Dear Reader,

In Gino’s Arranged Bride we once more meet Gino Farnese, the laughing charmer of Rinaldo’s Inherited Bride. But now everything in his world is different.

The lighthearted boy has gone. In his place is a bitter, despairing man, banished from his home by his unrequited love for his brother’s wife, and certain that he will never love or be happy again.

Drifting from country to country, haunted by Alex, he comes to England, where he meets Laura and her little girl, Nikki, and his generous heart is drawn to them by their need.

Nikki, who has a mild facial disfigurement, sees in him a father to replace the one who rejected her. Laura, her mother, is struggling to scrape a living and keep her daughter’s spirits up.

In devoting himself to their service, Gino finds a new reason for living. He even accepts Laura’s suggestion of marriage, for Nikki’s sake. It’s a far cry from his violent passion for Alex, but it’s contentment of a kind, and he reckons it will have to do.

But Laura won’t settle for second best. She knows that only in Tuscany will Gino find the answers he is still seeking. Yet returning to Tuscany means meeting Alex, the woman who still reigns in his heart. Laura fears Alex most of all, but until she faces her—and Gino faces her—she knows that he will never be truly hers.

Best wishes,

Gino’s Arranged Bride
Lucy Gordon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

ONE of the most beautiful men Nature ever made, Laura thought appreciatively. And I don’t just mean good-looking. Beautiful!

The young man leaning back on the park bench would have caught anyone’s attention. His shaggy dark hair was just beginning to curl. His features were lean and fine, except for his mouth which was wide and generous, sensually curved even when he was asleep.

There wasn’t a spare ounce on his tall body with its long legs, stretched out gracefully. An old jacket, worn jeans, and a day’s growth on his chin, made him look like a hobo, but a stylish hobo.

With his eyes closed, his face raised to the sun, he might have stood for a pagan symbol of physical perfection.

He’s probably got nothing between his ears, she thought, amused, but with looks like that, he doesn’t need it.

But then she thought again. There was something in his face that told another story. Heavy shadows beneath his eyes, and a fine-drawn tension about his mouth suggested a man who lived on his nerves, and who hadn’t slept properly for months.

‘Mummy.’

Laura turned to where her eight-year-old daughter was standing beside her, clutching a football, eagerly waiting for the fun to begin.

‘Sorry, darling,’ she said, turning away from the man on the bench.

‘Please let’s play a game, Mummy.’

On the first real day of spring Nikki had wanted to get out of the house and celebrate in the park. Laura had protested at first.

‘It’s not really warm enough yet.’

‘It is, it is,’ Nikki had insisted indignantly.

And it was. The weather was lovely. But Laura had another reason for being reluctant to face the world, one that she couldn’t put into words for the little girl, although Nikki understood without words.

Before leaving the house she had run a brush through her fair, generous curls that rioted in disorder no matter how she tried to control them. Her appearance told two different stories. Her hair seemed to belong to a cheerful, careless teenager, and at thirty-two she still had the slim figure of those years.

But her face had been shaped by sadness and weary patience. It was too soon for lines, but a shadow had come into her blue eyes years too soon.

What devastated her was that the same shadow was beginning to appear in her daughter’s eyes. At eight, Nikki was already losing her childish light-heartedness, for a terrible reason. And there was nothing her frantic mother could do about it.

The park was already filling up. Children were kicking balls about, adults were leaning back in the sun.

Laura recognised some of the other mothers and waved to them. They waved back, but then turned away quickly. She glanced quickly at Nikki to see if she had noticed the rejection, and found her daughter regarding her with an understanding smile.

‘It’s all right,’ she said in a confiding voice. ‘We’ll play together.’

At such moments Laura wanted to scream to the world, ‘How dare you reject my daughter? So what if her face is a little different? What harm does it do you?’

But Nikki was already darting away, deftly dribbling the ball between her feet. She seemed to have put the incident behind her.

If only I could do that, Laura thought. If only I could still believe the world will turn out to be a good place in the end, as she does.

She took a last glimpse at the glorious young man, still sitting motionless, bathed in the sun.

Not that Laura set much store by looks. Jack, too, had been handsome, with a broad, good-natured smile and an air of loving the world—until the day he walked out on his wife and daughter without a backward glance.

Nikki was still playing with her junior football, which she bounced hopefully, looking around her.

‘I don’t see anyone that we know, darling,’ Laura said. ‘Let’s just play together.’

‘You mean they wouldn’t want to play with me?’ Nikki asked.

Laura’s heart lurched, and her eyes reacted before she could stop herself. Nikki watched and understood.

‘It’s all right, Mummy.’ The little girl rubbed her face. ‘People don’t understand about this.’

‘No, they don’t understand,’ Laura said gently.

‘Was that why you didn’t want us to come here?’

Dear God! Laura thought. She’s only eight years old. She knows far too much.

She nodded. ‘Yes, because of people who don’t understand, being unkind to you.’

‘They’re not unkind exactly,’ Nikki said, speaking like a wise little old woman, ‘it’s just that they don’t like to look at me. Never mind.’

She ran a little distance ahead and began dribbling the ball, while Laura stood still for a moment, suppressing the instinct to commit murder.

But murder who? The malign fate that had caused her child to be different to others? The stupid world that made everything worse for her with its cruel, imbecilic ignorance? The unthinking idiots who couldn’t see past that damaged face to the sweet loving soul beneath.

‘Come on, Mummy,’ Nikki called.

They kicked the football around for a while, until Nikki gave an unexpectedly powerful lunge and the ball went sailing high in the air.

For a moment it seemed to hover before plunging like a stone to land right on the stomach of the young man on the bench. He awoke with a yell, clutching his middle.

Nikki had run forward until she pulled up short in front of him and stood looking at him steadily.

He looked back at her. He was holding the ball.

‘This is yours?’ he asked. He had a foreign accent.

‘Yes. Sorry.’ Nikki moved closer, positioning herself just in front of him, so that he couldn’t help but see her clearly. Her eyes were fixed on his face, watching, waiting for the moment when his glance faltered.

Where does she get the courage to do that? Laura wondered.

‘I hope you really are sorry,’ he said, regarding her steadily and speaking in a tone of grievance. ‘I was enjoying a beautiful dream when Poof! There is a dead weight on my stomach.’

He hadn’t reacted to her face. Nikki moved again, placing herself squarely before him, grimly determined, daring her good luck not to last.

‘I didn’t mean to,’ she said.

‘Of course not.’

‘I do apologise,’ Laura said, catching up with them. ‘I hope you’re not hurt.’

He gave them both a brilliant grin that seemed to light up the whole world. Laura had never seen a grin like it. It was life enhancing.

‘I guess I’ll survive,’ he said.

‘And it’s left a dirty patch in your shirt.’

He studied the shirt which was already the worse for wear. ‘How can you tell?’ he asked plaintively.

Nikki giggled. He directed his grin at her.

Laura watched him carefully, wondering if this was really happening. Other people flinched at the sight of Nikki, or became elaborately kind, which was almost worse. This man seemed not to have noticed anything different about her.

‘I’m Laura Gray,’ she said, ‘and this is my daughter, Nikki.’

‘I’m Gino Farnese.’ He engulfed her hand in his. It was a big hand with a powerful, muscular look that suggested some kind of hard manual work. Even through the gentle handshake she could feel the strength.

Then he grasped Nikki’s hand, giving her the same courtesy as her mother, and saying solemnly, ‘Buon giorno, signorina. Sono Gino.’

‘What does that mean?’ the child asked.

‘It means, “Hello, young lady. I am Gino.”’

Nikki frowned. ‘You’re foreign,’ she declared bluntly. ‘You talk funny.’

‘Nikki!’ Laura exclaimed. ‘Manners!’

‘It’s true. I’m Italian,’ he said, not seeming to be offended.

‘Are you any good kicking a football?’ Nikki demanded, keeping him to important matters.

‘Nikki!’

‘I reckon I’m pretty useful,’ he said, adding warily, ‘as long as my opponent doesn’t get too rough.’

She bounded away, calling to him, ‘Come on, come on!’

‘I apologise,’ Laura said helplessly.

He gave his life-enhancing grin again. ‘Don’t worry. I’m on my guard against further assaults from your ferocious offspring.’

‘That wasn’t what I—’

But he was gone, dancing around the ball. He really was skilled, Laura thought. Not every man could have kicked it here and there, never too hard, just far enough to make her work for it. And it all looked natural.

Smiling, Laura took his place on the bench, almost tripping over a suitcase that stood beside it.

It was shabby, like the rest of him. His clothes looked as though he’d spent several nights sleeping in them, and the suitcase had a hole in the corner.

Like a tortoise, she thought, carrying everything on its back. Not that there was anything tortoise-like about the deft way he was darting back and forth.

At last he contrived to lose the ball to Nikki so cleverly that she could think she’d won it. She promptly gave it another of her mighty kicks straight at him. Gino Farnese lunged like a goalkeeper, just contriving to miss.

‘Goal!’ he yelled triumphantly, sitting on the ground, and bawling so loudly that several people stared at him and moved hastily away.

‘That always happens,’ he said. ‘People run away from me because they think I’m crazy.’

‘Are you crazy?’ Nikki wanted to know.

He seemed to consider. ‘I think so, si. So you can’t blame them.’

‘I won’t run away,’ Nikki said.

‘Thank you.’ He was still sitting on the ground, gasping, looking her in the eyes. ‘Oh, I can’t do this, piccina. You’re too much for me.’

He jumped up and went off to retrieve the ball. Nikki darted to her mother and spoke in a hurried whisper.

‘He didn’t see it, Mummy. He didn’t see it.’

‘Darling—’

‘It’s like a magic spell. Everyone else can see it but not him. Do you think there’s really a spell on me?’

With all her heart she longed to say yes. She was saved from having to answer by Gino’s return. She came to a swift decision.

‘It’s time we were going back to have some tea,’ she said. ‘I hope you’ll come with us. The least I can do is feed you when my daughter has run you off your feet.’

‘That’s very kind—’

‘Fine, then you’re coming.’ She wasn’t going to let him escape. ‘The house is just over there. Besides, I don’t think Nikki is ready to let you go yet.’

She was right. The little girl was hopping excitedly from one foot to the other. Laura could see that she’d formed one of those instant, inexplicable friendships that sometimes happened with children.

Or was it inexplicable? He’d treated her exactly like any other child, which was all Nikki asked. No, not inexplicable at all.

The little girl danced beside him all the way home, chattering, giggling at his accent. He promptly exaggerated it, making her giggle more. Laura gave him full marks for a kind heart.

Her home was a huge three-storey Victorian house with a shabby appearance, although inwardly it was clean and comfortable in a ‘no frills’ kind of way.

‘You two live here alone?’ he asked.

‘No, I rent out rooms.’

‘Ah! Are you expensive?’

‘Not very. In fact my only remaining room is smaller than the others and always the last to go, so it’s dirt cheap.’

She hoped she didn’t sound too eager. She had made her own decision as firmly as Nikki had apparently made hers. She wanted him to move in as a tenant, and make her little girl smile.

The front door led into a wide hallway, with a flight of stairs on one side and a door on the other.

‘That’s the living room,’ Laura said, pushing it open. ‘It’s got the only television in the house. This place is as basic as that, I’m afraid. And along here, at the back of the house, is the kitchen.’

It was old-fashioned, large and comfortable, with a large table in the centre. Of the six chairs around it only three of them matched.

As Laura put the kettle on Gino Farnese said, ‘You should know something about me before you let me come here.’

Nikki was putting her ball away in the hall cupboard, and Laura took the chance to say quietly, ‘I know that you can cheer her up. That’s important.’

‘But it’s not the only thing,’ he said, also dropping his voice. ‘To make a little girl smile—is important, si. But you don’t know me. I might have married six wives and abandoned them all.’

‘You’re a bit young to have married six wives,’ she said, apparently considering the matter seriously. ‘You can’t be much more than twenty-five.’

‘Twenty-nine,’ he said with wounded dignity.

‘I’m sorry, twenty-nine. So tell me, have you abandoned six wives?’

‘No, no, only four—no, five,’ he assured her quickly. ‘It’s not so bad, si?’

A giggle from the door told them Nikki had been eavesdropping.

‘Five’s all right, isn’t it Mummy.’

‘I suppose we can overlook five,’ she agreed, laughing.

‘But when I said you should know about me, that’s not when I meant,’ he told her. ‘I must tell you that I have hardly any money at the moment. I was—er—’ he struck his forehead while he fought for the English word ‘come si dice?—I was mugged.’

‘Goodness, when?’

‘In London. I don’t like London. It’s too big and noisy. Three of them jumped me, grabbed my bags and ran. I didn’t even get a good look at them.

‘Luckily I had my passport and a little money in my back pocket, but my wallet with credit cards was in one of the bags. So were my decent clothes.’

‘Did you go to the police?’

‘Sure, but what can they do? I’ve cancelled the credit cards, but now I must get some more money. I bought some old clothes in a charity shop, also an old suitcase. Now I wear the old clothes so that my good suit stays in the bag.

‘I had just enough money to get a train out of London, to anywhere. I just got off here because it looked nice, a small town, some countryside. But I don’t know where I am. The station board said Elverham, but where is Elverham? What is Elverham? Is it real, or did I imagine it?’

He saw her looking at him and came down to earth.

‘I’m sorry. I warned you I’m a little crazy.’

‘I guess you’re entitled to be. Elverham is about sixty miles north of London, and it’s a market town, surrounded by country. It’s a quiet place. Nothing very dramatic ever happens here. So you got off the train and did what?’

‘I wandered about and found the park. It looked nice so I lay down under a bush and stayed the night. That’s why I look a bit—well—’ His gesture indicated his dishevelled appearance.

Nikki beamed, evidently not liking him less for looking like a tramp.

‘Tomorrow I’ll try to open a bank account and get some money sent from Italy,’ he said. ‘Until then I have almost nothing, so if you want a deposit for the room I can’t do it today, I’m afraid.’

‘There’s no rush. You should try the room out first. You may not like it.’

‘After the way I slept last night, I’ll like it,’ he assured her, and they all laughed.

‘I’ve done Italy in geography,’ Nikki said proudly. ‘It looks like a boot. Which bit do you come from?’

She thought he hesitated a moment before replying, ‘Tuscany.’

Nikki frowned. ‘Where’s that?’

‘When you look at the map, it’s the bit on the left, near the top,’ he explained.

‘And that’s where your home is?’ Nikki persisted.

The question seemed to trouble him. His expression became a little vague, and he murmured, ‘My home,’ in an almost inaudible voice.

‘Yes, you know, a place where they have to let you in, even if they don’t like you.’

‘Nikki,’ Laura groaned again.

‘It’s not a bad description,’ Gino said with a faint smile. ‘Yes, there’s a place where they’d have to let me in.’

‘Is it like this?’ Nikki wanted to know.

He laughed outright. ‘No, it’s a farm.’

‘Is it big?’

‘Too big. Too much work. I just ran away. Something smells good.’

‘It’s only a cup of tea,’ Laura pointed out. ‘I’ll pour you one.’

Laura did so, appreciating the neat way he’d slid away from the subject of his home. She wondered exactly what he was running from. Not hard work, as he’d implied. But he was escaping something. There had been an odd look on his face, that hinted at troubled currents beneath.

She wasn’t sure how much of this robbery story she believed. It might just be his way of saying that he wasn’t really a vagrant, no matter how things looked.

An instinctive clown, she thought, but one who clowned as a way of hiding himself.

If it came to that, she supposed it was true that she knew nothing about him. He might be all kinds of a weirdo.

But then she looked at him, and calculations fell away. This was a good man. All her instincts told her so.

‘I’ll get your room ready,’ she said.

He followed her up the stairs to the next floor where three of the rented rooms were located, the other two being on the floor above. She led him to the one at the far end of the corridor, with Nikki bringing up the rear.

As Laura had warned him, it was tiny. The bed was narrow and only just long enough for his tall figure. There was a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a chair and a small washbasin attached to the wall.

Even so, he had space enough for his meagre possessions.

Laura fetched sheets and blankets and began making up the bed with Nikki’s help, so that Gino had to hop out of the way in that narrow space.

‘Can’t I do anything useful?’ he asked.

‘You could put the pillow in its case,’ Nikki told him kindly.

‘Thank you ma’am.’

As they worked Laura said, ‘I have five other guests. Sadie and Claudia are sisters, and they both work at making computers in a local factory. Bert is a night-watchman, Fred is a bouncer at a nightclub, and Mrs Baxter is a widow and retired teacher. She keeps an eye on Nikki when I have to work in the evening.’

‘You work, as well as running this place?’ he asked, startled.

‘I do a few hours as a barmaid. The pub’s not far away.’

When it was all finished they stood back and regarded the result.

‘I’m afraid it’s a bit bare,’ Laura said.

‘I know what we can do,’ Nikki said. She disappeared and returned a moment later, clutching something that she laid triumphantly on the little chest of drawers by the bed.

It was a small soft toy in the shape of a dog.

‘His name’s Simon,’ she said. ‘And he’ll keep you company.’

Gino sat down on the bed so that his eyes were on a level with hers.

‘Thank you,’ he said gravely. ‘That was very kind. Now I shall have a friend.’

‘Three friends,’ Nikki said at once. ‘’Cos you’ve got us too.’

He raised his eyes to Laura, signalling a question.

‘Yes, you’ve got three friends now,’ she agreed. ‘I’ve got to go and start the supper. Come along Nikki. If Gino slept on the ground last night he’s probably longing to get some sleep now.’

He smiled and didn’t deny it.

When they had left he threw himself back on the bed and lay looking at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to come. After the uncomfortable night he’d had, it should happen easily.

But, as he’d feared, there was only restless wakefulness. By now he was drearily used to that happening. Once he’d been a man who slept easily, like a contented animal, living through his happy physical instincts.

But in the six months since he’d left Italy that had all changed. Now it seemed that he rested properly only one night out of two. The others were spent in chasing wretched dreams and visions, wrestling with regrets and ‘if onlys’.

The child’s mention of ‘home’ had caught him off guard, as so many things seemed to do these days.

‘A place where they have to let you in, even if they don’t like you.’

Home was Belluna, the great farm in Tuscany. If he knocked on the door, his brother and Alex, his brother’s wife—for so he must force himself to call her now—would let him in. They would have to, since he owned half the property.

They would smile and say how good it was to see him, how concerned they’d been while he was away, how they’d thought about him every day.

And it would all be true.

But there was something else, also true, that nobody would mention. They would worry, lest he rock the boat of their happy marriage with his bitterness and anger, his anguished, unrequited love. They would look at each other behind his back, and know that an alien had come among them. And they would long silently for him to leave.

‘I could never love you,’ Alex had said. ‘Not as you want, anyway.’

But even she had never understood how deeply in love with her he had fallen. Before that he’d loved as a very young man, plunging into infatuation and out again, like the giddy whirl of a carousel.

But when he met Alex the carousel had stopped, tossing him to the ground so that he rose into a new world, one where she existed. The one. The only one, for, like many young men who love lightly and carelessly, he had been struck by the real thing like a thunderbolt. After that no more carelessness was possible.

‘Not as you want,’ she had said.

He had wanted everything from her, love, tenderness, passion, a promise to last a lifetime.

And he’d thought he had them, until the night he returned to find her in his brother’s bed.

CHAPTER TWO

SOMETIMES the dreams were worse than the waking memories. If you were awake you could decide not to think about it, but dreams were remorseless.

In dreams he had no choice but to live again the moment at the Belluna harvest party where he’d told Alex of his love in front of all their neighbours.

Even now his own words and actions could give him a shiver of shame.

‘You’ve always known how I felt about you,’ he’d said with all the force of his love. ‘Even when I was playing the fool, my heart was all yours.’

Then he’d gone down on one knee, in the sight of them all, and begged her to be his wife.

Even when she’d looked at him in dismay he hadn’t understood, so deeply submerged was he in his own illusion.

He’d thought she was just embarrassed at receiving a proposal in public, and when they were alone a few minutes later he’d been sure that all would be well. Driven by his overwhelming feelings, he’d told her passionately that she was the one.

‘The only one, different from every other woman I’ve fooled around with and loved for five minutes. It’s not five minutes this time, but all my life and beyond—’

She’d stopped him there, telling him kindly but plainly that she did not love him. Still he couldn’t, wouldn’t believe it, because it was too monstrous to be true. So he’d left, telling himself that he would be back later, and make her understand.

Fool! Fool!

He awoke with a start, sitting up in bed, shaking.

It was dark, and from down below he could hear the murmur of voices. He got out of bed and went to the window, where the turn of the house showed him the lit window of the kitchen, and moving shadows beyond.

The others must have returned, but he couldn’t go down and meet them now. He knew, from experience, that what was happening inside his head couldn’t be stopped. Once he’d started down this bitter path it must be walked to the end. But he would have avoided the next stage if he could.

He’d fled the party, staying away into the early hours, then returning home. There he would seek out Rinaldo, the brother who’d been like a second father to him. Rinaldo, the man he trusted above all others, would know how to advise him.

Dawn was breaking when he went to Rinaldo’s room and walked in without knocking.

What he saw stopped him like a blow. Alex was in the bed, lying on her back, her eyes closed, breathing evenly. And there with her was Rinaldo, sleeping against her chest, wrapped in the protective curve of her arms. The sheet was thrown right back, revealing that they were both completely naked.

He had dreamed of seeing her naked body, but not like this, embracing his brother in the peace that follows passion.

She had awoken first, her face full of horror as she saw him there in the faint light of dawn. Her lips framed his name, she reached out a hand to him, but he backed away as though her touch would kill him.

From the scene that had followed he recalled only the cruel discovery that these two had escaped into another world, one from which he was excluded. Rinaldo had said sadly but firmly, ‘I didn’t take her from you. The choice was hers.’

It was true. Alex hadn’t deceived him. He’d deceived himself. She was not to blame. He kept telling himself that because he needed to keep her on her pedestal. However painful it was, it hurt less than blaming her.

He knew they didn’t understand how the world had shattered around him. Because he had laughed his way through life they’d thought he would laugh this off too. He’d had so many girls. What did it matter if he lost one?

Only he knew that she had been ‘the one’, and always would be, as long as he lived. Her loss was a catastrophe that shook him to the soul, driving him away so that he would not have to see them together.

In losing Alex he had also lost his home. For six months he had travelled, anywhere, as long as it was away from Belluna. As part owner he was entitled to draw an income from the farm, but he drew as little as possible, conscious that he was not there to help with the work.

He took any job he could get, preferably hard manual labour so that he could tire himself out. In this way he earned just enough to get by, until he could decide what he wanted to do. But he could not settle, and he travelled on, always trying to avoid her face, always seeing it dance before him. In the end he had come to England, Alex’s country, where he was always bound to finish.

Now he seemed to have reached a place that was largely featureless. Despite what Laura had told him he had no real idea where the town was in relation to the rest of England and the rest of the world. And in an odd way that suited him.

He had come to nowhere, and he had nothing. When he’d been to the bank he would possess a little money, but he would still, in all important senses, have nothing.

He was cut adrift from his family and everything he knew, and he had no way of going home, because home no longer existed.

Gino opened his eyes to darkness. He must have slept again after all, so deeply that evening had passed into night. His watch told him it was nearly midnight.

He rose, feeling strangely well rested after his turbulent sleep. Looking into the corridor he saw that the rest of the house was dark and quiet.

The other guests must have returned, eaten and gone to bed, shutting their doors. He could see some of those doors in the gloom, all alike.

Which one was the bathroom? How did a stranger find out? Try each one? Hell!

To his relief he heard the front door open and looked over the stair rail to see Laura coming in.

‘Psst!’ he said urgently. ‘Aiuto!’

‘Pardon?’

‘Help. T’imploro!’

‘Why, what’s the matter?’

‘I need—’ in his panic his English deserted him. ‘Un gabinetto,’ he said. ‘Ti prego—ti prego, un gabinetto.’

Laura knew no Italian but she guessed the frantic note in his voice was the same in every language.

‘Here,’ she said, opening a door under the stairs.

‘Grazie, grazie!’

He leapt down the stairs three at a time, shot into the tiny bathroom, and she heard the lock. Grinning in sympathy she slipped upstairs to check Nikki, who was asleep. As she returned to the kitchen and put on the kettle, Gino emerged looking a lot happier.

‘Thank you,’ he said fervently. ‘I’m sorry I shouted at you in Italian. Gabinetto means—’

‘I think I have a pretty good idea of what it means by now,’ she said, and they both laughed.

The kettle boiled, but when she turned to it he stopped her.

‘You sit down,’ he said. ‘I make the tea. You must be very tired.’

‘Thanks.’ She flopped gratefully into a chair. ‘Do you know how to make English tea?’

‘I watched you this afternoon. There, did I do it right?’

The tea was delicious.

‘How many evenings do you work behind a bar?’ he wanted to know.

‘Three, usually.’

‘On top of running this place? When do you have a life?’

‘Nikki is my life. Nothing else matters.’

‘And you are alone?’ he asked delicately.

‘You mean, do I have a husband? I did have. We were very happy, until Nikki was four years old. She adored Jack and he seemed to adore her. Anyone seeing them together would have said he was the perfect father.

‘Then something happened to her face. It began to grow too much, and in ways that it shouldn’t. You can see that her forehead is too large. And Jack left. He just upped and left.’

‘Maria Vergine!’ he exclaimed softly. ‘Un criminale!’

‘If that means what I think it does, yes.’

‘And the piccina, how much does she know?’

‘She knows that her father rejected her. She pretends not to, for my sake. But she knows.’

‘But is there no cure?’

‘Eventually they might be able to do some surgery that puts things right. But not now, while her bones are still growing. In the meantime, she has to wait and suffer. People can be so cruel. They think because she looks different she must be stupid.’

‘No, no, she’s a very bright little girl.’

‘I know, but they tell their children not to play with her. Sometimes they try to be “nice”, but there’s something self-conscious about it, as though they’re congratulating themselves on how nice they’re being.’

‘How does she manage at school?’

‘She’s got a few good friends, and most of the teachers are decent. But some of the other kids bully and tease her, and one teacher actually dared to tell me I should take her out of school because she “couldn’t fit in”. She said Nikki needed a place for children with special needs.’

Gino swore softly.

‘I told her the only special need Nikki had was to be treated with intelligence and understanding. Then I complained to the headmistress, who, luckily, is one of the good guys, and I didn’t have any more trouble from that teacher. But there are always plenty more where she came from.

‘With luck, Nikki will be all right one day. But by that time she’ll have been through all these experiences.’

‘And what happens to her now will mark her for life,’ he said, nodding.

‘You made her so happy in the park today, because you didn’t seem to notice. You looked straight at her and didn’t register anything—not shock, or surprise, nothing. It was—oh, I can’t tell you how wonderful it was, and what it meant to her.’

Gino concentrated on his tea, hoping that his unease didn’t show in his face. He was guiltily aware that he did not deserve her praise. The fact was that he’d been too wrapped up in himself and his own troubles that morning to be aware of anything else.

Laura was still talking eagerly.

‘She’s got this theory that someone must have cast a magic spell, so that you didn’t really see her face.’

‘In a way she’s right,’ he said. ‘But the spell was my own self-absorption. I was so busy feeling sorry for myself that I actually didn’t see her for several moments, even though I was looking at her. So I haven’t earned your kindness.’

‘But don’t you see, that doesn’t matter? You made her happy without even knowing. So maybe she’s right, and it really was a magic spell.’

He nodded. ‘Who cares about the reason if it gave her what she needed? Her face doesn’t matter. She’s a lovely child.’

‘Yes, she is,’ Laura said eagerly. ‘But all she sees is what she reads in the eyes of other people.’

‘I promise you, she’ll never suffer from what she sees in my eyes,’ Gino said seriously.

‘Thank you. You have no idea how important that is.’

Next day at breakfast he met some of the other boarders. Sadie and Claudia, the sisters, were quiet, thin and middle-aged. Their lives revolved around computers, and they could launch into a discussion of the latest technology at the drop of a hat. They worked in Compulor, a nearby computer factory, where they both held positions of responsibility.

Mrs Baxter was the eldest, a bright-eyed little bird of a woman, who looked Gino up and down, and gave a grunt which seemed to imply approval.

Sadie and Claudia were also friendly.

‘We’ve been to Italy,’ Sadie confided.

‘There was a very interesting computer fair in Milan,’ Claudia added. ‘Do you know Milan, Signor Farnese?’

‘Gino, please,’ he said at once. ‘No, I’ve never been to Milan. Tuscany is my part of the world.’

They were full of intelligent questions about Tuscany which Gino answered courteously but reluctantly. He didn’t want to dwell on his home just now.

‘We don’t usually see Bert and Fred at breakfast,’ Laura explained. ‘Fred doesn’t come home until the nightclub has closed in the early hours. Bert is a night-watchman, so he got in five minutes ago and went straight to bed.’

Nikki set off for school accompanied by Mrs Baxter who, although retired, occasionally worked there part-time. Before she left, Nikki addressed Gino like a perfect hostess, ‘I’m afraid I have to go now, but I’ll be back later.’

‘I’ll look forward to that,’ he told her solemnly.

He helped Laura with the washing up, surprising her with his efficiency.

‘I thought Italian men were old-fashioned and macho,’ she said. ‘Working in the kitchen is for women, that kind of thing.’

‘You do us wrong, we’re very domesticated. When I was a little boy my mother taught me how to do these things, “just in case you ever have to”, was how she put it. She showed me how to wash a cup, and when I’d finished she said, “All right, now you know how to do it, go and play”.’

‘And that was it?’

‘That was my domestic education. But I must say this for myself—I wash a mean cup.’

They laughed together and finished putting things away.

She drove him into town in her little car, and they managed to get to see the bank manager after only a short wait.

‘It’ll take a few days for funds to arrive from your Italian account to your new one with us,’ the manager said. ‘But in the meantime there’ll be no problem if you overdraw a little.’

Gino’s first action was to pay Laura two weeks’ rent.

‘For this week and next,’ he said.

‘But this week’s almost over,’ she protested.

‘Business is business. Half a week counts as a full week.’

‘I’m the landlady. Shouldn’t I be the one saying that?’

‘You should, but you’re a terrible businesswoman, so I’m saying it for you.’ He looked at her kindly. ‘Someone needs to look out for you.’

It was so long since anyone had looked out for her that at first the words were almost startling.

‘I still feel guilty taking this,’ she said.

‘Don’t worry, you’ll earn it. I’ll be the most troublesome tenant you’ve ever had.’

By way of demonstrating just how awkward he could be he came round the shops with her, carrying things and generally making himself useful, explaining that he was improving his English.

Sometimes he clowned, claiming not to know words that she was sure he did know. He would throw himself on her mercy with a piteous air that made her laugh.

Gradually she absorbed the message that he was sending out. She could relax. He was harmless. All he asked was to be left in peace to wrestle with whatever demons were driving him.

Laura was happy to give him the space he needed, but she was curious about him. Although he talked a lot, most of his words were the equivalent of blowing bubbles in the air. The amount of real information he disclosed about himself was almost nil.

She, on the other hand, found herself revealing more than she could remember ever doing.

‘I was born around here,’ she told him as they sat over tea and toast when they stopped for a break. ‘And I thought this was the dullest place on earth. I wanted London and the bright lights.’

‘Did you ever manage it?’

‘Yes, I enrolled in a London dance academy. I was in the chorus of a few shows. Then six of us got together and formed a little dance troupe. Jack was our agent.’

‘Sounds like a match made in heaven. Did he try to make you a star?’

She laughed ruefully. ‘No. I did hope about that for a while, but once we were married he wanted me to give it all up and be domestic.

‘We argued about it for a while, but then I found I was pregnant. And when Nikki came along I just wanted to be with her. Besides, I’d put on a few pounds that I’ve never managed to shift since.’

He surveyed her critically. ‘I can’t see them.’

‘They’re still there, and they’re just too much for me to be a dancer. Anyway, I’m too old now.’

‘Eighty?’ he hazarded. ‘Ninety?’

‘Thirty-two.’

‘You’re kidding. You don’t look a day over fifty.’

She laughed, but there was a shadow in her manner, and he was immediately contrite.

‘I’m sorry, that wasn’t funny.’

‘No, I’m just being over-sensitive. It was a mistake for me to start talking about the past. It reminded me that I promised myself that by the time I was thirty my name would be in lights.’

‘Don’t you talk about the past normally?’

‘Who with? Not Nikki, it would be too painful for her. And why would the tenants be interested? They come and go.’

He had a sudden vivid picture of her isolation, the burdens she was carrying alone.

‘Did you come back to live here after you broke up with your husband?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I couldn’t have stayed in London. For one thing it was too expensive, and for another he—well, I suppose he bribed me to go away. He was becoming fairly well known in showbiz. He didn’t want to risk the “beautiful people” learning that he had a daughter who wasn’t perfect. He said it would hurt him professionally.

‘So he offered me a better settlement to get out, and I accepted it because that was best for Nikki anyway. I came back here and used the money to buy the house. It’s a living.’

‘Not much of one if you have to work in the evenings too. When do you sleep?’

‘Ah, but look on the bright side. I never have to pay for babysitting. There’s always someone at home with Nikki, and she likes them all.’

‘So none of them reacted hurtfully to her face?’

‘No, but I warned them all before they saw her. I never leave it to chance, if I can help it, and of course she guesses that. It’s people like you she values, the ones who had no warning.’

‘I just hope I don’t let her down.’

Laura frowned. ‘I don’t think that’s possible,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It’s the spell, you see. It’s cast over you too, and whatever you do, she’ll see it in the best way, in the light of that spell.’

‘You talk as though you believe in magic,’ he said curiously.

‘If someone is determined to think the best of you, no matter what you do, I think that a kind of magic spell.’

The words gave him a strange feeling, as if she’d looked into his mind. Only last night he’d known that he had to think the best of Alex, no matter what.

‘Yes, it is,’ he said heavily. ‘The strongest kind there is.’

They returned to the boarding house to find Bert and Fred pottering about in the kitchen.

Fred was the nightclub bouncer, a vast mountain of a man with a sleepy, contented manner. Little Bert was an amiable ferret.

Gino was instantly at ease with them, chiefly because he wanted to know all about English sport. Soon the three of them were friends for life.

Mrs Baxter returned from school, with Nikki, who gave her mother a brief greeting before claiming her new friend’s full attention.

‘Let the poor man have a cup of tea before you jump on him,’ Laura begged.

‘But Mummy I did a picture at school and Gino wants to see it. Don’t you?’

‘Absolutely,’ he responded at once. ‘I’m longing to see it.’

‘Just don’t let her be a pest?’ Laura said, smiling.

‘How can she be a pest?’ Gino demanded at once. ‘We are friends.’

For half an hour he sat listening, with every sign of interest, as Nikki showed him her picture and explained what it was about. Only when Laura wanted to lay the table did they move.

Sadie and Claudia came in from the factory and Gino immediately asked if there were any jobs available.

‘Only in the warehouse, lifting heavy boxes,’ Sadie said. ‘I expect you want something more exciting.’

‘I’ll take what I can get,’ Gino said. ‘I can lift things.’

‘In that case, report to the chief packer first thing tomorrow.’

He did so and secured a job that brought him enough to pay his rent and a little to spare. With that he tried to slip back into the life that had been his for the last few months, living from moment to moment.

But he found that refuge was now denied him. Nikki saw to that. She loved nothing better than to talk to him and would pounce, bombarding him with questions.

She was endlessly fascinated by his foreignness, especially his use of Italian words and expressions. The day she first heard ‘Assolutamente niente’ she was in seventh heaven.

‘It means “absolutely nothing”,’ she explained to Laura, for perhaps the tenth time.

‘Yes, darling, I know what it means.’

‘Doesn’t it sound lovely? Assolutamente niente. Assolutamente niente.’

‘If I hear that expression once more,’ she seethed to Gino, ‘I shall commit murder.’

‘Poor Nikki,’ he grinned.

‘Not her. You! This is all your fault.’

At school Nikki boasted of her Italian friend, to such good effect that the geography teacher enquired, via Mrs Baxter, whether Gino would give a talk one afternoon.

‘Me?’ he demanded hilariously. ‘A teacher?’

‘You don’t have to teach anything,’ Nikki hastened to reassure him. ‘Just talk about Italy, and how everything’s got music and colour, and there are lots of bandits—’

‘Bandits?’

‘Aren’t there bandits?’ she asked, crestfallen.

‘Assolutamente niente!’ he said firmly, and she giggled.

‘Not just one little bandit?’ she pleaded.

‘Not even half a bandit, you little devil.’

‘Oh, please.’

It ended, as it was bound to, with him giving his good-natured shrug and agreeing to do what she wanted. He got the afternoon off, and he turned up at the school soon after lunch. He had no idea what he was going to talk about, except that he drew the line at bandits.

Inspiration came when he discovered the pupils were studying Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. After that he talked about Verona, and the house that purported to be where the Capulets had lived, complete with a real balcony.

The pupils were impressed, especially the older girls who sighed over his good looks. Nikki, who could claim him as a real friend, became the heroine of the hour. It was her proudest moment.

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