Chapter One

Whitby, July, Present Day

‘Seriously, it’ll be fun!’

‘Fun?’ Lissy de Luca stared at her half-brother Jon Nelson and pulled a face. ‘I suspect it’s more fun for the photographer than the model.’

Jon was sitting on the sofa, right next to a picture window which was big enough for the afternoon sun to pour through the glass and make the little lounge in the flat above his Whitby photographic studio glow. ‘Look, it’s a project I’ve been thinking of for a while,’ he said. ‘You know Simon’s having an exhibition in Mayfair and he’s already said I can have some wall space. I think it’ll be great to try and recreate some of the Pre-Raphaelite paintings in photography, and they’ll go alongside Simon’s work quite nicely. It’s just a different form of art, that’s all.’

Simon, an artist, and his partner Cori were friends of theirs who lived in London and Jon had just been telling Lissy about their joint plans. He was visibly fizzing with excitement.

‘Well, his paintings are marvellous!’ Lissy leaned forward and took a biscuit from a plate. ‘He’s got Cori to model for him and he can recreate all those pictures easily. They’ll look so good. I can just see them now, up on that gallery wall. Wonderful.’ She nibbled a corner of the biscuit, breaking into the chocolate shell with a view to stripping the chocolate off it in a neat, efficient manner before she hit the actual biscuit inside.

‘So, basically, you’re implying Simon’s paintings are better than my photographs? Well, thanks Sis, I love you too.’ Although Jon and Lissy had the same mother, they had grown up together in the household of Lissy’s wealthy Italian father; but it had never made any difference to their relationship, which was based on the usual deep love and fiery spats between siblings.

In this instance, Lissy didn’t rise to the bait. She licked the last vestiges of chocolate from the biscuit and popped the remaining shortbread circle into her mouth.

She stared at Jon as she chewed. ‘I often wish I had a sister instead of a brother. Girls are less touchy.’

‘Rubbish! Absolute rubbish. I grew up with you, remember, and I now live with two girls and no way are they less touchy!’

‘You just proved it; you are far too touchy.’ Lissy stood up and stretched. ‘Well, as I was hoping to see Becky and Grace and they aren’t here, I’m going to go.’

‘Oh, sit down. They won’t be long. Grace wanted to see the pirate ship so Becky took her out for a wander.’ Jon suddenly perked up. ‘Maybe she’ll bring back some coffee?’

‘What? Becky would juggle coffee and a three-year old in a coffee shop, just to feed your addiction?’

Jon grinned. ‘Hopefully.’

Lissy shuddered. She couldn’t even contemplate such a horror. She loved her sister-in-law and her niece dearly, but surely there were limits? The thought of taking Grace into an exclusive café in London, where Lissy lived – well, in fact, an exclusive café anywhere – was inconceivable. There was a hot chocolate place along one of the side streets in Whitby with the blessing of outside tables. Lissy could just about cope with the child there. And that was only because she would usually feed her with a succession of marshmallows and strawberries dipped in chocolate, which did tend to keep her quiet; even if it made her rather sticky and unpleasant afterwards.

There was a jingle from way beneath their feet and it was Jon’s turn to stand up. ‘Customers. No rest for the wicked.’

He strode out of the lounge and headed towards the rickety old staircase that connected the flat to the shop. The studio dealt mainly with the tourist trade; people would come in to have photographs taken of themselves in period clothing and the twice-yearly Goth weekend celebrations were his busiest times. Luckily the queues of pale people dressed in black and discovering their inner vampire, courtesy of Bram Stoker setting part of his Dracula novel in Whitby, didn’t bother his small daughter.

Grace often sat on the old wooden counter entranced by the vamps. Sometimes, it had to be said, her piercing, solemn stare would unsettle the customers more than they could unsettle her. It often took a double take for them to realise the thing that was ‘off’ about her – the fact that, like her father and aunt, she had one blue and one green eye, inherited from her paternal grandmother’s line. Her unusual eyes were surrounded by the darkest, longest lashes, and when you matched that with her dark hair and her mother’s English Rose complexion, Grace Eleanor Nelson was clearly destined for great, although not conventional, beauty.

‘Hey!’ Jon’s voice, rising an octave and somehow simultaneously softening in tone, floated in from the tiny landing. ‘Who is this coming up the stairs to my little house?’

‘Cap’n Hook,’ came another voice – a child’s voice. ‘But I want a crocodile. Tick tock!’ The door to the lounge flew open and a mini-whirlwind came in, sporting a lop-sided eye-patch and brandishing a rubber dagger. ‘Bang bang!’ The whirlwind came to a sudden halt in front of Lissy and grinned through a mask of something unidentifiably, yes, sticky. ‘Bang bang!’ Cap’n Hook held the dagger aloft and pointed it at Lissy.

‘Darling, guns go bang bang. That’s a dagger,’ said Lissy.

‘It’s a gun today,’ replied Hook. ‘Hallo.’

‘Hello sweetie.’ Lissy bent down, intending to kiss each side of her niece’s face as she usually did in polite society, but the little girl had other ideas.

Grace threw her arms around Lissy’s neck and lifted her feet from the ground. ‘Mwaaah.’ She smacked a wet kiss somewhere to the side of Lissy’s mouth.

Automatically, Lissy put her arms around the child to steady them both and Grace snuggled in to her. ‘Come see who Mummy found.’ She pointed to the door and bounced in Lissy’s arms. ‘That way.’ Lissy had no choice but to walk towards the staircase, breathing in the faint scent of chocolate and bananas the child was breathing out.

‘I don’t suppose your Mummy found anyone interesting?’ she asked. ‘Was it a princess? If it was a princess, maybe it was just a customer.’ Grace adored the more elaborate Goths – she loved the long flouncy dresses and the lace gloves, stared covetously at the red lips and had, at times, to be physically restrained from touching the velvet chokers or veils the ladies displayed.

‘No princess,’ said Grace. She sighed and shook her head. Then she brightened. ‘It’s a prince!’

Lissy fully expected to see a pallid young man dressed in a top hat and a frock coat as she manoeuvred the unwieldy bundle expertly down the staircase and pushed the door open into the studio.

What she didn’t expect to see, was Stefano Ricci.

‘Oh, good God!’ Lissy’s face drained of colour.

Stefano looked at her, his heart thudding – maybe it was panic, maybe it wasn’t. But, regardless, he hadn’t been sure of what his reception would be. He did notice, however, that Lissy was as immaculate as she had always been. Her dark hair now fell to her shoulders from a severe side parting and a long, dark, choppy fringe hid part of her face. There were streaks of purple and pink in the fringe – on anyone else, Stefano knew, the highlights would be lost in the mass of dark hair. On Lissy, they lay exactly where they should.

He took a deep breath and smiled, bowing elegantly to her. ‘Mia cara.’ Then he saw the look of thunder on her elfin face. ‘Ah, why would you look so upset, Elisabetta? I have come from so far to see you again. And this – this little girl. She is a doll.’ He turned to Grace. ‘In my country, which is somewhere called Italy, we would call you Grazia.’

‘Grazia?’ The child tried the name out and appeared to like it. Grace was obviously not a shy child. She looked directly at him, a stranger to her, and jiggled, apparently letting her aunt know she wanted to be put back on her own two feet. ‘Hallo, again.’ She walked over to Stefano when Lissy had done her bidding and stood in front of him, waiting for him to answer.

‘Hello,’ said Stefano. He held his hand out solemnly.

Grace seized it and pumped it up and down, giggling. ‘Mummy,’ she said, turning to Jon’s pretty chestnut-haired wife, Becky, ‘he’s nice. I like him.’

‘I’m glad,’ replied Becky, smiling back. ‘He’s Daddy’s friend Stefano. Can you say that?’

Grace nodded. ‘Yes.’ She didn’t elaborate however, and Stefano smiled.

‘Good girl,’ he said.

‘Yes, I am,’ replied Grace confidently. She tugged at the hand she still held and Stefano was curious as she pulled him slightly at an angle and pointed at her mother. ‘But you must talk straight to Mummy. Her ears don’t work right.’

‘Grace!’ That was Lissy scolding the child.

‘She tries to help,’ Stefano defended her. God, the woman looked good. ‘How long has it been?’ he asked, gently releasing Grace and taking a step towards Lissy with his hands outstretched. His camera was slung around his neck, and he felt the equipment bump against his body. He itched to take a photograph of Elisabetta. Nobody had ever compared to her.

‘Not long enough,’ said Lissy.

‘Yet I think it has been far too long.’

‘You are joking?’ exclaimed Lissy. The child had run back to her now and was patting her legs, trying to get attention and probably hoping for another carry in her arms. She was half bending over to the child, ready to either pick her up or send her off with a flea in her ear, when she looked up at Stefano.

Flash.

‘I thank you,’ he said. ‘You have made my first Pre-Raphaelite imagining come to life. You are the very image of Waterhouse’s Lady of Shalott looking at Lancelot.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ she hissed. ‘You are sneaky and underhanded and …’

‘And you have never forgotten me,’ interrupted Stefano, ‘and you still feel a passion for me – otherwise, why would you still be so bothered to see me?’

Lissy, apparently, couldn’t find an answer.