From Venice With Love: Secrets of Castillo del Arco

It all sounded so wonderful—Raoul sounded so wonderful—that Gabriella just laughed, feeling the weight of last night’s worries float away.

The castle was even larger than she had anticipated, stretching from one length of the headland to the other. One side of the central staircase was given over to a massive feasting room, big-beamed and with a central fireplace on which it would be possible to roast an entire ox. The library where Raoul had his office set up was an incongruous blend of technology atop antique desks and cabinets, its walls stacked so high with books that he had to practically drag Gabriella out of it, in order to show her the rest of the house, with promises she could visit and explore whenever she wanted.

Upstairs he showed her room after room; there must be a dozen bedrooms and just as many bathrooms, so many with their furniture covered in dust covers. She had to concede she had been given the prettiest of them all, which was still no consolation. Which one is yours? she itched to ask; where do you sleep? But she wanted him to surprise her and show her and invite her inside and make her his wife …

‘And this one is Natania’s room?’ she said, wanting to speed up the tour in her quest to find his when they reached the end of the hallway.

‘No. Natania sleeps downstairs. There’s an annexe above the garage she and Marco share.’

‘But I saw her last night during the storm. I called out to her but she didn’t hear me.’

Every hair on the back of his neck stood up. She reached for the handle before he could stop her. ‘It’s locked,’ she said, turning to him. ‘Do you have the key?’

‘It’s nothing but a store room,’ he said coarsely, tugging her away. ‘Nobody uses it. Come, let’s go. Lunch will be ready.’

He excused himself at the bottom of the stairs, showed her how to find the kitchen and told her he’d meet her there in a few moments, before striding towards the library.

She found the kitchen where he’d indicated, Natania packing their lunch into the basket, Marco by her side helping. They were a team, the two of them, almost inseparable; she stopped dead, feeling like an intruder again. Feeling jealous. Not of Natania, exactly, for she wasn’t interested in Marco. But she wanted to feel Raoul close by her side, wanted to enjoy such simple intimacies with him.

‘So you found him?’ Natania said, noticing her, brushing her hands together and setting her gypsy bangles jangling before she reached for a bowl of salad topped with fat red tomatoes.

‘Thank you, yes; he’s just gone to get something.’

‘You will like the cove,’ she said. ‘It is very private. Very intimate. You can swim naked and nobody will see you.’

If Gabriella blushed any more she was likely to end up in the salad instead of eating it. ‘Good to know. Maybe when it’s warmer.’