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there was something almost farcical in the situation. Quarrelling in such circumstances seemed quite ridiculous.
    “It really isn’t worth arguing about,” she insisted.
    “You’re right, it isn’t,” Jason Connor agreed impatiently. “And I don’t propose sitting here in the middle of nowhere while you two try to persuade each other! Come on, for heaven’s sake, Scottie, or we’ll never complete the circuit of the bay you promised me!”
    Despite her anger with him for his impatient arrogance, she had to admire his courage and she tried again to express her regret for having caused the collision. “I’m sorry,” she said, but he simply waved her apology aside before she had even completed it.
    “Just give us a wide berth in future,” he told her with a hint of that dry smile.
    “I will!” She started up the engine and Scottie let go the side of the boat reluctantly.
    She turned as she crossed the bay and watched the white sails and the gleaming blond head in the stern and despite everything, her heart fluttered uneasily as she watched him, the little boat skittering fitfully with the variable wind. Her meetings with Jason Connor seemed destined to prove both angry and emotionally disturbing and she wished, without quite knowing why, that it did not have to be so.
    It was a couple of weeks later that Leonora had another opportunity to visit Isola de Marta and once again it was due to a minor crisis in the Talliano family. Not Maria this time, but Roberto who had contracted some mysterious ailment that troubled his stomach.
    Certainly he looked unwell when Leonora met him on the quay and she felt sorry for him as she offered her sympathy which he accepted gratefully, looking quite incredibly soulful about it. That he declared himself to be dying she took with a pinch of salt, but she did feel rather sorry for him, and for Maria. She must surely have her hands full with five little ones to care for, and now a self-pitying husband.
    Her offer to help he accepted emotionally, and professed himself forever in her debt if she would take some fresh sardines across to the signori on the rock. Leonora had been half expecting such a request, but even so she experienced an odd and disturbing quickening of her pulse when Roberto made the request, and she hesitated briefly before answering.
    Her hesitation seemed to both puzzle and worry Roberto, and he looked at her anxiously. “You do not wish to do this for me, signorina ?” he asked, and she hastened to assure him.
    “Oh yes, of course I’ll take them, Roberto,” she told him. “Anything I can do to help.”
    She went in to let Clive know, as she always did on these occasions, and she half expected some comment from him, but instead he merely nodded and raised a brow. He said nothing, but even so she had the uneasy feeling, as she left him, that he read some significance into her going.
    She was still a little doubtful, even as she took her boat across the bay towards the rock, and wished she could be sure whether or not she hoped to see Jason Connor again. A brisk breeze blew blessedly cool on the water and she lifted her face to the sun, letting her long hair blow out behind her and not caring if she arrived looking tousled. She was not out to impress anyone, and certainly neither Scottie nor Lucia would bother if she appeared windblown - it could scarcely matter to the third member of the household since he could not see her.
    She tied the boat to the mooring ring and started the long climb up the steps, appalled at the sensations that chased one another through her senses as she got nearer the top. The wild flutter of excitement she felt, she stifled determinedly and barely gave a thought to the kind of reception she would get after her last encounter with the villa’s current owner.
    It went without saying that Scottie would welcome her, and so would Lucia, but Jason Connor was something she preferred not to think about until she was obliged to. Her