“Tristan, what is it?”
“What is what?” he sighs, running his hands through his wet hair and not meeting my searching gaze.
“You sound,” I shrug, “you look, sad.”
“It’s nothing,” he says brusquely, moving to step past me.
There is something about him tonight, something vulnerable, not just because we are both virtually naked, there is a haunted look about him.
“Are you sure?” I place a hand on his forearm, not holding him, just a light touch, but he freezes where he stands, his back to me.
“Don’t bite me, Pru,” he says quietly, his voice firm, but full of grief, “I can’t fight with you tonight.”
I’m too shocked, too hurt to say anything, as he walks out the door.
“I wasn’t going to bite you,” I whisper.
And I realise as the door clangs behind him, that I am telling the truth. I have no desire to bite him, I just want to know what is wrong, to fix whatever hurt he has.
And I know now, at this moment, that I’ve fallen in love with him.
I kneel on the dirt and uncover the mosaics gently, but at a speed the human eye could not contemplate. The tiny glass tiles are rich and complex and show an interwoven geometric pattern that seems almost natural in its simplicity.
In other parts of the villa grounds I’ve found genre scenes of feasts and harvests, hunting scenes and scenes from mythology, but it seems in their bathhouses the Romans liked simple, yet beautifully coloured, decorations.
The steady pace of uncovering the lost beauty beneath the earth and the quiet and peacefulness of the countryside is soothing to me, although my mind often drifts to my rift with Serena. I hadn’t phoned her since coming to Italy, but I’d emailed twice now, telling her how sorry I am, asking her to set aside our differences, for the sake of our long, long friendship.
I’d received no reply, hence considering going home and having it out face-to-face.
Tess tells me not to come back, to leave Serena to come round in her own time, and that she is busy with Valerie and pursuing Solomon through a range of means using Christopher’s contacts. But I know she is only telling me this to make me feel better – Serena has always put her family at the top of her list of priorities, above everything else.
“I guess she has a new family now though,” I murmur as I work.
I uncover a particularly beautiful scene at the centre of the bath of a school of blue fish swimming in the shape of an S, and sit back, momentarily stunned. I’m blown away by how lovely it is, and already thinking about the plantings I will do surrounding the bath to play on the complexity of this particular mosaic and echo the shape of the design, when I hear a car engine approaching, at speed.
This late at night, traffic is few and far between.
I don’t know where Tristan is, he left a few days ago and didn’t say. But I know it can’t be Nick and Charlotte approaching because they are away for a week, touring Tuscany. Tristan gave them some time off before he left. I thought that sounded strange, given the Summer wedding deadline and his previous push to rush everything along, but didn’t mention it.
He didn’t offer me any time off. But then I hadn’t managed to ask him for any, hadn’t had the opportunity. Part of me feels like he is avoiding me, but I think that’s only because I feel his absence more than I should, and I’ve become used to seeing him most nights. I need to see him, crave being around him. But since my uncomfortable discovery that I have feelings for him, I’ve tried to stay away from him too. It hasn’t worked, though. I’ve accepted the fact that I am weak and unable to do so.
“Perhaps it’s good he’s gone away. It will give me time to get a grip,” I say aloud as I work.
The engine that has been growing steadily closer doesn’t sound familiar.
Frowning, I lay down my small excavation shovel and brush as the car slows and comes to a sharp stop near the front entrance of the worksite, and I cock my head and listen to the occupants.
“Right on the money,” a gravelly voice says, “alone.”
“How do you know?” a second man asks.
“One car.”
“Could be more than one person in it,” the man quibbles.
“You questioning me?” the first man growls.
I hear no answer.
