness and light.’

She gave a soft chuckle. ‘Good. I wouldn’t recognise you.’

‘It’s been so long since I loved,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I thought I’d forgotten how.’

‘I’ll always be there to remind you.’

Slowly they disentangled themselves and rose. Rinaldo pulled on his jeans.

‘Before I leave,’ he said, ‘you’d better check the corridor, to see if the coast’s clear. I don’t want Gino to see me creeping out of your room.’

‘No, he mustn’t find out about us like that,’ Alex agreed.

After a moment’s hesitation he asked awkwardly, ‘Will there be a problem about telling him?’

‘No, there was never anything really between us. Just him flirting with me, at your command.’

‘I didn’t exactly-’ he began uneasily.

Alex gave a burst of laughter. ‘Oh, my love, my love! You should see your face! Be careful what you say. Gino told me everything.’

‘Everything?’ he asked, even more uneasily.

‘Everything.’

His face was a delight. Alex could see that he wasn’t used to bantering, and he was all at sea.

‘Just what does “everything” include?’ he asked cautiously.

‘Well, if I say “two-headed coin” does that convey anything?’

He groaned and dropped his head in his hands.

‘I’ll kill him,’ he muttered.

To Alex it was joyously funny, but she reminded herself that this was a man with too little experience of humour. In the years to come she would have to teach him to laugh and be happy. That would be her pleasure and her privilege. So she hopped beside him on the bed and put her arms about him, telling him without words that it wasn’t the end of the world.

‘Look-’ he said desperately.

‘Darling, it’s all right. I think it’s hilarious. That’ll teach you to reject a lady before you’ve even met her. One part of me wants to say that you should simply have “taken your winnings”. But the other part says it’s better as it is. All that fighting we did-we needed it. We could never have got to know each other so well otherwise.’