“Where can I find him?”
“He won’t be back until sunset.”
“But isn’t it just around the bay? Aren’t boats going there all the time?”
“Why would anyone want to go to Incantellaria?”
Alba was confused. “Isn’t it a big town, like this one?”
He laughed cynically. “It’s a small, forgotten little place. It’s asleep. It’s always been asleep. Why would anyone want to go to Incantellaria?” he repeated.
Alba’s travel agent had specifically said that she should take a boat. She had implied that there were boats leaving all the time, like the trains from Basingstoke to London. Alba muttered crossly under her breath. For a second, she forgot her bearings. She was sure she had left her bag beside the bollard. Perplexed, she looked about her. It was nowhere to be seen. Once again, in the short space of twenty-four hours, she felt the sickening surge of blood to the head, the hot pounding in her ears, the giddy plummeting of her stomach, the anguish, as she realized to her utter disbelief and horror that she had been robbed again. Now she had nothing but her handbag containing lipstick, diary, a rather crumpled Vogue, and, thank God, her passport.
“Someone has fucking robbed me!” she shouted in English, screaming the words into the heavy afternoon air. She stamped her feet and flung her arms about her head. “Arrrrrrgh! I hate this fucking country. I hate fucking Italians. You’re not a nation, you’re a profession. Thieves. The whole bloody lot of you. Why the fuck did I come? It’s been nothing but a fucking disaster, a fucking waste of time! Arrrrrgh!”
Suddenly she heard the gentle, patient voice of a man and felt a warm hand on her shoulder. “I’m glad you’re swearing in English,” he said with a smile. “Otherwise they’d lock you up for the afternoon!” She stared at him furiously.
“I’ve just been robbed,” she fumed, fighting tears. “Someone has just taken my bag. I was robbed of my money in Naples and now my bag in this godforsaken little backwater!”
“You have obviously never been here before,” he said kindly, turning serious so as not to offend her. “You have to guard your possessions with your life. You’re English?”
“Yes. In London you can leave the Crown Jewels in the middle of Piccadilly Circus, have lunch, do a bit of shopping in Bond Street, walk around Hyde Park, have tea at the Ritz, a drink at the fucking Connaught, and they’d still be there at six.” It wasn’t strictly true, but it sounded good. “Now I have no money, no clothes!” Her heart sank deeper at the thought of those beautiful clothes now lost. “I need to get to Incantellaria and I can’t find a single bloody person to take me. Nanni bloody Baroni is home shagging his mistress or something and won’t be back until six. What am I supposed to do until six? Mm? I can’t even buy myself a bloody sandwich!”
“Why on earth do you want to go to Incantellaria?”
She glared at him, pale gray eyes turning to stone. “If one more person asks me that, I’m going to bloody well thump them!”
“Look,” he suggested with a smile. “Why don’t you let me buy you lunch, then I’ll take you to Incantellaria myself. I have a boat.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Because you’ve got nothing more to lose,” he replied with a shrug, putting his hand in the small of her back and guiding her to the restaurant.
Gabriele Ricci explained over a glass of rosé that he lived in Naples but summered on the coast with his family, who had a house there. “I have spent every holiday here since I was a boy but never have I come across a woman as lovely as you.”
Alba rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to be told I’m beautiful, or lovely. I’ve had you Italians up to here!” she placed her hand on her neck.
“Don’t Englishmen appreciate women?”
“They do. Quietly.”
“Or do those boarding schools they send their sons to encourage them to like boys instead?”
“Certainly not. Englishmen are gorgeous and respectful.” She thought of Fitz. She would never have gotten herself into such a mess had he had the decency to come with her.
“You’ve barely set foot in my country and yet you are already cynical.”
“I’ve been robbed by a handsome Italian just like you. Wherever I go, men try to chat me up. I’m sick of being seen as a sexual thing. I’m sick of being robbed!”
“At least you’re in one piece,” he said reassuringly.
“You don’t know the half of it.”