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Amy said nothing.

‘No comment?’ he asked.

‘What’s to comment? That’s you, and I want whatever you are.’

He kissed her and smiled and fed her a chocolate. ‘If you want to we could spend the rest of our lives discovering each other, but before you answer that I think I should tell you the worst thing about me.’

‘Must you?’

‘Yes, this is not a fantasy love where everything is perfect. Just almost perfect.’

‘Are you trying to put me off you?’

He laughed. ‘We both know it’s too late for that. Real love has struck and thankfully we’re stuck with it. So for what it’s worth, I am as you see me, always. What you see is what you get,
but
when I have to be I can be as hard and ruthless, as devious, as you can possibly imagine. It’s never personal, always to do with my work
and for the welfare of my patients. I can manipulate heads of states, influence kings and politicians to get what I want, and I do. I have no qualms about wielding what power I have.’

Amy released herself from Brice’s arms. She pulled the bed cover off them and, sitting up, leaned over and kissed his eyes and his lips, the side of his face. She slipped on top of him, straddling him she sat down in his lap. He stroked her hair and caressed her breasts. He felt the weight of them in the palms of his hands and lowered his lips to them and kissed first one and then the other, sucking on her nipples. Amy stopped him by taking his hands in hers and kissing them. She pulled the bed cover up over her shoulders and sat there gazing at Brice.

‘I used to think that I was a very nice person, a good person. I’m a woman who prefers love and laughter, all things beautiful. Hatred, revenge, bitterness, people exploiting people … I never closed my eyes to the fact that that too is a part of real life but I never dreamed that I could be involved with such things. And then, shortly after we met, all those things rolled into one landed on my doorstep. Literally. Here, in this wonderful place.’

Brice pulled the cover tighter round her so that it brought them closer together and then he kissed her on the lips, the side of her face, stroked her hair. She removed his hand, kissed it, then continued, ‘I didn’t want those things to touch me in any way, to chase me away from my life. I saw what was happening and then,
without thought or intention, knew that this time round I was going to become fire to fight fire. I have become as dark and evil, devious and manipulative, as those people I am no longer running away from. Until the telephone rang and I heard your voice I was experiencing an unloving existence, one where I had become devoid of compassion. Being fire was burning my heart out, wreaking a terrible price on me. It was on the verge of causing permanent damage to the real Amy and who and what I am. I have no regret for what I was doing nor the fact that I must finish doing it, but I can see that it’s making me no better than the men I am dealing with and I cannot bear that for much longer. I’m doing so only to destroy them and win through.

‘You here loving me, your generosity of heart, your passion for us … it’s like coming out of the dark and into bright sunshine to be part of that. I adore you, love you. I knew it before your call came, I knew it when I went to the Connaught that night. We missed each other then but we’ve never been apart, not for a minute.’

Amy clasped her arms round Brice and slid down his body to cover it with her own. They held each other for several minutes then he asked her, ‘Marry me for Christmas, love me for always, Amy Ross.’

Epilogue

Brice and Mr Gazi were with Amy when she saw the Contessa Armida Montevicini’s
yalis
for the first time. It was late April and Mr Gazi had arranged for them to approach the wooden mansion from a motor launch so she might view it from a distance as they travelled up the Bosphorus. He wanted her to see her prize in all its glory.

It was late afternoon and the sun was casting a coral light over the faded russet colour of the large and sprawling, dramatically romantic building. Amy had thought she knew what to expect after the many pictures she had studied and the long, arduous wrangling with the authorities over the
yalis
, but it was more, much more.

The gardens on either side of the house and rising up the hills behind it were overgrown, gone quite mad, but were a blaze of flowering shrubs: purple and magenta, bright yellow, white and cream, red and coral and rose pushing their way through the green leaves. For all its wildness the garden was still impressive, particularly its trees. Cypresses like aged sentinels rose high and handsome among them. As they stepped from the boat on to the marble stairs rising from the water, Amy could see blankets of tulips and hyacinths, and masses of wild flowers.

The men who had fought so well to give Amy everything she wanted, and to save face for themselves, and to see justice done as best they thought they could get it, were there to welcome her and officially to break the seals that had closed the house for so many years.

They walked together and cleared a path as they went, finally reaching the main entrance to the house. The seals were broken and three padlocks rusted solid were spliced by a giant cutter. It took two men to fold the wooden shutters back on their rusted hinges and to reveal a pair of ten-foot-high glass and wood doors.

‘The key to your house, Madam Chatto.’ The man handed her the original giant-sized iron key to the
yalis
. The look of admiration on his face and on every other man’s there for Amy was what stilled the emotion that might have brought her to tears. Instead she gave an enormous deep sigh and a smile crossed her face. She tilted back her head and laughed, throwing her arms round her husband’s neck. Brice swung her round and round in a circle, laughing with her. Their laughter was infectious and once he put Amy back down on her feet everyone began shaking hands. Things only calmed down when Amy inserted the key in the lock and entered the house.

It was dark and gloomy until they opened the wooden shutters and let the light pour in. The rooms seemed to spring to life. Until Amy had walked through these rooms she had not made up her mind what to do about Jarret and Fee, if anything. Now it was all hers. The
yalis
and its contents, which included the bulk of both Jarret’s
and Fee’s work, and their private collection of other artists’ work, which was extensive.

In return for getting everything she wanted from the authorities, including a document for Jarret and Fee which stated that any and all legal actions and sanctions against them had been dropped, Amy was obliged to restore the property and open it to the public four days of the year as a private residence and museum in memory of the Contessa Armida Montevicini. She had that document now, signed and sealed, in her handbag. Jarret and Fee were free to enter and travel anywhere in Turkey except within a quarter of a square mile of the Contessa Armida Montevicini’s
yalis
. If they were to break that restraining order, they would be arrested and placed in prison forthwith.

Now, walking with Brice through the rooms, Amy was astounded. Fee and Jarret had told her the Contessa had had to sell off most of her treasures to survive. But the house was filled with them, and not the broken trash Jarret and Fee had lived with in Venice. They had lived in the lap of luxury and beauty while the Contessa had suffered in filth and poverty. For years after her death, till the very moment they were made to run away, they’d lived in splendour. Even the magnificent period draperies were still hanging at the windows. Fee and Jarret’s work was exhibited everywhere and there were rooms stacked with their paintings.

‘I will wipe those men clean from this house. Leave not a trace of them or their things in it,’ she told Brice.

‘And restore it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And then what?’

‘I don’t want to live here. Do you, Brice?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Then I’ll lease it out to the Anthony Kramer Museum, as an annexe for museum functions, a residence for VIPs when they’re visiting. We’ll make it a cultural centre for the Turkish people and tourists – and all in the name of Contessa Armida Montevicini. I will also offer Mr Gazi the directorship of the
yalis
trust I will form, and a lifetime’s residence here in the
yalis
if he would like to have it. A just but small reward for all he’s done for me and the Contessa.’

That night, while sitting in bed next to Brice at the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, Amy signed the letter she had just finished writing and which Mr Gazi had agreed to deliver to Jarret and Fee in Venice. Brice put his arm round her shoulders and she leaned against his chest and read it to him.

The letter was written in the violet-coloured ink that she had found in the
yalis
on the Bosphorus.