The day before he would leave for the Mirabel, Noah rode up into the hills with Sam, both silent, listening to the slow clatter of their horses’ hooves on the stony track and the occasional haunting cry of a buzzard as it turned loops above them. Breathing in the now familiar aromatic scent of the macchia scrub covering the hillsides, he found it hard to comprehend he would leave him tomorrow with no idea when he might see him again.
Sam was pale, his face pinched with misery. God, it seemed no time since he thought he had lost him in death, and now he had to abandon him and return to England. Noah held the lead rein for the mule carrying Sam’s artists’ box and easel together with canvases and panels. ‘Promise me you won’t spend too much time alone up here.’
Sam managed a wan smile. ‘I s
