Remembrance

CRITICAL RAVES FOR

DANIELLE STEEL

“STEEL IS ONE OF THE BEST.”—Los Angeles Times“THE PLOTS OF DANIELLE STEEL'S NOVELS TWIST AND WEAVE AS INCREDIBLE STORIES UNFOLD TO THE THRILL AND DELIGHT OF HER ENORMOUS READING PUBLIC.”—United Press International“A LITERARY PHENOMENON … ambitious … prolific … and not to be pigeonholed as one who produces a predictable kind of book.”—The Detroit News“There is a smooth reading style to her writings which makes it easy to forget the time and to keep flipping the pages.”—The Pittsburgh Press“Ms. Steel excels at pacing her narrative, which races forward, mirroring the frenetic lives chronicled here; men and women swept up in bewildering change, seeking solutions to problems never before faced.”—Nashville Banner

Books by Danielle Steel

THE KLONE AND ITHE LONG ROAD HOMETHE GHOSTSPECIAL DELIVERYTHE RANCHSILENT HONORMALICEFIVE DAYS IN PARISLIGHTNINGWINGSTHE GIFTACCIDENTVANISHEDMIXED BLESSINGSJEWELSNO GREATER LOVEHEARTBEATMESSAGE FROM NAMDADDYSTARZOYAKALEIDOSCOPEFINE THINGSWANDERLUSTSECRETSFAMILY ALBUMFULL CIRCLECHANGESTHURSTON HOUSECROSSINGSONCE IN A LIFE M EA PERFECT STRANGERREMEMBRANCEPALOMINOLOVE: POEMSTHE RINGLOVINGTO LOVE AGAINSUMMER'S ENDSEASON OF PASSIONTHE PROMISENOW AND FOREVERPASSION'S PROMISEGOING HOMEVisit the Danielle Steel Web Site at:

www.daniellesteel.com

DELL PUBLISHING

To Popcye;

A different dedication this time,

One that's never been done before:

Me,

For the rest of my life.

With all my love,

Olive

A tomb is only an empty box. The one I love exists entirely in my memory, in a handkerchief that's still scented when I unfold it. in an intonation that I suddenly remember and listen to for a whole long moment, my head bent …… and what bitterness at first—but what calm relief later!—to discover, one day when spring trembles with cold, uneasiness and hope—that nothing has changed: neither the smell of the earth, nor the quiver of the brook, nor the shape, like rosebuds, of the chestnut shoots … to lean down in astonishment over the little filigree cups of the wild anemones, toward the carpet of endless violets—arc they mauve, arc they blue?—to let one's gaze caress the unforgotten outline of the mountains, to drink with a sigh of hesitation the piquant wine of a new sun … to live again!Colette

A Retreat from Love

1

The train rolled relentlessly into the Italian darkness, its wheels chattering rhythmically against the rails. There were fat peasants crowded everywhere, and skinny children, and seedy-looking businessmen and hordes of American GI's. There was a sad, musty smell in the train, like a house that hasn't been cleaned in years and years, and added to that the ripe smell of tired bodies, long unwashed, unkempt, unloved. Yet no one had thought to open a window. No one would dare. The old women would scream as though they had been assaulted, faced with a rush of the warm night air. That would have offended them. Everything upset them. Heat, cold, fatigue, hunger. They had reason to be disturbed. They were tired. They were sick. They had been hungry and cold and afraid for a long time. It had been one hell of a long war. And now it was over. For three months now. It was August 1945. And the train rolled on relentlessly as it had for two endless days.

Serena had boarded the train in Paris, and ridden, without speaking to anyone, across France and Switzerland, and at last into Italy. This was the last of her journey now … the last of it… the last of it.… The wheels of the train chattered out her thoughts as she lay huddled in a corner, her eyes closed, her face pressed against the glass. She was tired. God, she was tired. Every inch of her body ached now, even her arms, as she hugged them tightly around her, as though she were cold, which she was not. The heat on the train was stifling, her long blond hair felt matted against the back of her neck, as the train began to slow, and then a few moments later it stopped, and she sat there, without moving, wondering if she should get out and walk, even if only for a moment. She had been traveling now for almost nine days in all. It had been an endless journey, and she wasn't home yet.

She kept thinking of home, reminding herself of it over and over. She had forced herself not to let out a whoop of joy as they crossed the Alps and she knew that she was back in Italy at last. But this was only the beginning. In fact, she reminded herself again as she opened her eyes slowly in the glare of lights from the station, for her the journey hadn't even begun. It wouldn't begin until sometime the next morning, when she reached her destination, and then she would see, she would find out … at last.…

Serena unraveled herself sleepily, stretching her long graceful legs under the seat in front of her. Across were two old women, sleeping, a very thin one and a very fat one, with a scrawny child pressed between them, like a pathetic offering of pink meat between two loaves of old stale bread. Serena watched them expressionlessly. One could read nothing in her eyes, they looked like icy cold green pools of very fine emeralds, incredibly beautiful, but with very little warmth. But there was something about the depth of the young woman's eyes. One was drawn to them, as though one had to look into her, had to discover what she was thinking, as though one had to see inside her … and could not. The doors to Serena's soul were firmly shut, and there was nothing to see except the perfect precision of her finely carved aristocratic face. It had the translucence of white marble. Yet it was not a face one would have dared to touch. Despite her obvious youth and beauty, there was nothing inviting about her, nothing beckoning, nothing warm. She had surrounded herself with an aura of distance that carefully masked tenderness and vulnerability.

“Scusi.” She murmured the word softly as she tiptoed past the sleeping women and over an old man. She felt wretched sometimes for what she thought, but she was so tired of old people. She had seen nothing but old people since she had arrived. Was there no one else left, then? Only old women and old men, and a handful of children cavorting crazily everywhere, showing off for the GI's. They were the only young men one saw now. The Americans, in their drab uniforms, with their bright smiles and good teeth and shining eyes. Serena had seen enough of them to last a lifetime. She didn't give a damn whose side they were on. They were part of it. They wore uniforms, just like the others. What difference did the color of the uniforms make? Black or brown or green or … purple for that matter, or scarlet … or turquoise.… She let her thoughts run wild in the warm night air … she watched the uniforms cascade out of the train behind her as she stood on the platform and turned to look the other way. Even with her back turned, she could hear them standing near her, talking to each other, laughing at some joke, or speaking softly in the late night silence, broken only by the scraping metal noises of the train.

“Smoke?” A hand reached out suddenly toward Serena, crossing her field of vision in spite of the way she had turned her back, and startled, she shook her head and hunched her shoulders, as though to protect herself further from what had happened, from what had been. One had a sense of something hurt about Serena; even in all her powerful young beauty, one sensed that there was something broken, something damaged, and perhaps forever spoiled, as though she were carrying some terrible burden, or existing in spite of an almost intolerable pain.

Yet there was nothing on her surface to show that. Her eyes were clear, her face unlined. In spite of the ugly, wrinkled clothes she wore, she was striking. And yet, if one looked beyond that first glance, one could not help but see pain. One of the GI's had noticed it as he watched her, and now as he took a last drag on his cigarette and dropped it on the platform, he found his eyes drawn toward her again. Christ, she was pretty. That white-blond hair peeking out from under the dark green cotton scarf she wore tied around her head, as though she were a peasant woman. But it was unconvincing. Serena could not pass for a peasant, no matter what she wore; Her carriage gave her away almost instantly, the way she moved, the way she turned her head, like a young gazelle, bounding with grace. There was something almost too beautiful about Serena. It almost hurt to look at her for too long a time. Just seeing her in the drab clothes she wore was troublesome. One wanted to tap her on the shoulder and ask why—why are you dressed that way and what are you doing pressed amongst the dregs of humanity on this overcrowded train? And more questions: Where had she come from? Where was she going? And why was there that faraway look in her eyes?

As she stood on the platform in the warm summer darkness, she offered no answers. She only stood there. Very straight, very tall, very slim, and so young, in the crumpled cotton dress. She looked down at the deep creases in the cheap fabric and smoothed the skirt with a long delicate hand as her mind seemed to snag on a memory, a gesture … her mother doing the same thing … her perfectly manicured hand smoothing the skirt of a dress … a white silk dress … at a party in the garden of the palazzo.… Serena squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, forcing the memory back. She had to do that often. But the memories still came.

One of the GI's was watching her as she opened her eyes again and walked quickly down the platform to reboard the train. She looked as though she were running away from something, and he wondered what it was, as she put a foot on the steps up to the train and swung herself gracefully aboard again, as though she had just mounted a Thoroughbred and was about to ride off into the night. He watched her closely for a long moment, the tall thin frame, the elegantly squared shoulders. She had an extraordinary grace about her. As though she were someone important. And she was.

“Scusi,” she whispered again softly as she made her way down the aisle and back into her seat, where she let out a soft sigh and leaned her head back again, but this time she did not close her eyes. There was no point. She was bone tired, but she wasn't sleepy. How could she sleep now? With only a few more hours before they arrived. Only a few more hours … a few more hours … a few more.… The train began moving and picked up the refrain of her thoughts again, as she gazed out into the darkness, feeling in her heart, her soul, her very bones, that whatever happened, at least she had come home. Even the sound of Italian being spoken around her was a relief now.

The countryside outside the train window was so familiar, so comfortable, so much a part of her, even now, after four years of living with the nuns in the convent in Upstate New York. Getting there four years before had been another endless journey. First, making her way across the border into the Ticino with her grandmother and Flavio, one of the few servants they had left. Once into the Italian part of Switzerland they had been secretly met by two women carrying weapons, and two nuns. It was there that she had left her grandmother, with rivers of tears pouring down the young girl's cheeks, holding tightly to the old lady for a last time, wanting to clutch her, to beg her not to send her away. She had already lost so much in Rome two years before, when— She couldn't bear to think of it as she stood in the chill air of the Italian Alps, locked in her grandmother's firm embrace for a last time.…

“You'll go with them, Serena, and you'll be safe there.” The plans had been carefully laid for almost a month now. There was America. So terribly far away. “And when it is over, you'll come home.” When it is over … but when would it be over? As they had stood there, Serena felt that it had already gone on for a lifetime, ten lifetimes. At fourteen she had already lived through two years of war and loss and fear. Not so much her own fear as everyone else's. The adults had lived with constant terror of Mussolini. The children had tried at first to pretend that they didn't care. But one had to care. Sooner or later, events made you care. Sooner or later it all grabbed you by the throat and throttled you until you thought you would die.

She remembered the feeling, still … of watching her father dragged away by Mussolini's men … watching him try not to scream, to look brave as he tried, helplessly, with his eyes to protect his wife. And then the horrible sounds of what they had done to him in the courtyard of the palazzo, and the terrible noises he had made at last. They hadn't killed him then though. They had waited until the next day, and shot him along with half a dozen others in the courtyard of the Palazzo Venezia, where Mussolini was headquartered. Serena's mother had been there when they shot him, begging, pleading, screaming, crying, while the soldiers laughed. The Principessa di San Tibaldo crawling as she begged them, as the men in uniform taunted her, teased her. One had grabbed her by the hair, kissed her roughly, and then spat and threw her to the ground. And it was all over moments later. Serena's father had hung limply from the post where they had tied him. Her mother ran to him, sobbing, and held him for a last moment before, almost as a matter of amusement, they shot her too. And all for what? Because they were aristocrats. Because her father hated Mussolini. Italy had been sick with a special kind of poison then. A poison based on hatred and paranoia and greed and fear. A horror that had turned brother against brother, and sometimes husband against wife. It had turned Serena's uncle against her father, with a kind of passion Serena couldn't understand. Her father thought that Mussolini was a savage, a buffoon, a fool, and said so, but his brother had been unable to accept their differences. Sergio di San Tibaldo had become Mussolini's lapdog at the beginning of the war. It was Sergio who turned Umberto in, who insisted that Umberto was dangerous and half mad, that he was involved with the Allies when in fact he was not. The truth was, Sergio stood to gain a great deal if he could dispose of Umberto, and he had. As the younger son he had inherited almost nothing from their father, only the farm in Umbría, which he had hated even as a boy. And he couldn't even sell that. He had it for the use of his lifetime, and then he was obliged to leave it to his children, or Umberto's if he had none. As far as Sergio was concerned, his older brother had it all, the title, the money, the looks, the palazzo that had been in the family for seven generations, the artwork, the importance, the charm, and Graziella, of course, which had been the final spark to ignite his hatred for his older brother.

He hated her father most for possessing Graziella, the golden fairy queen with the incredible green eyes and spun-gold hair. She had been exquisite, and he had loved her since he had been a boy. He had loved her always … always … when they all spent their summers together in Umbria or San Remo or at Rapallo, when she was a little girl. But she had always loved Umberto. Everyone had loved Umberto … everyone … especially Graziella.

Sergio had knelt, sobbing, at her funeral at Santa Maria Maggiore, asking himself why it had all happened. Why had she married Umberto? Why had she run to him after he was dead? No one at the funeral had fully understood the part that Sergio had played in his brother's and sister-in-law's deaths. To their friends, he had always seemed ineffectual, a weakling. And now no one knew the truth, except Serena's grandmother. It was she who prodded and pried and inquired and pressured in all the right places, she who pressed everyone she knew until she learned the truth. Only she had been brave enough to confront him in a rage of horror and grief so overwhelming that when it was over Sergio understood as never before the nightmare of what he had done to his own flesh and blood. And for what? A white marble palazzo? A woman who had died at the feet of her husband, and had never loved anyone but him in any case?

For what had he done it? his mother had screamed. For the love of Mussolini? “That pig, Sergio? That pig? You killed my firstborn for him?” He had trembled in the wake of his mother's rage, and knew that he would spend the rest of his lifetime trying to live with the truth. He had denied everything to his mother, denied that he betrayed Umberto, denied that he had done anything at all. But she had known, as had Serena. Those brilliant green eyes of hers had bored into him at the funeral, and he had been grateful to escape at last. Unable to fight the tides of Mussolini, and unwilling to expose the horror of her son's fratricide to the whole world, the elderly Principessa di San Tibaldo had taken Serena and the oldest of the servants and removed them from Rome. The palazzo was his now, she told him as she stood for a last moment in the brilliantly lit black and white marble hallway. She wished never to see him, or the house, again. He was no longer her son, he was a stranger, and for a last moment she had gazed at him with tears filling the wise old eyes once more. She shook her head slowly then and walked silently out the door.

She and Serena had never seen her uncle, or the house, or Rome again. She had been twelve the last time she walked out the richly ornate bronze doors on the Via Giulia and yet even as she stood in the chill air of the Alps two years later she felt as though they had left Rome that afternoon. It had been a difficult two years, years of fighting off the memories of the sounds of her father being beaten by the soldiers in the courtyard, the frantic look of her mother as she had run out of the house the next morning, her hair barely combed, her eyes wide with fear, a red wool coat clutched around her, and the sight of their bodies when the soldiers had left them at the gate, sprawled on the white marble steps, their blood trickling slowly down into the grass … and Serena's endless screams as she saw them … saw them lying there … even as she said good-bye to her grandmother. The memories were not yet dim, and now she was losing her too. Losing her by being sent away, to safety, her grandmother had insisted. But what was safe now? Nothing was safe, Serena knew that at fourteen. Nothing would ever be safe again. Nothing. Except for her grandmother, she had lost it all.

“I will write to you, Serena. I promise. Every day. And when Italy is a nice place again, you will come back here and live with me. I promise you that, my darling. I promise.…”In spite of her strength the principessa had choked on the last words as she held Serena close to her, this last bit of her own flesh, this last link she had to her firstborn. She would have no one now when Serena went away. But there was no choice. It was too dangerous for the child to stay. Three times in the last two months the soldiers in the Piazza San Marco had accosted Serena. Even in plain, ugly clothes, the child was too beautiful, too tall, too womanly, even at fourteen. The last one had followed her home from school and grabbed her roughly by the arms and kissed her, pressed against a wall, his body crushed against hers. One of the servants had seen them there, Serena panting and frightened, wide eyed with terror yet silent, afraid that this time they would take her, or her grandmother, away. She had been terrified of the soldiers' faces and their laughter and their eyes. And the older woman knew each day that there was danger for Serena, that letting her out of the house at all was dangerous for the child. There was no way to control the soldiers, no way to protect Serena from the madness that seemed to run wild. Any day a nightmare could befall them, and before it happened Alicia di San Tibaldo knew that she had to save the child. It had taken several weeks to find the solution, but when the bishop quietly suggested it to her, she knew that she had no choice. Quietly, that night, after dinner, she had told Serena about the plan. The child had cried at first, and begged her, pleaded not to send her away, and surely not so far away as that. She could go to the farm in Umbria, she could hide there, she could cut off her hair, wear ugly dresses, she could work in the fields … she could do anything, but please, Norma … please.… Her heart-wrenching sobs were to no avail. To let her stay in Italy was to destroy her, was to risk her daily, to walk a constant tightrope, knowing that she could be killed, or hurt or raped. The only thing left for her grandmother to do for her was to send her away, until the end of the war. And they both knew, as they stood inside the Swiss border, that it could be for a very long time.

“You will be back soon, Serena. And I will be here, my darling. No matter what.” She prayed that she wasn't lying as rivers of tears flowed from the young girl's eyes, and the slender shoulders shook in her hands.

“Me lo prometti?” Do you promise me? She could barely choke out the words.

The old woman nodded silently and kissed Serena one last time, and then, nodding to the two women and the nuns, she stepped gracefully backward and the nuns put their arms around Serena and began to lead her away. She would walk for several miles that night to their convent. The next day they would take her with a group of other children to their sister house by bus some hundred miles away. From there she would be passed on to another group and eventually taken out of Switzerland. Their goal was London, and from there, the States. It would be a long and difficult journey, and there was always the danger of a bombing in London, or at sea. The route that Alicia had chosen for her grandchild was one of possible danger and an even greater chance for safety and survival. To stay in Italy would have meant certain disaster, in one way or another, and she would have died before she would have let them touch Serena. She owed Graziella and Umberto that much, after what Sergio had done. She had no one now, except Serena … a tiny speck of dark brown, her pale gold hair shoved into a dark knitted hat … as they reached the last knoll and then turned, with a last wave from Serena, and then they disappeared.

For Serena it had been a long and terrifying journey, complete with five days and nights in air-raid shelters in London, and at last they had fled to the countryside, and left on a freighter out of Dover. The crossing to the States had been grim, and Serena had said not a word for days. She spoke no English. Several of the nuns accompanying them spoke French, as did Serena, but she had no wish to speak to anyone at all. She had lost everyone now. Everyone and everything. Her parents, her uncle, her grandmother, her home, and at last her country. There was nothing left. She had stood on deck, a solitary figure in brown and gray, with the wind whipping the long sheets of pale blond hair around her head. The nuns had watched her, saying nothing at all. At first they had been afraid that she might do something desperate, but in time they came to understand her. You could learn a lot about the child simply from watching her. She had an extraordinary sort of dignity about her. One sensed her strength and her pride and at the same time her sorrow and her loss. There were others in the group of children going to the States who had suffered losses similar to Serena's, two of the children had lost both parents and all their brothers and sisters in air raids, several had lost at least one parent, all had lost beloved friends. But Serena had lost something more. When she learned of her uncle's betrayal of her father, she had lost her faith and trust in people as well. The only person she had trusted in the past two years was her grandmother. She trusted no one else. Not the servants, not the soldiers, not the government. No one. And now the one person she could count on was nowhere near. When one looked into the deep green eyes, one saw a bottomless sorrow that tore at one's heart, a grief beyond measure, a despair visible in children's eyes only in times of war.

In time the look of sorrow was less apparent. Once at the convent in Upstate New York, she laughed, though rarely. She was usually serious, intense, quiet, and in every spare moment she wrote to her grandmother, asking a thousand questions, telling her each detail of every day.

It was in the spring of 1943 that the letters from the principessa stopped coming. First Serena had been mildly worried, and then it became obvious that she was deeply concerned. Finally she had lain awake every night in terror, wondering, imagining, fearing, and then hating … it was Sergio again … he had come to Venice to kill her grandmother too. He had done it, she imagined, because her grandmother knew the truth about what he had done to his brother and he couldn't bear to have anyone know, so he had killed her, and one day he would try to kill Serena too. But let him try, she thought, the extraordinary green eyes narrowing with a viciousness even she hadn't known she had. Let him, I will kill him first, I will watch him die slowly, I will.…

“Serena?” There had been a soft light in the corridor, and the Mother Superior had appeared at her door that night. “Is something wrong? Have you had bad news from home?”

“No.” The walls had come up quickly, as Serena sat up in bed and shook her head, the green eyes instantly veiled.

“Are you sure?”

“No, thank you, Mother. It is kind of you to ask.” She opened up to no one. Except her grandmother, in the daily letters, which had had no response now for almost two months. She stepped quickly to the cold floor and stood there in the simple cotton nightgown, a curtain of blond hair falling over her shoulders, her face a delicately chiseled marvel, worthy of a statue, and truly remarkable on a girl of just sixteen.

“May I sit down?” The Mother Superior had looked gently at Serena.

“Yes, Mother.”

Mother Constance sat on the room's single wooden chair as Serena hovered for a moment and then sat back on the bed, feeling uncomfortable, and her own worries still showing in her eyes. “Is there nothing I can do for you, child?” The others had made a home here. The English, the Italians, the Dutch, the French. The convent had been filled for four years now with children brought over from Europe, most of whom would eventually go back, if their families survived the war. Serena was older than most of the others. Other than Serena the oldest child had been twelve when she had arrived, the others were mostly much younger children, five, six, seven, nine. But the others had acquired a kind of ease about them, as though they had come from nowhere more exotic than Poughkeepsie, as though they knew nothing of war and had no real fears. The fears were there, and at times, at night, there were nightmares, but on the whole they were an oddly happy-go-lucky group. No one would have believed the stories that had preceded their arrivals, and in most cases there were no visible signs of the stress of war. But Serena had been different from the beginning. Only the Mother Superior and two other nuns were fully aware of her story, apprised of it in a letter from her grandmother that came shortly after she arrived. The principessa had felt that they should know the full story but they had heard nothing of it from Serena herself. Over the years she had never opened up to them. Not yet.

“What's troubling you, my child? Do you not feel well?”

“I'm fine.…” There had been only the fraction of a second of hesitation, as though for an instant she had considered opening a sacred door. It was the first time, and this time Mother Constance felt that she had to be persistent. Even if it was painful for Serena to reveal her feelings, it was obvious that the girl was in greater distress than she ever had been before. “I'm … it's only that—” Mother Constance said nothing, but her eyes reached out gently to Serena until she could resist no more. Tears suddenly filled her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks. “I've had no letter from my grandmother in almost two months.”

“I see.” Mother Constance nodded slowly. “You don't think she could be away?”

Serena shook her head and brushed away the tears with one long graceful hand. “Where would she go?”

“To Rome perhaps? On family business?”

Serena's eyes grew instantly hard. “She has no business there anymore!”

“I see.” She didn't wish to press the girl further. “It could just be that it's getting harder and harder to get the mail through. Even from London the mail is slow.” During her entire stay in New York the letters from her grandmother had reached her via an intricate network of underground and overseas channels. Getting the letters from Italy to the States had been no easy feat. But they had always come. Always.

Serena gazed at her searchingly. “I don't think it's that.”

“Is there anyone else you would write to?”

“Only one.” There was only one old servant there now. Everyone else had had to leave. Mussolini wouldn't allow anyone of the old guard to keep as many servants as the principessa had been keeping. She was permitted one servant, and one only. Some of the others had wanted to stay on without pay, but it had not been approved. And the bishop had died the previous winter, so there was no one else she could write to. “I'll write to Marcella tomorrow.” She smiled for the first time since the nun had entered her room. “I should have thought of it earlier.”

“I'm sure your grandmother's all right, Serena.”

Serena nodded slowly. With her grandmother having just turned eighty, she was not quite as sure. But she had said nothing of being ill or not feeling well. There was really no reason to think that something was wrong. Except for the silence … which continued, unexplained. The letter to Marcella was returned to Serena four weeks after she wrote it, unopened and undelivered, with a scrawled note from the postman that Marcella Fabiani did not live at that address anymore. Had they gone to stay at the farm? Things must be worse in Venice. With a growing sense of panic, Serena grew ever more silent and strained. She wrote to her grandmother at the farm in Umbría then, but that letter came back too. She wrote to the foreman, and the letter came back marked “Deceased.” For the first weeks and then months, she had felt panic-stricken and desperate, but in time the terror ebbed into a dull pain. Something had happened, of that there was no doubt, but there seemed to be no way to get an explanation. There was no one left. No family except Sergio of course. And now, in her desperation, there was nowhere for Serena to turn. All she could do was wait until she could return to Italy to find out for herself.

There was still enough money for her to do that. When Serena had left, her grandmother had pressed on her a fat roll of American bills. She had no idea how the old woman had got the American money, but it had amounted to a thousand dollars when Serena counted it out quietly, alone in the bathroom the next day. And the nuns had received another ten thousand through elaborate international channels, for her care and whatever she might need during her stay at the convent. Serena knew that there had to be a great deal of that left. And every night, as she lay in her bed, thinking, she planned to use the money to get back to Italy the moment the war was over. She would go straight to Venice and find out, and if something had happened to the old woman, because of Sergio, she would go directly to Rome immediately thereafter and kill him.

It was a thought she had cherished now for almost two years. The war had ended in Europe in May of 1945, and from the very moment it ended she began making plans to go back. Some of the others were still waiting to hear from their parents that things were ready for their return, but Serena had nothing to wait for, except her ticket, her papers. She didn't even need the permission of the nuns. She was over eighteen, and she turned nineteen on V-J Day on the train. It had seemed to take forever to get passage over, but at last she had.

Mother Constance had taken her to the ship in New York. She had held Serena close for a long time. “Remember, my child, that whatever happened, you cannot change it. Not now. And you couldn't have then. You were where she wanted you to be. And it was right for you to be here, with us.”

Serena pulled away from her then, and the elderly nun saw that the tears were pouring down the delicate cheeks and flooding the huge green eyes that seemed brighter than any emerald, as the girl stood there, torn between affection and terror, grief and regret. “You've been so good to me all these years, Mother. Thank you.” She hugged Mother Constance once more, the boat horn sounded again, this time more insistently, and the stately nun left the cabin. Her last words to Serena were “Go with God,” and Serena had watched her wave from the dock as she waved frantically from the ship, this time with a smile on her face.

That had been only nine days before. The memories of Mother Constance seemed to fill her mind as Serena glanced out the window and saw that the dawn had come as they sped along on the train. She stared at the pink and gray sky in amazement as they raced through fields that had not been harvested in years and that showed signs of the bombs, and her heart broke for her country, for her people, for those who had suffered while she was safe in the States. She felt as though she owed them all something, a piece of herself, of her heart, of her life. While she had eaten roast turkey and ice cream on the Hudson they had suffered and struggled and died. And now, here they were, together, the survivors, at the dawn of a new era, a new life. She felt her heart rise within her as the train continued on its journey, and she watched the sun ride up in the early morning sky. The day had come at last. She was home.

Half an hour later they rolled into Santa Lucia Station, and slowly, almost breathlessly, she stepped from the train, behind the old ladies, the children, the toothless old men, the soldiers, and she stood there, at the bleak back door of Venice, looking at the same scene she had seen twice a year as a child when she and her parents had come to visit from Rome. But they were gone now, and this was not an Easter vacation. This was a new world, and a new life, and as she walked slowly away from the station she stared at the bright sunlight shining on the ancient buildings and shimmering on the water of the grand canal. A few gondolas bobbed at the landing, and a fleet of random boats hovered near the quay, drivers shouted to prospective passengers, and suddenly everything was in frantic motion around her, and as she watched it Serena smiled for the first time in days. It was a smile she hadn't felt in her heart for years.

Nothing had changed and everything had. War had come and gone, a holocaust had happened, she had lost everyone, and so had countless others, and yet here it was as it had been for centuries, in all its golden splendor, Venice. Serena smiled to herself, and then as she hurried along with the others, she laughed softly. She had come of age, in that one final moment, and now she was home.

“Signorina!” A gondolier was shouting, staring admiringly at her long graceful legs. “Signorina!”

“Sí… gondola, perpiacere.” They were words she had said a thousand times before. Her parents had always let her pick the one she wanted.

“Ècco.” He swept her a low bow, helped her to her seat, stowed her single, battered suitcase, and she gave him the address and sat back in her seat, as deftly the gondolier sped into the swirling traffic of boats on the Grand Canal.

2

As the gondolier made his way slowly down the Grand Canal, Serena sat back and watched with awe as the memories unfolded, memories she had barely dared to indulge herself in for four years, and suddenly here it all was. With the sunlight shining on his gilded body the Guardian Spirit of the Customs seemed to watch her as they passed majestically below, the gondola moving in the familiar rhythm that she had all but forgotten and that had enchanted her so extravagantly as a child. And just as they had remained unchanged in centuries of Italian history, the landmarks of Venice continued to roll into sight with a beauty that still took her breath away, the Ca' d'Oro in all its splendor, and the Ca' Pesaro, and tiny piazzas and small bridges and suddenly the Ponte di Rialto as they glided slowly beneath it, and on farther into the Grand Canal, past endless palazzi: Grimani, Papadopoli, Pisani, Mocenigo, Contarini, Grassi, Rezzonico, all the most splendid and visible palaces of Venice, until suddenly they were swept gently under the Ponte dell'Accademia, past the Franchetti Palace Gardens and the Palazzo Dario, and the church of Santa Maria delta Salute standing gracefully by on the right, as the gondola suddenly drifted in front of the Doges' Palace and the Campanile, and was almost instantly poised before the Piazza San Marco. He slowed there and Serena gazed at it in wonder, its devastating beauty leaving her speechless as they paused. She felt as the ancient Venetians must have, after their endless journeys to foreign ports, only to return to rediscover with wonder and enchantment what they had left behind.

“Beautiful, eh, signorina?” The gondolier glanced at San Marco with pride, and then back at her. But she only nodded. It was extraordinary to be back after so many years, yet nothing had changed here. The rest of the world had been turned upside down, but even the war had not touched Venice. Bombs had fallen nearby, but miraculously, Venice itself had remained untouched. He swept slowly under the Ponte di Paglia then, and rapidly under the illustrious Ponte dei Sospiri, the Bridge of Sighs, and then drifted into the maze of smaller canals, past other less important palazzi and ancient statues carved into the magnificent facades. There were balconies and tiny piazzas and everywhere the ornate splendor that had drawn people to Venice for a thousand years.

But now Serena was no longer fascinated by the architecture. Ever since they had turned into the maze of smaller canals, her face had been tense, and her brow furrowed as she watched familiar landmarks begin to slide by. They were coming closer now, and the answers to the questions that had tormented her for two years now were within reach.

The gondolier turned to confirm the address with her, and then, having seen her face, he said nothing more. He knew. Others had come home before her. Soldiers mostly. Some had been prisoners of war, and come home to find their mothers and their lovers and their wives. He wondered who his young beauty could be looking for and where she had been. Whatever she was looking for, he hoped she found it. They were only a few hundred feet from the house now, and Serena had already sighted it. She saw the shutters falling from their hinges, boards over a few of the windows, and the narrow canal lapping at the stone steps just beneath the iron grille on the landing. As the gondolier approached the building Serena stood up.

“You want me to ring the bell for you?” There was a big old-fashioned bell and a knocker, but Serena was quick to shake her head. He held her arm to steady her as she stepped carefully onto the landing, and for an instant she looked up at the darkened windows, knowing only too well the tale they told.

She hesitated for an endless moment, and then quickly pulled the chain on the bell and closed her eyes as she waited, thinking back to all the other times her hand had touched that bell … waiting … counting the moments until one of the old familiar faces would appear, her grandmother just behind them, smiling, waiting to embrace Serena and run laughingly up the steps with her to the main salon … the tapestries, the rich brocades … the statues … the tiny miniatures of the exquisite golden copper horses of San Marco at the head of the stairs … and this time only silence and the sounds of the canal behind her. As she stood there Serena knew that there would be no answer to the bell.

“Non, c'è nessuno, signorina?” the gondolier inquired. But it was a useless question. No, of course there was no one home, and hadn't been in years. For a moment Serena's eyes rested on the knocker, wanting to try that too, to urge someone from the familiar depths within, to make them open the door, to make them roll back the clock for her.

“Eh! … Eh!” It was an insistent sound behind her, almost an aggressive one, and she turned to see a vegetable merchant drifting past in his boat, watching her suspiciously. “Can't you see there's no one there?”

“Do you know where they are?” Serena called across the other boats, relishing the sound of her own language again. It was as though she had never left. The four years in the States did not exist.

The vegetable man shrugged. “Who knows?” And then, philosophically, “The war … a lot of people moved away.”

“Do you know what happened to the woman who lived here?” An edge of franticness was moving back into Serena's voice and the gondolier watched her face, as a mailman on a barge came slowly by, looking at Serena with interest.

“The house was sold, signorina” The postman answered the question for her.

“To whom? When?” Serena looked suddenly shocked. Sold? The house had been sold? She had never contemplated that. But why would her grandmother have sold the house? Had she been short of money? It was a possibility that had never occurred to Serena before.

“It was sold last year, when the war was still on. Some people from Milano bought it. They said that when the war was over they would retire and move to Venice … fix up the house.…”He shrugged and Serena felt herself bridle. “Fix up the house.” What the hell did he mean? What did they mean? Fix what up? The bronzes? The priceless antiques, the marble floors? The impeccable gardens behind the house? What was there to fix? As he watched her the mailman understood her pain. He pulled his boat close to the landing and looked up into her face. “Was she a friend of yours … the old lady?” Serena nodded slowly, not daring to say more. “Ècco. Capisco allora.” He only thought he understood, but he didn't. “She died, you know. Two years ago. In the spring.”

“Of what?” Serena felt her whole body grow limp, as though suddenly someone had pulled all of the bones out of her. She thought for a moment that she might faint. They were the words she had expected, the words she had feared, but now she had heard them and they cut through her like a knife. She wanted him to be wrong, but as she looked at the kind old face she knew that he wasn't. Her grandmother was gone.

“She was very old, you know, signorina. Almost ninety.”

Serena shook her head almost absentmindedly and spoke softly. “No, she turned eighty that spring.”

“Ah.” He spoke gently, wanting to offer comfort but not sure how. “Her son came from Rome, but only for two days. He had everything sent to Rome, I heard later. Everything, all her things. But he put the house up for sale right away. Still, it took them a year to sell it.”

So it was Sergio again, Serena thought to herself as she stood there. Sergio. He had everything sent to Rome. “And her letters?” She sounded angry now, as though within her there was something slowly beginning to burn. “Where did her mail go? Was it sent to him?”

The mailman nodded. “Except the letters for the servants. He told me to send those back.”

Then, Sergio had got all of her letters. Why hadn't he told her? Why hadn't someone written to her to tell her? For more than two years she had gone crazy, waiting, wondering, asking questions that no one could answer. But he could have answered, the bastard.

“Signorina?” The mailman and the gondolier waited. “Va bene?” She nodded slowly.

“Sí … sí… grazie … I was just …” She had been about to offer an explanation but her eyes filled with tears instead. She turned away and the two men exchanged a glance.

“I'm sorry, signorina.” She nodded, her back still turned, and the mailman moved on. Only her gondolier waited.

In a moment, after a last look at the rusting hinges on the gate, she fingered the bellpull one last time, as though making contact with some piece of her, some tangible part of the past, as though by touching something that her grandmother had touched she could become part of her again, and then slowly she came back to the gondola, feeling as though some vital part of her had died. So Sergio finally had what he wanted now—the title. She hated him. She wanted him to choke on his title, to rot in his own blood, to die a far more horrible death than her father, to …

“Signorina?” The gondolier had watched her face contort with anger and anguish, and he wondered what agony had seized her soul to make someone so young look so tormented. “Where would you like to go now?”

She hesitated for a moment, not sure. Should she go back to the train station? She wasn't ready. Not yet. There was something she had to do first. She turned slowly to the gondolier, remembering the little church perfectly. It was exquisite, and perhaps someone there would know more. “Take me please to the Campo Santa Maria Nuova.”

“Maria dei Miracoli?” he asked her, naming the church where she wanted to go. She nodded, and he helped her back into the gondola and pushed slowly away from the landing, as her eyes held interminably to the facade she would always remember and never come back to see again. This would be her last journey to Venice. She knew that now. She had no reason to come back. Not anymore.

She found Santa Maria dei Miracoli as she remembered it, almost hidden by high walls, and as simple externally as she recalled. It was inside that Mary of the Miracles showed her wonders, inside that the marble inlays and delicate carvings startled the newcomer with its beauty and still entranced those who knew it well after seeing it for dozens of years. Serena stood there for a moment, feeling her grandmother beside her, as she had every Sunday when they had come to Mass. She stood silently for a few moments and then walked slowly toward the altar, kneeling there, and trying desperately not to think … of what to do now … of where to go.…

Dwelling on her loss wouldn't help her. But still, the reality of it was almost intolerable and two lone tears traveled down her cheeks to the delicately carved chin. She stood up a moment later and went into the office at the back of the church, to attempt to find the priest. There was an old man in a priest's robe sitting there when she entered. He sat at a simple desk, reading from a frayed leather book of prayer.

“Father?” He looked up slowly from what he was reading, gazing directly into Serena's green eyes. He was new to the parish, she suspected. She did not remember him from before she left. “I wonder if you could help me. I am looking for some information about my grandmother.”

The old man in the cassock sighed and stood up slowly. There had been so many inquiries like this since the end of the war. People had died, moved away, got lost. It was unlikely that he would be able to help her. “I don't know. I will check the records for you. Her name?”

“La Principessa Alicia di San Tibaldo.” She said it softly, not meaning to impress anyone, but nonetheless his manner changed. He became more alert, more interested, more helpful, and in spite of herself, Serena was annoyed. Did the title mean so much, then? Was that what would make the difference? Why? It all seemed so unimportant now. Titles, names, rank, money. All that mattered to Serena was that her grandmother was dead.

He was whispering softly to himself as he shuffled through drawers of papers, and then checked a large ledger for what seemed like an interminable time, until at last, he nodded his head and looked up at Serena again. “Yes.” He turned the book toward her. “It is here. April ninth, 1943. The cause of death was natural. A priest from this church administered last rites. She is buried outside in the garden. Would you like to see?” Serena nodded and followed him solemnly out of the office, through the church, and out a narrow door, into a brightly sunlit little garden, filled with flowers and small ancient tombstones, and surrounded by small trees. He walked carefully toward a back corner where there were only a few tombstones, and all of them seemed to be new. He gestured gently toward the small white marble stone, watched Serena for a moment, and then turned and left as she stood there, looking stunned. The search was over, the answers had come. She was here, then, beneath the trees, hidden by the walls at Santa Maria dei Miracoli, she had been here all along as Serena wrote her letter after letter, praying that her grandmother was still alive. Serena wanted to be angry as she stood there, she wanted to hate someone, to fight back. But there was no one to hate, no fight left. It was all over, in this peaceful garden, and all that Serena felt was sad.

“Ciao, Nonna,” she whispered as she turned to leave at last, her eyes blurred with the tears that filled them. She did not return to say good-bye to the priest, but as she made her way out through the beautiful little church again, he was standing in the doorway and came to her, looking solicitous and interested, and he shook her hand twice as she left.

“Good-bye, Principessa … good-bye.…” Principessa? For an instant she stopped in her tracks, startled, and turned to look at him again. Princess, he had called her.… Princess? … And then slowly, she nodded. Her grandmother was gone now. Serena was the principessa, and as she ran hastily down the steps to the landing where she had left her gondolier, she knew that didn't matter at all.

As the gondolier made his way away from the church, her thoughts were spinning. Sergio. What had he done with the money he got for the house? What had he done with her parents' treasures and her grandmother's beautiful things? Suddenly she wanted an explanation, a recount, she wanted the despicable man who had destroyed her family to make up to her what he had taken from her. Yet even as she thought of it she knew that he could not. Nothing Sergio would ever do would make up to Serena what she had lost. But still, for some reason, she felt an urge now to see him, to demand something of him, to make him account for what was, in a sense, hers as well. And now as she sat in the gondola, heading slowly back toward the Grand Canal and the Piazza San Marco, she knew where she was going. Venice had belonged to her grandmother. It was a part of her. It was her. But it wasn't home to Serena. It never had been. It had always been foreign and different and intriguing, exciting, a kind of adventure even during the two years she had lived there after her parents death. But now, having come this far, Serena knew that she had to go further. She had to go all the way to her beginnings. She had to go home.

“Do you want to go to the piazza, signorina?”

“No.” She shook her head slowly. Not to the piazza. She had finished what she had to do in Venice. Three hours after she'd got there, it was time to move on. “No, grazie. Not the piazza. Take me back to Santa Lucia.”

They glided slowly under the Ponte dei Sospiri, the Bridge of Sighs, and she closed her eyes. Almost instinctively, the gondolier began to sing; it was a sad, plaintive song, and he sang it well. A moment later they were back in the bright sunshine and the song went on as they rounded the bend of the Grand Canal and passed in front of the splendor of the Piazza San Marco, the Campanile, the Doges' Palace, and back down the canal, past all the miracles of Venice. But this time Serena did not cry. She watched all of it, as though drinking it in this one last time so that she could remember, as though she knew that she would never come back again.

When they reached the station, she paid him, including a handsome tip, for which he thanked her profusely, and his eyes sought hers.

“Where are you going now, signorina?”

“To Rome.”

He nodded slowly. “You haven't been back since the war?” She shook her head. “You will find it very different.” But it couldn't be any more different from what she had found here. For her everything was changed, everywhere. “You have relatives in Roma?”

“No … I … all I had was my grandmother. Here.”

“That was her house this morning?” Serena nodded and he shook his head.

“I'm sorry.”

“So am I.” She smiled softly at him then and reached out to shake his hand. He took her delicate white hand in his rough brown one, and then patted her on the shoulder as he helped her out and handed her her bag.

“Come back to Venice, signorina.” He smiled at her, and she promised that she would, and then solemnly picked up her little suitcase and began to walk back in the direction of the train.

3

As the train drew into Termini Station shortly after sunset at eight that evening, there was no smile on Serena's lips. Instead she sat in her seat as though at any moment she expected something ghastly to happen, her entire body tense, her face white. She watched landmarks she hadn't seen in almost seven years begin to drift past her, and it was as though for the first time in years a door deep inside her was being torn from its hinges, as though her very soul was exposed. If someone had spoken to Serena at that moment, she wouldn't have heard them.

She was lost in another world, as they rolled along on the edge of the city, and suddenly she felt a longing well up in her that she had not allowed herself to feel in years. It was a longing for familiar places, an ache for her parents, a hunger to come home. She could barely wait for the train to stop in the station. As it lurched the last few feet forward she stood up and pulled her suitcase out of the overhead rack, and then with rapid strides she threaded her way to the end of the car and waited, like a horse anxious to return to its stable. The moment the train stopped and the doors opened, she leaped down and began to run. It was like a wild, instinctive gesture, this mad pounding of the pavement, as she ran past women and children and soldiers, heedless of everything except this wild, mingled feeling. She wanted to shout “Here I am everybody! I'm home!” But beneath the excitement was still the tremor … of what she would find here in Rome … and of the terrible memories of her parents' last day alive. Her emotions were wild—was coming here a betrayal? Was there reason to be scared?—oh, God, she was glad to be home. She had had to see it. Just once more. Or had she come in search of her uncle? Of an explanation? Of apologies or solace … ?

She flagged down a small black taxi and flung her suitcase into the backseat. The driver turned his head with interest to watch her, but made no move to assist her. Instead he looked long and hard into her eyes. It was a look that startled her in its frank appraisal, and she lowered her eyes suddenly, embarrassed at the desire she saw in the man's eyes.

“Dove?” It was a question that startled her in its directness, but it was hardly unusual for him to ask. The only problem was that she wasn't sure how to answer. He had asked her simply “Where,” and she didn't know. Where? To the house that had been her parents' and was now her uncle's? Was she ready? Could she face him? Did she want to see that house again? Suddenly all her assurance melted as quickly as it had sprung up in her and she felt her hands tremble as she smoothed her dress and averted her gaze again.

“The Borghese Gardens.” The tremor in her voice was audible only to Serena, and the driver shrugged and thrust the car into the traffic. And as she sat in the backseat staring out at the city that had drawn her like a magnet, Serena felt suddenly like a child again, her hair loose and flowing softly in the breeze coming in the windows, her eyes wide. She knew from familiar landmarks that they were approaching the Porta Pinciana. She could see the Via Vittorio Véneto stretched out ahead, and just before them suddenly the dark expanse of the gardens, lit here and there along the walkways, the flower beds visible even in the growing dark. She realized suddenly also how strange the driver must have thought her. The Borghese Gardens at nine o'clock at night? But where else was she to go now? She already knew the answer, but tried not to think of it as she counted out the fare to the driver, tossed her hair off her shoulders, and picked up her suitcase and got out. She stood there for a long moment, as though waiting for someone, and then, as if seeing everything around her for the first time, she took a deep breath and began to walk. Not hurriedly this time as though she had somewhere to go, and someone to meet her, but slowly, aimlessly, as if all she cared about was imbibing the essence of Rome.

She found herself walking along one of the grassy paths for strollers along the edge of the park, watching bicyclists hurrying along, or women walking dogs, and here and there children playing. It was late for them to be out, but it was summer and a balmy evening, the war was over, and there was no school the next day. Serena noticed for the first time that there was a kind of holiday atmosphere everywhere, people were smiling, young girls were laughing, and everywhere, as they were all over Europe, the young GI's were walking in groups, or with their girl friends, chatting, laughing, and trying to make friends with passing young women, waving candy bars and silk stockings and cigarettes, half laughing at themselves and half serious, and almost always getting a laughing response or an invitation. Even the refusals were kind ones, except Serena's. When two GI's approached her, her face turned to stone and her eyes were angry as she answered in Italian and told them to leave her alone.

“Leave her alone, Mike. You heard the lady.”

“Yeah, but did you see her?” The shorter of the two whistled as Serena rapidly made her way toward the Via Véneto and got lost in the crowd. But the attempts to pick her up were all harmless. She was a pretty girl, and the soldiers were lonely, and this was Rome.

“Cigarettes, signorina?” Another cluster of uniforms waved a pack almost in her face. They were everywhere, and this time she only shook her head. She didn't want to see them all over the city. She didn't want to see any uniforms. She wanted it to be as it had been before the war. But it wasn't. That much she could see now. There were scars. There were differences. There were still remnants of signs in German, and now American ones posted over them. They were occupied once again.

It made her sad as she remembered back to when she had been a child … when she had come to the Borghese Gardens to play. It was a rare treat to do that with her mother. Usually they went everywhere by car. But now and then there had been wondrous adventures, just she and her mother—the beauty with the tinkling laughter, the big hats, the huge laughing eyes. Serena suddenly dropped her face into her hands in the darkness. She didn't want to remember anymore. She didn't want to remember what had happened, how it had happened, what was no more. But it was as though whatever she did now that she had come back here there was no way to run from the memories anymore. The ghosts that had haunted her for seven years now didn't have to go far to find her. She had come home to find them.

Without thinking, she wandered in the direction of the Fontana di Trevi, and stood there mesmerized by it, as she had been as a little girl. She sat quietly for a few minutes, hunched against a wall, watching, and feeling refreshed by the breeze that came off the water. Then slowly, approaching the fountain, she tossed a coin quietly into the water, and then smiled to herself as she wandered in the direction of the Palazzo del Quirinale and then into the Via del Tritone. She came rapidly to the Triton's Fountain, and then to the Piazza Barberini, where she stood for a long moment wondering where to go next. It was almost eleven o'clock now and she was suddenly exhausted as she realized that she had nowhere to spend the night. She had to find a hotel room, a pensione, a convent, some place, but as she enumerated the possibilities in her head, her feet seemed to follow their own direction, and then suddenly she realized where she was going and caught her breath, knowing what had happened, what she was doing, and not wanting to continue or turn back. It was for this that she had left the peaceful convent on the Hudson, crossed the Atlantic, and taken the train from France.

A tiny part of her told her to wait until morning, until she was rested and her head was clear. It had been a long trying day, first in Venice and now here, with hours on the train, but it suddenly didn't matter, and Serena stopped letting her feet wander and stopped pretending to herself, that she had nowhere to go. She did have somewhere to go, a place she wanted to go to desperately, no matter how tired she was … and her feet moved relentlessly toward the familiar address on the Via Guilia. She had to see it, just to stand there for a moment, before she turned her back on the past forever and began the rest of her life. As she turned the last corner she could feel her heart beat faster, and suddenly her pace quickened as she could feel the building before it even came into view. And then suddenly … suddenly … under the street lamps, just past the trees, was the gleaming expanse of white marble, with the long French windows, the balconies, the lower floors hidden by tall hedges, and the long marble steps just inside the front gate, the whole of it surrounded by a border of flower beds and lawn.

“My God.…”It was the merest whisper. In the darkness it was easy to delude oneself that there had been no changes, that everything was as it had once been. That at any moment a familiar face would appear at a window, or her father would step outside with a cigar, for some air. Serena's mother had hated it at night when he had smoked cigars in the bedroom, and once in a while he had gone for a walk in the garden. When Serena awoke at night, as a little girl, sometimes she saw him there. Unconsciously she found herself looking for him now. But she saw no one, and like the house in Venice, it was shuttered. Only now she imagined her uncle sleeping here and even though he might be inside, she had lost the urge to see him—to fight him. What difference now?

She stood in front of her home for what seemed an endless time, unable to take her eyes from it, unable to go closer, and unwilling to try. This was as far as the dream had brought her. She would go no closer. She had no need to. The dream was all over now.

And then, as she turned slowly, her eyes filling with tears, her head held high, her suitcase still in her hand, she saw the copious form of an old woman, standing, watching her, a shawl around her corpulent shoulders, her hair pulled into a bun, as she continued to stare at Serena, as though wondering what this girl was doing here, with a suitcase, gaping at the Palazzo Tibaldo in the middle of the night. As Serena continued down the street with a determined step, the old woman suddenly rushed toward her, with a piercing shriek and a wail, both arms extended, as the shawl fell from her shoulders into the street, and she suddenly stood before Serena, her whole body trembling, her eyes streaming as she held out her arms to the girl. Serena made as though to step backward, stunned by the old woman, and then suddenly she looked into the heavily lined face and she gave a gasp of astonishment and then she too was sobbing softly as she reached out and held the old woman to her. It was Marcella, her grandmother's last remaining servant in Venice … and now suddenly she was here … at their old house in Rome. The old woman and the young one stood there, holding tightly to each other for what seemed like forever, unable to let go of each other, or the memories they shared. They stood there together, for a very long time.

“Bambino …ah, Dio … bambino mia … ma che fai? What are you doing here?”

“How did she die?” It was all Serena could think of as she clung to the old woman.

“In her sleep.” Marcella sniffed deeply and stood back to get a good look at Serena. “She was getting so old.” She gazed into Serena's eyes and shook her head. It was remarkable how much the girl looked like her mother. For a moment, as she had stood there in the street, watching her, Marcella had thought she was seeing a ghost.

“Why didn't anyone tell me?”

Marcella shrugged in embarrassment and then looked away. “I thought he … that your uncle … but he didn't have time before …” She realized something then. Serena knew nothing at all of what had happened since her grandmother's death. “No one wrote to you, cara?”

“Nessuno.” No one. And then, gently, “Why didn't you?”

This time the old woman looked at her squarely. The girl had a right to know why she hadn't written to her. “I couldn't.”

“Why?” Serena looked puzzled as they stood there in the lamplight.

Marcella smiled shyly. “I can't write, Serena … your grandmother always told me that I should learn, ma …” She shrugged in a helpless gesture as Serena smiled in answer.

“Va bene.” It's all right. But how easily said after two terror-filled years. How much anxiety she would have been spared if the old woman had at least been able to write and tell her of her grandmother's death. “And …” She hated to say his name, even now. “Sergio?”

There was a moment's pause and Marcella took a careful breath. “He's gone, Serena.”

“Where?” Her eyes searched the old woman's. She had come four thousand miles and two and a half years for this news. “Where is he?”

“Dead.”

“Sergio?” This time Serena looked, shocked. “Why?” For an instant there was a flash of satisfaction. Perhaps in the end they had killed him too.

“I don't know all of it. He made terrible debts. He had to sell the house in Venice.” And then, almost apologetically, she waved at the white marble palazzo behind them. “He sold this … only two months after your grandmother died and he brought me back to Rome.” Her eyes sought Serena's then, looking for condemnation. She had come with Sergio, he who had betrayed her parents, whom even the principessa had come to hate. But she had come home to Rome with him. She had had nowhere else to go, Serena understood. Except for the elderly principessa, Marcella had been alone in the world. “I don't understand what happened. But they got angry with him. He drank. He was drunk all the time.” She looked knowingly at Serena. He had had good reason to be drunk all the time. He had had a lot to live with, the murder of his own brother, his brother's wife.… “He borrowed money from bad people, I think. They came here, to the palazzo, late at night. They shouted at him. He shouted back. And then … II Duce's men came here too. They were angry at him too … perhaps because of the other men. I don't know. One night I heard them threatening to kill him.…”

“And they did?” Serena's eyes lit up with an ugly fire. Perhaps he had come by his just deserts after all.

“No.” Marcella shook her head. Her voice was without pity in the summer night. “He killed himself, Serena. He shot himself in the garden, two months after the principessa died. He had no money left, he had nothing. Only debts. The lawyers told me that it took everything, the money from both houses and everything else, to pay his debts.” Then there was nothing left. It didn't matter. She hadn't come home for that.

“And the house?” Serena looked at her strangely. “Who does it belong to now?”

“I don't know. People I have never seen. They rent it to the Americans now since the end of the war. Before that, it was empty. I was here by myself. Every month the lawyer brings me my money. They wanted me to stay, to see that everything is all right. Once, the Germans almost took it over, but they never did.” She shrugged, looking embarrassed again. Serena had lost everything, and yet Marcella was still living here. How odd life was.

“And the Americans live here now?”

“Not yet. Until now they only worked here. Now … next week … they will move in. Before, they only used it for offices, but they came yesterday to tell me they will move in on Tuesday.” She shrugged, looking like the Marcella that Serena had known as a child. “For me, it makes no difference, they have all of their own people. And they told me yesterday that they will hire two girls to help me. So for me it changes nothing. Serena?” The old woman watched her closely. “E tu? Vai bene? What happened in all those years? You stayed with the nuns?”

“I did.” She nodded slowly. “And I waited to come back.”

“And now? Where are you staying?” Her eyes glanced down at the suitcase Serena had dropped at her feet. But Serena shrugged.

“It doesn't matter.” She suddenly felt oddly, strangely, free, fettered to no place, no person, and no time. In the last twelve hours every tie that she had ever clung to had been severed. She was on her own now, and she knew that she would survive. “I was going to find a hotel, but I wanted to come here first. Just to see it.”

Marcella searched her face, and then hung her head as tears filled her eyes again. “Principessa …” It was a word spoken so softly that Serena barely heard it, and when she did, it sent a gentle tremor up her spine. The very word conjured up the lost image of her grandmother … Principessa.… She felt a wave of loneliness wash over her again, as Marcella lifted her face and dried her eyes on the apron that she eternally wore, even now. She clung to Serena's hand then, and Serena gently touched it with her own. “All these years I am here … with your grandmother, and then here, in this house.” She waved vaguely toward the imposing building behind Serena. “I am here. In the palazzo. And you” —she waved disparagingly at the dismal little suitcase—”like a beggar child, in rags, looking for a hotel. No!” She said it emphatically, almost with anger as the corpulent body shook. “No! You do not go to a hotel!”

“What do you suggest, Marcella?” Serena smiled gently. It was a voice and an expression on the old woman that she recognized from a dozen years before. “Are you suggesting that I move in with the Americans?”

“Pazza, va!” She grinned. Crazy! “Not with the Americans. With me. Ècco.” As she spoke the last word she snatched the suitcase from the ground, took Serena's hand more firmly in her own, and began to walk toward the palazzo, but Serena stood where she was and shook her head.

“I can't.” They stood there for a moment, neither moving, and Marcella searched the young girl's eyes. She knew all that she was thinking. She had had her own nightmares to overcome when she had first returned to Rome after the old lady's death. At first all she could remember here were the others … Umberto and Graziella … Serena as she had been, as a child … the other servants she had worked with, the butler she had once so desperately loved … Sergio when he had been younger and not yet rotten from within … the principessa in her prime.…

“You can stay with me, Serena. You must. You cannot be alone in Rome.” And then, more gently, “You belong here. In your father's house.”

She shook her head slowly, her eyes filling with tears. “It's not my father's house anymore.”

More gently still, “It is my home now. Will you not come home with me?” She saw in those deep green eyes the agony that had been there on the morning of the death of her father and knew that she was not speaking to the woman, but the child. “It's all right, Serena. Come, my love.… Marcella will take care of you … everything will be all right.” She enfolded Serena in her arms then, and they stood as they had in the beginning, holding tightly across the empty years. “Andiamo, cara.” And for no reason she could understand, Serena allowed herself to follow the old woman. She had only come to see it, not to stay there. To stand and gaze and remember, not to try and step inside the memories again. That was too much for her, she couldn't bear it. But as the old woman led her gently toward the rear entrance, Serena felt exhaustion overwhelm her … it was as though her whole day was telescoping into one instant and she couldn't bear it any longer. All she wanted was to lie down somewhere and stop thinking, stop trying to sort it all out.

Soon she stood at the back door of what had once been her parents' palazzo. Marcella quickly inserted the heavy key and turned it, and the door creaked, just as Serena had remembered it, and as the door swung open she found herself standing downstairs, in the servants' hall. The paint was yellowing, she saw as Marcella turned a light on; the curtains were the same, only they were no longer a bright blue but a faded gray; the wood floor was the same only a little duller, but there were fewer hands around now to wax it and Marcella had grown old. But nothing had really changed. Even the clock on the wall in the pantry was the same. Serena's eyes opened wide in amazement, and for the first time in years there was no anger and no pain. At last she had come home.

She had come full circle, and there was no one left to share it with but Marcella, clucking like an old mother hen as she led her down a familiar hallway into a room that had once belonged to a woman named Teresa, who had been a young and pretty upstairs maid. Like the others, she was long gone now, and it was into her room that Marcella led Serena, grabbing old frayed sheets and a blanket from a cupboard as she went. Everything was old and growing shabby, but it was still clean, and every bit of it was familiar, Serena realized as she sat down in a chair and watched Marcella make the bed. She said nothing. She only sat and stared.

“Vai bene, Serena?” The old woman glanced at her often, afraid that the shock of all she'd heard and seen and learned would be too much. She could neither read nor write, but she knew people, and she knew from the look in Serena's eyes that the girl had been through too much. “Take your clothes off, bambino mia. I'll wash them for you in the morning. And before you go to sleep, a little hot milk.” Milk was still hard to come by, but she had some, and on this precious child of hers she would have lavished all she had.

Serena looked content to be where she was. It was as though suddenly all of her defenses had given way at the same time and she couldn't bear to stand up a moment longer. Coming home to Marcella was like being nine years old again, or five, or two.

“I'll be back in two minutes with the hot milk. I promise!” She smiled gently at Serena, cozily tucked into the narrow bed in the simple room. The walls were white, the trim gray, there was a narrow faded curtain in the room, a small ancient rug that dated back to the days of Teresa and the others, and the walls were bare. But Serena didn't even see them. She lay back against the pillow, closed her eyes, and when Marcella returned a moment later with the precious warm milk and sugar, she found Serena fast asleep. The old woman stopped just inside the doorway, turned out the single bulb that lit the room, and stood in the darkness, watching the young woman in the light of the moonlight, remembering how she had looked as a child. Like this, she thought to herself, only so much smaller… and more peaceful.… How troubled Serena had looked to her that evening … how angry … and how hurt … and how afraid. It hurt her to think back on all that had happened to the child, and then suddenly she realized as she watched her that she was gazing at the last remaining principessa of the Tibaldos. Serena di San Tibaldo. Principessa Serena … asleep at last in the servants' quarters of her father's house.

4

When the sun streamed in the narrow window the next morning, Serena lay sprawled across the bed like a young goddess, her hair fanned out behind her like a sheet of gold. Marcella stood once more in the doorway, watching her, awed by the sheer brilliance of her beauty, and even more amazed than she had been the previous evening that Serena had come back at all. It was a miracle, she had told herself.

“Ciao, Celia.” Serena opened one eye sleepily and smiled. “Is it late?”

“For what? You have an appointment? One day in Rome and you're already busy?” Marcella bustled toward her and Serena sat up and grinned. Years seemed to have fallen from her in the hours that she had been sleeping. Even after all that had happened the day before, she was less worried than she'd been since leaving the States. At least now she knew. She knew everything that she had been dreading hearing. The worst had come. Now there was the rest of her life to consider.

“What would you like for breakfast, signorina?” And then she changed it quickly. “Scusi, Principessa.”

“What? You're not going to call me that! That was Normal” Serena looked half amused, half outraged. That was another era, another time. But Marcella looked dragonlike as she drew herself up to her full five feet at Serena's bedside.

“Now it is you. And you owe it to her, and to the others before her, to respect who and what you are.”

“I'm me. Serena di San Tibaldo. Punto. Finito. Basta.”

“Nonsense!” Marcella fussed as she smoothed the covers over Serena, and then looked at her gravely. “Don't ever forget who you are, Serena. She never did.”

“She didn't have to. And she didn't live in the world we do now. That's all over, Marcella. All of it. It died with—” She had been about to say “my parents,” but couldn't bring herself to say it still. “It died with a whole generation of people whom our charming Duce attempted to destroy. Successfully, in a lot of cases. And what's left? People like me, who don't have ten lire left to their name, and have to get jobs digging ditches. Is that what being a principessa is all about, Celia?”

“It's in here.” She pointed heatedly to her vast breast, indicating where her big generous heart was, and then to her head, “and in here. Not in what you do and what you don't do and how much money you have. Being a principe or a principessa is not money. She had not so much money either at the end. But she was always the principessa. And one day you will be like that too.”

Serena shook her head firmly. “The world has changed, Marcella. Trust me. I know that.”

“And what have you seen since you've been back here? The train station and what else?”

“People. On the train, in the streets, soldiers, young people, old people. They're different, Celia. They don't give a damn about principesse, and they probably never did. Only we cared about that stuff, and if we're smart, we'll forget about it now.” And then with a return of cynicism she looked at the old woman. “Do you really think the Americans are going to care about that? If you told them you were hiding a principessa in your basement, do you think they would give a damn?”

“I'm not hiding you, Serena.” Marcella looked sad. She didn't want to hear about this new world. The old world had been important to her. All of it. She believed in the old order and how it had worked. “You are staying here with me.”

“Why?” Serena looked at her cruelly for a moment. “Because I am a principessa?”

“Because I love you. I always did and I always will.” The old woman looked at her proudly, and tears rapidly filled Serena's eyes and she held out her arms from where she sat on the bed.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that.” Marcella went to her and sat down. “It just hurts me to think about the old days. Everything I loved about them is gone. To me all that mattered were the people I loved. I don't want the damn title. I'd rather have Norma still here, and just be me.”

“But she isn't, and this is what she has left you. It is all she has left you, and I know she would want you to be proud of it too. Don't you want to be a principessa, Serena?” She looked at the girl in surprise.

“No.” Serena shook her head solemnly. “I want my breakfast.” She had only eaten bread and cheese at the station the day before. And she had forgotten dinner completely. But now she laughed at Marcella's earnestness, and the old woman dried her eyes and growled.

“You haven't grown up at all! You're just as impossible as you always were! Fresh … rude. …” The old woman grumbled and Serena stretched and got lazily out of bed with a grin.

“I told you. Princesses are a bad lot, Celia. Bad blood.”

“Stop making light of that!” This time the growling was for real.

“Only if you stop taking it so seriously.” Serena looked at her gently, but there was something very determined in her eyes. “I have better things to think about now.” The old woman made no further comment, but went back to the pantry to make a steaming pot of coffee, another precious commodity that was still difficult to get enough of, after the war. But from Serena she was hoarding nothing. She lavished it all upon the young princess with the modern ideas. Crazy, all this nonsense about not wanting the title, not using it, not … it was ridiculous, Marcella grumbled to herself as she made breakfast. She had been born to be a principessa. Imagine not using the title! Ridiculous! She had obviously been in America for too long. It was high time she came home and remembered the old ways. Ten minutes later she called Serena to breakfast and the striking young beauty appeared in a blue cotton bathrobe they had given her at the convent, and her hair was brushed until it shone like gold in the bright morning sun. “What's for breakfast, Celia?”

“Toast, ham, jelly, peaches, coffee.” A wealth of treasures some of which, like the jelly and the sugar, she had been saving for months. Serena instantly understood, and kissed the wrinkled old cheek before she sat down. She promised herself that she would eat sparingly, no matter how ravenously hungry she was.

“All of this just for me, Marcella?” She felt guilty eating all of the old woman's treasures, but she knew also that not to eat them would be to hurt her feelings. So she ate, carefully, but with obvious pleasure, and they shared the coffee, right to the last drop. “You cook like an angel.” She closed her eyes and smiled happily in the morning sunshine, and the old woman touched the smooth young cheek with a smile.

“Welcome home, Serena.” There was a moment of happy silence and then Serena stretched her long legs out in front of her and smiled.

“You make me want to stay forever.” But she knew that she couldn't, and she wanted to leave before the temptation became too great to venture into the rest of the house. She didn't really want to do that. Even if part of her did. The rest of her did not.

Marcella was eyeing her thoughtfully as she stood up. “Why couldn't you stay, Serena? You don't have to go back to the States.”

“No. But I have no reason to stay here.” Except that she loved it and it was home.

“Don't you want to stay?” Marcella looked hurt and Serena smiled.

“Of course I do. But I can't just move in. I have to have a place to live, a job, all of that. I don't know that I could find work in Rome.”

“Why do you have to work?” The old woman looked annoyed. She wanted to hold on to the past, Serena realized with a smile.

“Because I have to eat. If I don't work, I won't eat.”

“You could live here.”

“And eat your food? What about you?”

“We'll have plenty. The Americans throw away more than all of the Romans eat put together. There will be everything we need here once they move in upstairs.”

“And how do we explain me, Marcella?” Serena continued to look amused. “Resident principessa? Good luck charm? Your good friend? We just tell them they're lucky to have me, and I stay?”

“It's none of their business who you are.” Marcella looked instantly defensive.

“They might not agree with you, Celia.”

“Then you can work for them. As a secretary. You speak English. Don't you?” She looked at Serena with curiosity. After four years, she should, she was a bright girl after all. And as she listened Serena grinned.

“Yes, I do, but they wouldn't hire me as a secretary. They have their own people for that. Why should they hire me?” And then suddenly, her eyes began to sparkle. She had an idea.

“You thought of something?” Marcella knew that look only too well. It always made her faintly nervous, but often Serena's most outrageous ideas had been good.

“Maybe. Who does one speak to about jobs here?”

“I don't know.…” She looked pensive for a moment. “They gave me an address, in case I knew of any girls to help me with the house.” She looked instantly suspicious. “Why?”

“Because I want to apply for a job.”

“To do what?”

“I'll see what they have.” It was one thing to arrive, oblivious with exhaustion, and spend a night in Marcella's cozy servants' quarters. It was quite another to live eternally belowstairs in a house that had once been her own. And she knew that she wasn't ready yet to go upstairs. But if they gave her a job, she would have to. She would just have to tell herself that it was their house, that it had nothing to do with her, or anyone she knew, and that she had never seen it before, but she was still quaking a little inside as she rounded the end of the Via Nazionale and passed the Baths of Diocletian as she turned into the Piazza della Repubblica and found the address. What if they didn't give her a job? Then what would she do? Scrape up the last of her money and make her way back to the States? Or stay here, in Rome? But for what? For her heart, she told herself as she pushed open the heavy door into the American offices that had been established there. Rome was where she had to be. She smiled as she thought of it, and she was still smiling to herself as she stepped into the building and collided almost instantly with a tall man with a boyish grin and a headful of thick blond curls under his military hat. On him the hat looked jaunty and-he had it perched at a rakish angle, and his gray eyes seemed to dance with amusement as he looked into Serena's green eyes. For an instant she was tempted to smile at him, but her face grew rapidly serious, and as always when confronted with a uniform, she averted her eyes. No matter how handsome the man was, or how friendly, the uniforms always reminded her of her old nightmares, and she couldn't bear to look the men in the eyes.

“I'm sorry.” He gently touched her elbow as though to convey his apology in case she did not speak his language. “Do you speak English?” His eyes combed her face, and he was instantly struck by her perfect creamy satin beauty, the wheat-gold hair, the huge green eyes, but he noticed too the stiff way she pulled away from him after their brief collision, and then the chilly way she looked at him once she had regained her composure, caught her breath, and stepped back. She seemed not to understand what he was saying, and he smiled and said a few words to her in Italian. “Scusi, signorina. Mi displace molto. …” And then he faltered with a captivating smile. But Serena did not appear captivated, inclined her head, indicating that she understood and murmured, “Grazie.” Her attitude would have annoyed him except that in the brief moments he had watched her he had seen the pain lurking deep within the bright green eyes. He had seen others like her. Everyone had suffered in the war. The Ice Maiden, he dubbed her to himself as he went on his way.

He had noticed instantly her spectacular beauty, but chasing the locals had never been Major B. J. Fullerton's forte. He had managed not to do any of that since he had arrived. He had ample reason not to. The major was engaged to one of the most beautiful young socialites in New York. Pattie Atherton had been the most ravishing debutante of 1940, and now at twenty-three, she was engaged to be his wife. B.J. smiled to himself again, with a little whistle as he hurried down the steps to the waiting limousine. He had a lot to do that morning, and his encounter with Serena slipped quickly from his mind.

Inside, Serena had pondered the available desks for a quiet moment, headed toward one marked EMPLOYMENT, with a subheading in Italian LAVORO, and had then explained in halting English what it was she wanted in the way of work. She was anxious not to let them know how well she spoke English. It was none of their business, she had decided. And above all, she did not want a job as translator, or as Marcella had suggested, as a secretary. All she wanted was to scrub floors in her old home, beside Marcella, and for that she barely needed to speak English at all.

“You're familiar with the existing housekeeper, you say, miss?” She nodded. “Did she send you here?” The Americans spoke loudly and precisely to the Italians, assuming that they were both stupid and deaf. Serena nodded again. “How well do you speak English? A little? More than that? Can you understand me?”

“Si. Un po' … a leetle. Enough.” Enough to clean floors and polish silver, she thought to herself, and apparently the woman in uniform at the desk thought so too.

“All right. The major moves in on Tuesday. His aide-de-camp will be there too, and the sergeant who attends to his household. In addition, there will be three orderlies. I think they're going to be housed in some old servants' rooms upstairs.” Serena knew immediately which ones. The rooms under the roof were hot but well aired, and had been occupied by several of her parents' servants over the years. The better quarters were belowstairs, and she was pleased that she and Marcella were keeping those. “We haven't found another girl yet, but we're still looking. Do you think that, in the meantime, you and this woman Marcella can handle it alone?”

“Yes.” Serena answered quickly. She was not anxious to have an intruder belowstairs.

“The other woman seemed quite old when I saw her. What about heavy work?”

“I'll do.” Serena stood to her full height and made an effort to stand even straighter and taller than usual. “I am nineteen.”

“Good. Then maybe we won't need another girl.” The American woman mused, as suddenly Serena realized that if she did the heavy work and discouraged them from hiring another young woman to help her, then she would be spending most of her time upstairs with “them,” in the rooms she had hoped to avoid. But one couldn't have everything. She would just have to brace herself and do it. It was worth it, not to have a stranger around, downstairs with her and Marcella. She would have resented that more than she resented the American officers living upstairs in what had once been her house. It was crazy really, this business of her living with Marcella in a house that had once belonged to her family and now belonged to someone else and was being rented to the American army. What in hell was she doing there? She wasn't really sure, but for the moment it seemed to feel right, so she'd stay. “We'll send someone out to inspect the place on Monday and give you any necessary details. Please see to it that all the rooms are clean, especially the master bedroom. The major”—she smiled coquettishly and Serena thought she looked absurd—”is used to very handsome quarters.” The comment was wasted on Serena, who didn't really care. The American woman stood up then, handed Serena some papers to sign, and explained that she'd be paid in lire on the first and fifteenth of every month. Fifty dollars a month plus room and board was what it amounted to. And it sounded good to Serena. Very good. She left the building on the Piazza della Repubblica with a happy grin, and by the time she got back to her own house and stepped into her little apartment with Marcella in the basement, she was singing old familiar songs.

“My, my, so happy. They must have hired you to work for the general.”

“No.” She grinned at Marcella. “Or should I say yes? They hired me to work for my very own general: you.” For a blank moment Marcella didn't seem to understand her.

“What?”

“You heard me. I will be working for you. Starting on Monday. Or before, if you'd like.”

“Here?” Marcella looked stunned. “In the palazzo?”

“That's right.”

“No!” Marcella turned on her instantly, outraged. “You tricked me! I gave you that address so that you could get a good job! Not a job like this!”

“This is a good job.” And then gently, “It's good enough for you, Celia. And I want to be here with you. I don't want to work in an office. I just want to be here. In the house.”

“But not like that. Santa Maria … what an insanity. But you're crazy. You can't do that?”

“Why not?”

And then it began. “Because,” Marcella railed at her, “you are forgetting who you are again, Principessa.”

Serena's eyes began to flash green fire as she looked down at the little woman who had worked for her family for forty-seven years. “And you'd better forget it too, Marcella. Those days are over. And whatever my title, I don't have a dime to my name. Nothing. If it weren't for you taking me in, I'd be sleeping in some fleabag, and if it weren't for their giving me work scrubbing floors, I would starve to death damn soon. I'm no different than you are now, Marcella. That's all. It's that simple. And if I am satisfied with that, then you'd damn well better be too.”

The older woman was silenced by Serena's speech, at least temporarily. And late that night, on tiptoe, Serena ventured upstairs at last. The visit was less painful than she had feared it would be. Almost all the furniture she had loved was gone now. All that remained were a few couches, an enormous grand piano, and in her mother's room the extraordinary canopied antique bed. It had been left here because it would fit nowhere else. It was only that that distressed Serena. That bed in which she could still see her mother, radiant and lovely in the morning when Serena had come in to see her for a few moments before school. Only in that room did she truly suffer. In the others she stood for a quiet moment, seeing things that were no more, remembering evenings and afternoons and dinners, Christmas parties with all of her parents' friends, and tea parties when her grandmother visited from Venice … visits with Sergio … and others. It was a quiet pilgrimage from room to room, and when she came back downstairs to Marcella, she looked strangely peaceful, as though she had laid the ghosts to rest at last. There was nothing left that she was afraid of. It was only a house now, and she would be able to work in it for the Americans, doing whatever she had to, to go on living there, in the palazzo, and to stay in Rome.

5

Serena was up at the crack of dawn the next morning. She washed and pulled her golden hair into a knot at the nape of her neck, and then concealed it beneath another dark cotton scarf. She wound the piece of navy blue cloth around her head, bandanna fashion, and then slipped into an old blue cotton dress, which she had worn at the convent in Upstate New York to go berry picking with the younger girls. It had already been patched in a number of places, and it was faded to a color that suggested long years of use. Beneath the dress Serena put on thick dark stockings, sturdy shoes, and over the front of the blue dress she tied a clean white apron, and then looked into the mirror with a serious face. It was certainly not an outfit for a principessa. But even with the dark blue bandanna there was no concealing the beautiful face. If anything, it seemed to provide a contrast for the pale peach hue of her cheeks and the brilliant green of her eyes.

“You look ridiculous in that outfit.” Marcella looked at her with instant disapproval as she poured their coffee and the first hint of daylight crept over the hills. “Why don't you wear something decent, for God's sake?” But Serena said nothing to the old woman. She only smiled as she sipped the hot coffee and closed her eyes in the hot steam as she held the cup in her hands. “What do you think the Americans will think of you wearing that old dress, Serena?”

“They will think that I'm a hard worker, Marcella.” The green eyes met hers quietly over the cup of coffee, and she looked older and wiser than her years.

“Ah … nonsense!” She looked more annoyed than she had the night before. She thought the whole thing was ridiculous. Worse than that, she felt guilty for suggesting to Serena that she get a job at all. She was still hoping that Serena would forget herself and speak to her new employers in good English and that by the next morning she would be working for the commanding officer as his secretary, in one of the large handsome rooms upstairs.

But half an hour later even Marcella had forgotten those hopes. They were both busy running up and down stairs, helping the orderlies to carry boxes, and figuring out what to put in what rooms. It was mostly Serena who helped them. Marcella was too old to run up and down the stairs. But Serena ran rapidly alongside them and seemed to be in a thousand places, saying little, overseeing everything, and seeming to assist with a dozen pairs of hands.

“Thank you.” The head orderly smiled at her at the end of the afternoon as she brought him and his men six cups of steaming coffee. “We couldn't have managed without you.” He wasn't sure if she understood him, but he knew that she spoke a little English and she would easily understand the tone of his voice and his broad smile. He was a heavyset man in his late forties, he had a broad chest, a bald head, and warm brown eyes. “What's your name, miss?” Serena hesitated for only a moment, and then knowing that it would have to come sooner or later, she spoke softly.

“Serena.”

“Sereena.” He repeated immediately with the American pronunciation, but she didn't mind it. And after a day of watching him work as hard as his men, she didn't mind him. He was a good man and a hard worker, and he had helped her often, taking heavy boxes from her, in spite of her protests. But he simply took them in his huge hands and continued up the stairs.

He was the first man in the uniform of any country who had actually won one of her rare smiles. “My name is Charlie, Serena. Charlie Crockman.” He put out one of his thick hands and she extended hers. Their eyes met for a moment and he smiled again. “You worked very hard today.”

“And you too.” She smiled shyly, not looking at the other men.

But Charlie laughed. “Not nearly as hard as we're going to work tomorrow.”

“More?” Serena looked shocked. They had already filled every room with boxes and files and cabinets and luggage, desks and lamps and chairs and a hundred other things. Where on earth would they put anything more? she wondered, but Charlie Crockman shook his head.

“No, nothing like that. Tomorrow we get down to the real work here. The major will be here tomorrow morning.” He rolled his eyes with another grin. “And we'd damn well better have everything unpacked and moving by noon.” The men groaned and broke into conversation.

“I thought he went to Spoleto for the weekend?” one of the men complained loudly, but Charlie Crockman shook his head again.

“Not him. If I know the major, he'll be here tonight until midnight, setting up his files and his desk.” Now mat he and his men had moved in, the army had also assigned the major a fresh load of tasks. B.J. Fullerton had been something of a hero during the war, and now he was getting his first shot at something important behind a desk. Hence the palazzo.

“Shit.” Serena heard one of the men say it and appeared not to hear them, and a few minutes later as they continued the conversation she slipped away. In the cozy kitchen she found Marcella, soaking her feet and sitting back in a chair with her eyes closed. Serena slipped her hands onto the old woman's shoulders and began to massage gently, as Marcella smiled.

“Sei tu?”

“Who do you think it is?”

“My little angel.” They both smiled. It had been a long day.

“Why don't you let me cook dinner tonight, Celia?” But the old woman wouldn't hear of it. She already had a tiny chicken in the oven, and there was pasta bubbling softly on the stove. There would be fresh lettuce from the garden, and some carrots and some basil, and the little tomatoes Marcella had just started to grow. It was a delicious meal when it was all over, and Serena could hardly keep her eyes open as she helped clear the table and urged Marcella to go to bed. She was too old to work as hard as she had. “And tonight I'm making you hot milk and sugar. And that's an order!” She smiled at the woman who had taken her in only days before, and the old woman inclined her head.

“Ah, Principessa … you are too good. …”

But Serena was quick to bridle. Her eyes flashed as she took a step back and straightened her head. “Stop that, Marcella.”

“I'm sorry.” Tonight the old woman didn't argue. She was too tired, and she ached all over. It had been years since she worked so hard. Even if Serena had done most of it with the Americans, just being there trying to help had exhausted Marcella. She felt guilty for having let Serena do so much. She had tried in the beginning to keep her from it with whispers of “Principessa!” But Serena had silenced her rapidly with a ferocious scowl, and gone on with her own work.

“Go on, go to bed, Celia. I'll bring you the milk in a minute.” With a sleepy yawn the old woman complied and shuffled off, and then with a glance over her shoulder, she remembered something and paused in the doorway with a frown.

“I have to go back upstairs.”

“Why?”

“To lock up. I don't know if they know how to do it. I want to check the front door before I go to bed. I told them I would. And they told me to make sure that all of the indoor lights are out.”

“I'll do it for you.”

She hesitated for a moment and then nodded. She was too tired to argue, and Serena could do that. “All right. But just for tonight.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Serena smiled to herself as she poured the milk into a cup and went to get the sugar. A few minutes later she stood in the doorway to Marcella's tiny bedroom, but the gentle snores from the bed told her that it was already too late. She smiled and then took a sip of the warm liquid, and then slowly she walked to the kitchen, sat down, and drank the milk herself. When she finished, she washed the cup and saucer, dried them, and put away the last of the dishes, and then with a sigh, she opened the door to their basement quarters and walked slowly up the back stairs.

She found everything in order in the main hallway. The grand piano still stood there as it had for decades, and the chandelier in the entry burned as brightly as it had when her parents were there. Without thinking, she turned her face up toward it, smiling to herself as she remembered how much it had enchanted her when she was a child. It had been the best part of her parents' parties, standing on the circular marble staircase, watching men in dinner jackets or tails and women in brilliantly colored evening clothes drift beneath the many faceted crystal chandelier as they wandered through the hall and out into the garden, to stand near the fountain and drink champagne. She used to listen to them laughing, trying to hear what they were saying. She used to sit there in her nightgown, just around the bend, peeking at them, and now as she thought of it again she laughed to herself as she walked up the same stairs. It gave her an odd feeling now to be here in the dark of night, with all of the others gone. The memories at the same time delighted and chilled her. They filled her with longing and regret all at the same time, and as she began to walk down the second-floor landing, she suddenly felt a wave of homesickness overtake her, the likes of which she hadn't felt in years. Suddenly she wanted to be in her old room, to sit on her bed, to look out the window at the garden, just to see it, to sense it, to become part of it again. Without thinking, she put a hand up to the now dusty navy blue bandanna and pulled it slowly off her head and released the long shining blond hair. It was not unlike the gesture she used to make when she took off the hat to her school uniform as she came home every day and ran up the stairs to her room. Only now she checked in the doorway, and the room was almost empty. There was a desk there, a book shelf, several file cabinets, some chairs … none of the familiar furniture, none of the things that had been hers. It was all long gone.

With a determined step she walked to the window, and there she saw it … the fountain … the garden … the enormous willow tree. It was all exactly as she had left it, and she could remember standing at precisely the same spot in the same window, gently frosting the glass with her breath in winter as she looked out there, wishing that she didn't have to do her homework and that she could go outside to play. And if she closed her eyes very tightly, she would hear them, her mother and her friends, laughing outside, talking, wandering along, playing croquet in the springtime, or gossiping about their friends in Rome.… She would see her there in a blue linen suit… or a silk dress … or a big picture hat … perhaps holding some freshly cut roses, looking up to Serena's windows and waving and—

“Who are you?” The voice she heard behind her sounded ominous, and with a small scream Serena flung out her arms and jumped in terror, wheeling around quickly and clutching the wall behind her with both hands. All she could see was the frame of a man silhouetted in the darkness. The room was still dark, and the light in the hallway was too dim and distant to be of much assistance. She didn't know who he was or what he was doing there, or if he would hurt her, and then as he took a step toward her she saw the shine of the insignia on his lapels. He was in uniform and suddenly she remembered what the head orderly had said earlier that evening, about the major being there until midnight, setting up his desk.

“Are you”—it was barely a croak as her entire body trembled —”the major?”

“The question I asked was who are you?” His voice sounded terrifyingly firm, but neither of them moved and he did not turn on the light behind him. He just stood there, looking down at her, wondering why she seemed so familiar. He sensed something about her, even in the moonlight filtering in from the garden. He had the impression that he had seen her somewhere before. He had been watching her since she had entered the room that was to be his office. He had just turned off the light when he heard her footsteps on the stairs. At first his hand went automatically to the pistol lying on his desk, but he had decided quickly that he didn't need it, and now he only wondered who she was and where she had come from, and why she was here, at the Palazzo Tibaldo, in his office at ten o'clock at night.

“I—I'm sorry.… I came upstairs to turn off the lights.” For an instant she had almost wanted to say “Sir,” and then she was annoyed at her own reactions. It was something about the uniform that she could see more clearly now, the clustered insignia on his lapel, and the imperious tilt of his head. “I'm sorry.”

“Are you? That still doesn't answer my question.” His voice was cold and even. “I asked you who you were.”

“Serena. I work here.” Her English was better than she wanted it to be, but under the circumstances she decided not to play any games with him. It was better that he understood her, otherwise, God forbid, he could have had her arrested, or fired, and she didn't want that. “I am a maid here.”

“What were you doing upstairs here, Serena?” His voice was gentler than it had been at first.

“I thought I heard sounds … noises. …” Her eyes darted from his in the darkness. Perhaps she would have to play games with him after all. “I came to see what was wrong.”

“I see.” He looked at her more closely and knew that she was lying. He had made no sound at all for several hours, not even when he turned off the light. “You're very courageous, Serena.” His eyes mocked her and she knew it. “And what would you have done if I had been an intruder?” He looked down at the slim shoulders, the long graceful arms, the delicate hands, and she understood the look he gave her.

“I don't know. I would have called for … someone … to help me … I suppose.”

He continued to watch her and slowly walked toward the light he had turned off only moments before. Now he switched it on again and turned to look at her more closely. She was a strikingly beautiful girl, tall and graceful and lovely, with eyes of green fire and hair like Bernini's gold. “I suppose you know that no one would have come to help you. There is no one here.”

But this time it was Serena who bridled as she watched him. Was that a threat he had just made her? Would he dare to assault her in this room? Did he think that they were alone? She looked at the tall, lean, young American, and she could sense that, even in the uniform, he was something more. This was not just another American major, this was a man who was accustomed to command, and to having his wishes granted, and if what he wanted now was her, she knew that he would see to it that that was what he got. “You are mistaken.” This time she felt no urge to add “Sir.” “We are not alone here.” She spoke with precision and certainty and a look of fury building in the green eyes.

“Aren't we?” He seemed surprised. Had she brought someone with her? She was a cheeky little thing if she had, but nothing would surprise him, perhaps she and her boyfriend had come to the lovely palazzo to make love. He raised an eyebrow and Serena took a step back.

“No, we are not alone.”

“You brought a friend?”

“I live here with my … zia … my aunt.” She faltered again on purpose.

“Here? In the palazzo?”

“She is waiting for me at the foot of the stairs.” It was a brazen lie, but he believed her.

“Does she work here too?”

“Yes. Her name is Marcella Fabiani.” She just hoped that the major had never met her. She had hoped to conjure an image of a dragon who would not allow him to hurt her. But a mental image of the ancient, heavyset, soundly snoring Marcella crossed her mind and she almost groaned aloud. If truly this man meant to hurt, or rape, her there would indeed be no one at hand to help her escape.

“And you are Serena Fabiani, then, I imagine?” He looked her over carefully once again and Serena paused for only a moment before nodding.

“Yes, I am.”

“I'm Major Fullerton, as I imagine you've gathered. Not an intruder. This is my office. And I do not want to see you here again. Not unless it's during daytime hours and you're working or if I ask you to come up here. Is that clear?” She nodded, but despite the stern words she had the feeling that he was laughing at her. There were little lines beside the gray eyes that made one suspect that he wasn't nearly as serious as he seemed. “Is there a door between your quarters and the palazzo?” He gazed at her with interest, but this time she was looking him over too. He had a thick handsome mane of blond hair given to curls, broad shoulders, and what appeared to be powerful arms. He had well-formed hands and long graceful fingers … long legs … in fact he was very attractive, but also terribly cocky. She found herself wondering what kind of family he came from. He reminded her all of a sudden of some of the old playboys of Rome. And perhaps that was why he was asking her if there was a door between her quarters and the palazzo, and suddenly she stood a little taller and made no attempt to hide the fire in her green eyes.

“Yes, Major, there is. It goes directly into my aunt's bedroom.”

Understanding what had happened, B. J. Fullerton had to fight not to burst into laughter. She was really an outrageous young girl and in a way she amused him, but he had no intentions of letting on. Here she was in the middle of the night, in his office, and she was staring him down and implying that he might try to intrude on her. “I see. Then we'll attempt not to disturb your aunt in the future. I was going to suggest mat we have the door between your quarters and the rest of the palazzo permanently closed, so that …er… you are not tempted to go wandering. And of course, once I move in here tomorrow, there will be a sentry posted outside the palazzo, so that if you hear anything at night”—he looked at her pointedly but her eyes didn't waver and she didn't flinch—”you won't need to come to my rescue.”

“I did not come to your rescue, Major. I came to see if there was a robber. It is my responsibility”—this time she struggled with the word for real and once again he had to fight not to smile—”to protect the house.”

“I'm sure I'm deeply grateful for your efforts, Serena. But in future that won't be a necessary part of your job.”

“Bene. Capisco.”

“Very well then.” He hesitated for only a moment. “Good night.”

She made no move to leave him. “And the door?”

“The door?” He looked blank for a moment.

“The door to our quarters. You will have it closed tomorrow?” It would mean that they would have to go outside and up the front steps each time someone rang for them or they had an errand to do in the main body of the palazzo. For Marcella it would be a real hardship, and a nuisance for Serena as well. But now the major began to smile slowly. He couldn't resist any longer. She was really very funny, and so stubborn and so brave and so determined, he wondered what her story was, and where she had learned to speak English. In her nervousness at being discovered in his office, she had allowed him to see that she spoke his language very well.

“I think we can let the door go for the moment. As long as you can resist the urge to wander up here at night. After all,” he said, looking at her mischievously for an instant, “you might accidentally wind up in my bedroom, and that would be awkward, wouldn't it? I don't recall your knocking tonight before you came in here.” This time he saw her blush almost purple, and for the first time since he had spoken to her in the darkness, she lowered her eyes from his. He was almost sorry that he had just teased her. He suddenly realized that she was probably even younger than she looked. For all he knew she was a tall girl of fourteen and just looked a few years older. But you never knew with Italian women. He realized now that he was being unfair to Serena. She was still looking in the direction of her sturdy convent shoes and dark stockings and he cleared his throat and walked to the door, held it open, and this time said firmly, “Good night.”

She walked out without looking at him again and with her head held high she answered, “Buona none.” He heard her clatter down the stairs a few seconds later, and then walk across the endless marble hall. He saw all of the lights go out beneath him, and then as he listened he heard a door close gently in the distance. The door to her aunt's bedroom? He grinned to himself, remembering the outrageous story.

She was a strange girl—also quite a beauty. But she was also a headache he didn't need. He had Pattie Atherton waiting for him in New York and just thinking about her brought forth a vision of her in a white organdy evening dress with a blue velvet sash, over it she had worn a blue velvet cape trimmed with white ermine, in sharp contrast to the shiny black hair, creamy skin, and big baby-doll blue eyes. He smiled to himself as he walked toward the window and stared out into the garden, but it wasn't Pattie he thought of as he looked out there. It was Serena who wandered back into his head, with her huge, determined green eyes. What had she been thinking as she stood there, staring out at the garden? What had she been looking for? Or who? Not that it really mattered. She was just one of the maids assigned to cleaning the palazzo, even if she was very pretty and very young.

But still the thought of her gnawed at him as he looked around his office for a last time before going to his room.

6

“Serena! Stop that!” It was Marcella whispering fiercely over her shoulder as Serena stooped to scrub the bathroom floor in the room occupied by Charlie Crockman, and seeing her that way was something Marcella could still not bear.

“Marcella, va bene.…” She waved the old woman away like a big friendly dog, but the woman stooped down again and attempted to take the cloths from Serena's hand. “Will you stop that?”

“No, I won't.” And this time Marcella's eyes filled with mischief as she sat down on the rim of the tub and whispered to Serena. “And if you don't listen to me, Serena, I'll tell them.”

“Tell them what?” Serena brushed a long strand of blond hair from her eyes with a grin. “That I don't know what I'm doing? They probably already know that themselves.” She sat back on her heels with a smile of her own. She had been working for the Americans for almost a month now and it suited her perfectly. She had food in her belly, a bed to sleep in at night, she was living with Marcella, who was the only family she had left, and she was living in what had once been her home. What more could she want? she asked herself daily. A great deal, she answered now and then, but that was neither here nor there. This was what she had. She had written to Mother Constance that everything had worked out well. She had told her of her grandmother's death. She went on to report that she was living once again in her parents' home in Rome, though she did not explain under what circumstances.

“Well, Serena?”

“What are you threatening me with now, you old witch?” The two were bantering in whispered Italian. But it was a pleasant break. Serena had been working ceaselessly since six o'clock that morning and it was almost noon.

“If you don't behave yourself, Serena, I'll expose you!”

Serena looked at her, amused. “You'll steal all my clothes!”

“Shame on you! No, I'll tell the major who you are!”

“Oh, that again. Marcella, my love, to tell you the truth, I don't even think he'd care. The bathrooms have to be scrubbed, by a principessa or whoever else is around, and as hard as he works at his desk every night, I don't even think he'd be shocked.”

“That's what you think!” Marcella looked at her meaningfully and Serena tilted her head to one side.

“What does that mean?” The major had developed a fondness for Marcella since he had moved into the palazzo, and Serena saw them chatting often. A few nights before, she had even seen Marcella darning his socks. But she herself had steered clear of him since their first meeting. She had never quite been sure of his intentions, and he seemed a little too quick and too perceptive for Serena to want to hang around him very much. He had been curious about Serena during his first week in the palazzo—she had seen him watching her on several occasions, with too many questions in his eyes. Thank God her papers were in order, in case he checked. “Have you been hanging around with the major again?”

“He's a very nice man.” Marcella said it with a reproachful glance at the young principessa still on her knees on Charlie Crockman's bathroom floor.

“So what? He's not our friend, Marcella. He's a soldier. He works here just like we do. And it's none of his damn business who I used to be.”

“He thinks you speak very good English.” Marcella said it with defiance.

“So what?”

“So maybe he could get you a better job.”

“I don't want a better job. I like this one.”

“Ah … davvero?” The old eyes glittered. “Really? I thought I remembered you crying last week over the cracks in your hands. And wasn't that you who couldn't sleep because your back hurt so much? And how are your knees from scrubbing the floors, and your feet and your—”

“All right… all right! Enough!” Serena sighed and tossed the brush back into the bucket of soapy water. “But I'm used to it now, and I want to be here.” She lowered her voice and her eyes pleaded. “Don't you understand that, Celia? This is my home … our home.” She corrected quickly and the old woman's eyes filled with tears as she patted Serena's cheek.

“You deserve more than this, child.” It broke her heart that life had been so unfair to the girl. But as she brushed the tears away with the back of one hand, Charlie Crockman found them that way and stared down at them in sudden embarrassment.

“Sorry.” He muttered before backing out quickly.

“Fa niente,” Serena called after him. She liked him, but she seldom spoke to him in English. She had nothing to say. She had nothing to say to any of them. She didn't have to. It didn't matter. Nothing did. Except that she could go on living here. It had become an obsession with her in the past month, being at home again and clinging to the memories. It was all she thought of now as she went from room to room, cleaning, waxing, dusting, and in the morning when she made the major's enormous bed, she pretended to herself that it was still her mother's. The only thing that disturbed the dream was that the room smelled of lime and tobacco and spice, like the major, not of roses and lily of the valley as it had almost ten years before.

When she had finished scrubbing Charlie Crockman's bathroom that morning, Serena took a hunk of bread and a piece of cheese and an orange and a knife and wandered slowly into the garden, where she sat down, looking at the hills beyond with her back against her favorite tree.

It was here that the major found her half an hour later, and he stood there for a long moment, watching her as she peeled the orange carefully and then lay in the grass and looked up at the tree. He wasn't sure whether or not to approach her, but there was still something about her that intrigued him. There was a special aura of mystery that surrounded Marcella's hardworking young niece. He still seriously doubted the story that they were related, but her papers were in order, and whoever she was, she worked damn hard for them. What difference did it make who she was? But the strange thing was that it seemed to make a difference to him. He thought of her often as he had seen her on that first evening, standing in his office in the dark, leaning against the window, looking out at that willow tree.

He wandered slowly closer to where she lay and then sat down quietly beside her, looking down into her face as she looked up at the tree and the sky and then him. She gave a little start as she saw him and then she sat up quickly, smoothing her apron over her skirt and covering her thickly stockinged legs, before she allowed her eyes to meet his.

“You always seem to surprise me, Major.”

Again he noticed that her English was better than she usually let on and he suddenly found himself wanting to tell her that she always surprised him. But instead he only smiled, the thick blond hair brushed softly by the September breeze. “You're drawn to this tree, aren't you, Serena?”

She nodded with a childlike smile and offered him part of her orange. For her, it was an enormous step. After all, he was a soldier. And she had hated all soldiers for so long. But there was something about him that made her want to trust him. Maybe because he was Marcella's friend. His eyes were kind as he accepted half of the orange and began to peel off sections as he sat beside her. For a moment she looked very far away. “When I was a little girl, I lived in a house … where I could see a tree … just like this one … from my window. Sometimes I used to talk to it at night.” She blushed then, and felt silly, but he only looked amused, as his eyes took in the smoothness of her skin and the long lines of her legs spread out ahead of her on the grass.

“Do you talk to this one?”

“Sometimes,” she confessed.

“Is that what you were going to do in my office that night, when I surprised you?”

She shook her head slowly, looking suddenly sad. “No, I just wanted to see it. My window—” She seemed to pull herself back. “The window of my room looked out just as this one does.”

“And that room?” He looked at her gently. “Where is it?”

“Here in Rome.”

“Do you still visit it?” He didn't know why, but he wanted to know more about her.

She shrugged in answer. “Other people live in the house now.”

“And your parents, Serena? Where are they?” It was a dangerous question to ask people after a war and he knew it. She turned slowly with a strange look in her eyes.

“My family are dead, Major. All of them.” And then she remembered. “Except Marcella.”

“I'm sorry.” He hung his head and riffled the grass with his hand. He had lost no one in this war. And he knew that his family was grateful that they had not lost him. Friends of his had died, but no cousins, no brothers, no uncles, no distant relations. It was a war that had barely touched the world he had lived in. And one of these days he knew that he would be going home too. Not yet though. He was still enjoying his work in Rome.

An orderly had come then and interrupted them. There was a phone call from General Farnham and he had to come at once. He looked at Serena regretfully over his shoulder for a moment and then he hurried inside and she didn't see him again.

When she climbed between the cool sheets that night after bidding good night to Marcella, she found herself thinking of the interlude that afternoon in the garden, of the long slender hands playing with the grass, the broad shoulders, the gray eyes. There was something so startlingly handsome about him, as though one expected to see him in evening clothes or playing football. He looked like other Americans Serena had seen in her four and a half years on the Hudson, but he was far more beautiful than any she had seen.

Oddly her thoughts were not unlike what Bradford Fullerton was thinking at that precise moment about her. He was standing alone in his office with the lights off, his jacket cast over a chair and his tie on the desk, looking out at the willow tree. He could still see the sun reflected in her eyes as she handed him half of the orange, and suddenly for the first time in a long time he felt a physical yearning, an overwhelming hunger, his body craving hers, as it had craved no one else's for a long time. He had been home on leave once for a week at the end of the war, and he had made passionate love to Partie, but he had been faithful to her since coming back, and he really had no desire to stray. Until now. All he could think of as he stood there was Serena, the shape of her neck, the grace of her arms, the way her waist narrowed to almost nothing beneath the starched white apron strings. It was insane. Here he was, engaged to the most beautiful woman in New York, and he suddenly had the hots for an Italian maid. But did that matter? He knew that it didn't, that he wanted her, and he didn't just want her physically—he wanted something more from Serena. He wanted her secrets. He wanted to know what lay in the deep mysterious shadows of those huge green eyes.

He stood there for what seemed like hours, staring out the window, his eyes glued to the tree, and then suddenly he saw her, like a vision, a magnificent ghost darting past the tree and then sitting quietly in the darkness, the long hair flowing in the breeze behind her, almost silver in the moonlight, the delicate profile turned up as though to sniff the night air, her eyes closed, and her body shrouded in what looked like a blanket as she stretched out her legs on the grass. He could see that her legs and feet were bare, and as he watched her he suddenly felt his whole body grow tense, as everything within him surged toward the mysterious girl. Almost as though he had no control over his actions, he turned and left the room, closing the door softly behind him, and hastily he ran down the long flight of marble stairs. He walked down the long stately hallway to a side door that he knew led into the garden, and before he could stop himself, he had walked softly across the grass until suddenly he stood there behind her, shivering in the breeze, trembling with desire and not sure of why he had come. As though she sensed him standing there, she turned and looked up at him with wide startled eyes, but she said nothing, and for a long moment he stood there and their eyes met and she waited, and silently he sat down beside her on the grass.

“Were you talking to your tree?” His voice was gentle, as he felt the warmth of her body beside his. He wasn't sure what to say to her, and it seemed foolish, but as he looked down into her face he saw now that it was shimmering with tears. “Serena? What's wrong?” For a long time she didn't answer, and then she shrugged with a little palms-up gesture and a lopsided smile. It made him want to take her in his arms, but he still didn't dare to. He wasn't sure what she would think. And he still wasn't sure what he thought himself. “What's the matter?”

She sighed then, and almost without thinking, she rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. “Sometimes …”She spoke softly in the cool darkness. “Sometimes it is very lonely … after a war.” Her eyes burned into his then. “There is no one. Not anymore.”

He nodded slowly, trying to understand her pain. “It must be very hard.” And then, unable to resist the questions that always plagued his mind, “How old are you, Serena?”

“Nineteen.” Her voice was like velvet in the darkness. And then, with a small smile, “And you?”

He smiled too. “Thirty-four.” He wasn't sure why, but he suddenly felt that she accepted him as a friend now. It was as though something different had begun to happen between them that afternoon. She shook her head from his shoulder, and he found that he missed the gentle pressure, and more than ever he found himself desperately hungry for her, as his eyes lingered over her lips and her eyes and her face. “Serena …” He wasn't sure of how to say it, or of what he wanted to tell her, but he knew that he had to say something about what he felt.

“Yes, Major?”

He laughed then. “For God's sake, don't call me that.” It reminded her of when she scolded Marcella for calling her Principessa and she laughed too.

“All right, then what do I call you? Sir?” She was teasing now, and suddenly more woman than girl.

He looked down at her for a long moment, his smile gentle, his eyes a deep sea-gray, and then he whispered, “Yeah … maybe you do call me Sir.” But before she could answer, he had taken her in his arms and kissed her, with a longing and a hunger and a passion that he didn't know he had. He felt his whole body press toward her, his arms held her close, and he never wanted to take his mouth from hers, as her lips gave in to his and their tongues probed and danced between his mouth and her own. He was almost breathless with desire when finally he peeled himself away slowly and she seemed to melt into his arms with a gentle sigh. “Oh, Serena …”Without saying more, he kissed her again, and this time it was Serena who came up for air. She shook her head slowly, as though to clear her head, and looked at him sadly in the moonlight, with fresh tears in her eyes.

“We shouldn't do this, Major … we can't.”

“Why can't we?” He wasn't sure she was wrong, but he knew that he didn't want to stop. “Serena …” He wanted to tell her that he loved her, but that was crazy. How could he love her? He barely knew her. And yet he knew that there was some extraordinary bond between him and this girl.

“Don't.” She put up a hand and he kissed the delicate fingers. “It's not right. You have your own life. This is only Rome,” she said, smiling sadly, “working its magic.” She had seen the photographs of Pattie Atherton in his bedroom and on his desk.

But the major was thinking only of Serena as he stared at the exquisite face in the moonlight and kissed her gently on the lips before pulling away to look at her again. She wasn't sure why she let him do it, but it was as though she had to, as though she had sensed from the first where it would end. But it was crazy … an American … a soldier? What would it lead to? She cringed at the thought.

“Why were you crying tonight, Serena?”

“I told you. I was lonely. I was sad.” And then, “I had been thinking about—” She didn't know how to say it. Her world was no more. “About things that are gone.”

“Like what? Tell me.” He wanted to know everything about her. Why she laughed, why she cried, whom she loved, whom she hated, and why.

“Ah …” She sighed for a moment. “How can I tell you what it was like? A lost world … another time, filled with beautiful ladies and handsome men. …” She thought suddenly of her parents and their friends, so many of them dead now, or having fled. She stopped talking for a moment as she thought of the faces that haunted her lately more and more, and the major watched her and saw her eyes grow bright with tears.

“Don't, Serena.” He pulled her into his arms and held her there as the tears rolled slowly down her face.

“I'm sorry.”

“So am I. I'm sorry that it happened to you.” And then he smiled to himself, remembering the story that she was Marcella's niece. That hardly matched up with her “lost world filled with beautiful ladies and handsome men.” He looked at the delicately carved face for a long time then, wondering who she really was and knowing that, to him, it didn't matter, and perhaps never would. She was special and lovely and he desired her more than he had ever desired anyone, even the woman to whom he was engaged. He didn't understand why that was true, but it was, and a part of him wanted to tell her that he loved her, but he knew that that was mad too. How could he love a girl he barely knew? And yet, he knew, as they sat huddled in the moonlight, that he did, and as she felt his arms around her Serena knew it too. He kissed her again then, long and hard and with passion and hunger. And without saying anything further, he stood up and pulled her up beside him, kissed her again, and then walked her slowly to her back door. He left her there, with a last kiss, and he said nothing further. There was nothing that he dared to say. And Serena stood there watching him for a long moment before she disappeared into the servants' quarters that she shared with Marcella and softly closed the door.

7

For the next few days Major B. J. Fullerton was as a man tormented, as he drifted through his duties without thinking or seeing, and Serena moved as though in a dream. She did not understand what had happened between her and the major, and she was not at all sure that she wanted it to happen again. For years now she hated wars, soldiers, uniforms, any army, and yet suddenly there she had been in the arms of the major, wanting no one else but him. And what did he want with her? She knew the answer to that question, or she thought so, and it made her bristle with anger each time she remembered the photograph by his bed of the New York debutante. He wanted to sleep with his Italian maid was what he wanted, a casual wartime story, and yet even as she bridled she remembered his touch and kisses beneath the willow tree and knew that she wanted more of him. It would have been difficult to say which of them looked the most unhappy as each struggled through their duties, observed by all, yet understood by only two. The major's orderly, Charlie Crockman, had exchanged a speaking glance with Marcella two days later, and yet the two had said nothing. The major barked at everyone, accomplished nothing, lost two folders filled with moderately important orders and then found them again as he fumed. Serena waxed the same patch of floor for almost four hours and then walked off leaving all her cloths and brushes abandoned in a central doorway, she stared right through Marcella, and went to bed without eating dinner.

They had not spoken to each other once since the night beneath the willow tree. By the next morning Serena had known that it was hopeless, and the major had been consumed with both guilt and fear. He was certain that Serena was innocent in every way, and surely a virgin, and the girl had suffered enough without adding a wartime affair with a soldier to her pains. In addition he had his fiancée to think of. But the problem was that it wasn't with Pattie that his thoughts were filled each morning and each evening and for a dozen hours in between. Every moment seemed to be filled with visions of Serena, and it wasn't until Sunday morning, as he looked down at her working in Marcella's vegetable patch in the garden that he decided he couldn't bear it any longer and he had to speak to her, at least to try to explain things before he went totally insane.

He hurried downstairs in khaki slacks and a light blue sweater, his hands in his pockets, and she stood up, surprised to see him, and pushed the hair out of her eyes.

“Yes, Major?” For an instant he thought there was accusation in her tone, but a moment later she was smiling, and he was beaming, and he knew that he was so damn glad to see her that he didn't care if she threw all her gardening tools at him. He had to talk to her. It had been agony, attempting to avoid her for the past four days.

“I wanted to talk to you, Serena.” And then, almost shyly, “Are you busy?”

“A little.” She looked very grown-up suddenly as she put the tools aside and stood up, her green eyes meeting his gray. “But not very. Do you want to sit down over there?” She pointed to a small wrought-iron bench, chipping but still pretty, left over from better days. She was relieved to speak to him now, and there was almost no one around to observe them. All of the orderlies were off on Sunday, Marcella had gone to church and to visit a friend. Only Serena had stayed home to tend the garden, she had gone to church early that morning, and Marcella didn't even try to drag her to visit the elderly friend. On the street side of the house were the usual two sentries, but other than that, they were alone.

The major followed her quietly to the little bench, and they sat down together. He lit a cigarette and stared into the distance, at the hills. “I'm sorry. I think I've behaved very badly this week, Serena. I think I've been a little crazy.” The gray eyes looked into hers frankly, and she nodded slowly.

“So have I. I didn't understand what happened.”

“Were you angry?” He had wondered for four days now. Or was she frightened? He knew he was, but he was not entirely sure why.

“Sometimes I was angry.” She smiled slowly and then sighed. “And sometimes I was not. I was frightened … and confused … and …” She looked at him, saying nothing further, and once again he felt an overwhelming desire to hold her and to touch her, and an even greater urge to make her his right there, under the trees in the autumn sunshine, on the grass. He closed his eyes as though in pain, and Serena reached out to touch his hand then. “What is it, Major?”

“Everything.” He opened his eyes slowly. “I don't understand what I'm feeling … what's happened.…” And then suddenly, with his whole mind and soul and being, he knew that he couldn't fight it any longer. “I love you. Oh, God.…” He pulled her to him. “I love you.” And as his lips found hers she felt desire surge up within her too, but it was more than that. It was a quiet longing to become his forever, to be a part of him, in order to become whole. It was as though here, in her parents' home, in their garden, she had found her future, as though she had belonged to this tall blond American major from the beginning, as though she had been born for him.

“I love you too.” It was the merest whisper, but she was smiling as she said it, and at the same time there were tears in her eyes.

“Will you come inside with me?” She knew what he was saying, but he didn't want to take her, to sweep her off her feet and carry her inside. He wanted her to know what she was doing. He wanted her to want it too.

Slowly she nodded and stood up beside him, her face turned up to his, her eyes larger than any he had ever seen, and solemnly he took her hand in his and they walked across the garden together, and Serena felt in an odd way as though they had just been married.… Will you take this man … ? Yes.… She felt her own voice ring out deep within her soul, as they mounted the stairs together and he closed the door behind her as they stepped inside. He put an arm around her waist then, and they walked slowly up the main staircase together to the bedroom that had been her mother's, and then as she stood on the threshold she began to tremble, her eyes riveted to the enormous four-poster, her eyes wide with memory and fear.

“I—I… can't.…” She spoke barely above a whisper, and he nodded. If she couldn't, then he wouldn't force her, but he wanted only to hold her, to caress her, to feel her and touch her and let his lips linger across her exquisite flesh.

“You don't have to, my darling … never … I won't force you … I love you. …” The words tumbled amid the extravagant satin of her hair, as his lips moved to her neck and her breasts and he gently pushed open the dark cotton dress with his lips, lusting after every inch of her, tasting her like nectar as his tongue traveled everywhere and she began to moan softly. “I love you, Serena … I love you.…”It was no lie, he both loved and wanted her as he had loved no woman before, and then, forgetting what she had said in the doorway, he picked her up gently and laid her on his bed, and slowly he peeled away her clothes, but she did not fight him, and her hands gently searched and held and nestled until he felt the powerful thrust of his own desire, and he could barely hold back anymore. “Serena,” he whispered her name hoarsely, “I want you, my darling … I want you. …” But there was a question in his words as well, and he watched her face now as her eyes sought his and she nodded, and then he slipped off the last of her clothing and she lay before him naked. He shed his own, and almost instantly he lay beside her and held her close to him, as his flesh pressed against hers. And then, ever so gently at first, and then with even greater hunger, he pressed inside her, pushing himself deeper and deeper into her center until she cried out in pain, and he lunged forward, knowing that it must be done at once, and then the pain was over and she clung to him and he began to writhe mysteriously as he carefully taught her love's wonders, and with great tenderness they made love until this time she arched her back suddenly and gave a shout, but not of pain. It was then that he let himself go unbridled until he felt hot gold shoot through him, until he seemed to float upon it in a jewel-filled sky. They clung together like that, drifting for what seemed like a lifetime, until he found her lying beside him, as beautiful as a butterfly having lighted in his arms.

“I love you, Serena.” With each passing moment the words had ever deeper meaning, and this time with the smile of a woman she turned toward him, and kissed him, gently fondling him with her hands. It seemed hours before he could bring himself to pull away from her, and he lay in the huge handsome bed, propped up on one elbow and smiling at this incredible golden mixture of woman and child. “Hello.” He said it as though he had just met her, and she looked up at him and laughed. She laughed at his expression, at what he had just said, and at the ghosts they had pushed aside, not roughly, but certainly with determination, as she lay in her mother's bed and looked up at the blue satin panels that reminded her of a summer sky. “It's pretty, isn't it?” He looked up at the cerulean satin and then smiled down at her again, but she was grinning strangely, and her laughter was that of a mischievous child.

“Yes.” She kissed the end of his nose. “It always was pretty.”

“What?” He looked confused.

“This bed. This room.”

He smiled at her gently. “Did you come here often with Marcella?” He asked the question in all innocence, and Serena could not restrain a gurgle of laughter. She had to tell him now. She had to. They had been secretly married in the garden by friendly spirits, and consummated their union in her mother's bed. It was time to tell him the truth.

“I didn't come here with Marcella.” She hung her head for a moment, touching his hand and wondering how to say the words. And then she looked into his eyes again. “I used to live here, Major.”

“Do you suppose you could call me Brad now? Or is that too much to ask?” He bent to kiss her, and she smiled afterward as she pulled away.

“All right. Brad.”

“What do you mean, you used to live here? With Marcella and your folks? Did the whole family work here?”

She shook her head solemnly, with a serious expression in her eyes. She sat up in feed then and pulled the sheets around her, as she held tightly to her lover's hand. “This was my mother's room, Brad. And your office was my room. That was—” Her voice was so soft he could barely hear her. “That was why I went there that night. The first time I saw you … that night in the dark.…” Her eyes bore into his then, and he stared at her in astonishment.

“Oh, my God. Then, who are you?” She said nothing for a long moment. “You're not Marcella's niece.” He grinned. He had suspected that long before.

“No.” There was another pause and then Serena drew a breath and hopped from the bed to drop him a deep and reverent curtsy. “I have the honor to be the Principessa Serena Alessandra Graziella di San Tibaldo.…” She rose from the curtsy then and stood before him in all her extraordinary elegance and beauty, naked in her mother's room, as Brad Fullerton stared at her in amazement.

“You're what?” But he had heard it all. As she began to repeat it he put up a hand quickly, and suddenly he began to laugh. So this was the Italian “maid” he had worried about seducing, Marcella's “niece.” It was wonderful and perfectly insane and delightfully crazy, and he couldn't stop laughing as he looked at Serena, and she was laughing too, and then at last she lay in his arms in her mother's bed and he grew pensive. “What a strange life for you, my darling, living here, working for the army.” He suddenly let his mind run over the work she had had to do in the past month and it no longer seemed so funny. In fact it seemed desperately cruel.

“How in hell did it all happen?” And then she told him, from the beginning, how it had been, from the days of dissent between her father and Sergio, her parents' death, the time in Venice, her flight to the States, and her return. And she told him the truth, that she had nothing, that she was no one now except a maid in the palazzo. She had no money, no belongings, nothing, except her history, her ancestry, and her name. “You have a great deal more than that, my love.” He gazed at her gently as they lay on the bed, side by side. “You have a magical gift, a special grace that few people have. Wherever you are, Serena, it will serve you well. You will always stand out. You are special, Marcella is right. You are a principessa … a princess.… I understand that now.” For him, it explained the magic about her. She was a princess … his princess … his queen. He looked at her with such tenderness then that it almost brought tears to her eyes.

“Why do you love me, Major?” She looked strangely old and wise and sad as she asked.

“I'm after your money.” He grinned at her, looking very handsome and younger than his years.

“I thought so. Do you think I have enough?” She smiled into his eyes.

“How much have you got?”

“About twenty-two dollars after last payday.”

“That's perfect. I'll take you. That's what I want.” But he was already kissing her, and they both wanted something else first. And after they had made love again, he held her and said nothing, thinking back to what she had gone through, how far she had come, just to come home, to return to the palazzo, where, thank God, he had found her. And now he would never let her go. But just as he thought that about Serena, his eyes drifted across to the photograph of a smiling dark-haired young woman in the silver frame on the marble-topped table beside his bed. It was as though Serena sensed where he was looking and she turned to see the photo of Pattie, smiling down at them both. She said nothing, but her eyes went to the major's and there was a question in them and he sighed softly and shook his head. “I don't know, Serena. I don't have the answer to that yet.” She nodded, understanding, but suddenly worried. What if she lost him? And she knew that she had to. The other woman was part of his world in a way that Serena wasn't, and perhaps could never be.

“Do you love her?” Serena's voice was gentle and sad.

“I thought I did. Very much.” Serena nodded and said nothing, and he gently took her chin in his hand and made her raise her eyes to his again. “I will always tell you the truth, Serena. I won't hide anything from you. That woman and I are engaged to be married, and I have no idea what in hell I'm going to do. But I love you. I honestly, truly, love you. I knew it the first minute I laid eyes on you, tiptoeing through my office in the dark.” They both smiled at the memory. “I have to think this thing out. I don't love her the way I love you. I loved her as part of a familiar, comfortable world.”

“But I'm not part of that world, Brad.”

“That does not matter to me. You are you.”

“And your family? Will they be satisfied with that too?” Her eyes said that she doubted it.

“They're very fond of Pattie. But that doesn't mean a damn thing.”

“Doesn't it?” Serena tried to look flip as she slid out of bed, but he pulled her back.

“No. I'm thirty-four years old. I have to lead my life, Serena, not theirs. If I wanted to lead their life, I'd already be out of the army, working for one of my father's friends in New York.”

“Doing what?” She suddenly had an insatiable curiosity about him.

“Working in a bank most likely. Or running for office. My family is very involved in politics in the States.”

She sighed tiredly and there was a cynical smile in her eyes. “My family was very involved in politics over here.” She looked at him with sorrow and wisdom and a hint of laughter, and he was glad to see that she could see the irony in the situation. “It's a little different there.”

“I hope so. Is that what you want to do? Go into politics?”

“Maybe. To tell you the truth I'd rather stay in the army. I've been thinking of making that my career.”

“How do they feel about that?” It was as though she had instantly sensed how great a power they wielded over him, or attempted to. And there were times when it was a battle royal. “Do they like that idea?”

“No. But that's life. And this is my life. And I love you. So don't you forget that ever. I'll make my own decisions.” He glanced at the photograph again. “About that as well. Capisci?”

She grinned at his American-accented Italian. “Capito.”

“Good.” He kissed her then, and a moment later he made delicious love to her again.

8

“You what?” Marcella looked at her in total amazement. For a moment Serena was afraid that she might faint.

“Relax, for heaven's sake. I told him. That's all.”

“You told the major?” Marcella looked as though she were going into shock. “What did you tell him?”

“Everything. About my parents. About this house.” Serena tried to look nonchalant, but it didn't come off and she burst into a nervous grin.

“What made you do that?” The old woman studied her shrewdly. She had been right, then. Serena had been falling in love with the handsome young American. Now all she had to do was hope that he married her, and her prayers would have been answered for the beloved girl. It was the only hope she could see for Serena, and she could tell from details she was used to observing that he was well brought up, probably from money, and she had long since decided that he was a very nice young man.

“I just did it, that's all. We were talking, and I felt dishonest not telling him the truth.” Marcella was too old and too wise to believe a word Serena was saying, but she nodded sagely and pretended to accept the tale.

“What did he say?”

“Nothing.” She smiled to herself.… That he loves me.… “I don't think that he cares about the title. Hell,” she said, grinning at Marcella, “I'm still just the upstairs maid to him.”

“Are you?” Celia watched her reactions. “Is that all you are to him, Serena?”

“Of course. Oh, well … I suppose we're friends now.…” Her words drifted off and Marcella considered for a moment, and then decided to push for an answer to the question that was on her mind.

“Do you love him, Serena?”

“Do I … why that's …” She began to bluster, and then dropping the pretense, she nodded slowly. “Yes. I do.” The old woman went to Serena to take her in her arms.

“Does he love you too?”

“I think so. But”—she sighed deeply and pulled free of the old woman's arms to wander about the room—”it doesn't mean anything though, Celia. I have to face the truth. He's here, it's the romance of Rome—the war. One day he'll go back—to the world he knows.”

“And he'll take you.” The old woman said it with pride. This special girl was, after all, like a part of herself.

“I don't think so. And if he did, it would be out of pity. It would be because he would be sorry to leave me here.”

“Good. Then go with him.” As far as Marcella saw it, everything was set. But Serena saw a great deal more than that.

“It's not that simple.”

“It is if you want it to be. Do you? Do you love him enough to go with him?”

“Of course I do. But that isn't the point. He has a life there, Celia. He isn't the kind of man to take a war bride home.…”

“War bride!” Marcella jumped to her feet. “War bride? Are you crazy? Sei pazza? You're a princess, or don't you remember? Did you remember to tell him that too?” She looked suddenly anxious and Serena laughed.

“Yes, I told him. But that's not everything. I have nothing, Celia. Not now. Nothing at all. No money, nothing. What will his family think if he comes home with me?” She had overnight become wise in the way of things, but Marcella didn't want to hear it.

“They'll think he's very lucky, that's what they'll think.” “Maybe.” But Serena didn't believe it. She was remembering the face she had seen so often in the pictures.… “My family is very fond of Partie,” she could hear him say. But would they be fond of her? It seemed unlikely. She felt ashamed now. As though she had been disgraced along with her Uncle Sergio and II Duce, her country had fallen apart around her and her life had too. She wandered out into the garden then and Marcella watched her go.

October was a dream month for Serena. She and Brad had worked out their affair with miraculous precision, and every night after dinner he went to his room, as Serena waited in hers. When Marcella went to bed, the orderlies had usually retired, and she tiptoed softly into the main house and made her way quietly up the marble staircase to his bedroom, where he waited for her with things to tell her, funny stories, sometimes a letter from his younger brother, white wine or champagne, or a plate of cookies, or photographs he had taken of her the previous weekend, which they sifted through. There was always something to share, to chuckle over, to enjoy, to discuss, and then inevitably a little while later there was the miracle of their lovemaking, the endless discoveries and pleasures she found in his arms. Eventually the photographs of Pattie had been relegated to his office, and now she never saw them at all. They spent the nights cozily tucked into his bed, and then they rose together, before the rest of the household, just before six in the morning. They sat for a moment, watching the sun come up, looking down at the familiar garden, and then with a last kiss, a last touch, an embrace, she went back to her quarters, and they each began the day. In a strange way it was like being newly married, because each lived to return to the other at the end of the day.

It was on a day at the very end of October that Serena came to him and found him upset and vague. He seemed jumpy when Serena put her arms around him, and when she said something to him about it, he appeared not to hear.

“What?” He looked up at her from the chair he'd been sitting in as he stared into the fire with a distant expression. “I'm sorry, Serena. What did you say?”

“I said that you looked worried about something, my darling.” Her voice was a whisper on his neck, and he sighed deeply and laid his head against hers.

“Not really. Just distracted.” As she looked at him closely she thought again what a proud head he had, what fine gray eyes, and now she knew also that he was both intelligent and kind. Sometimes too much so. He was a man whose greatest virtue was compassion, and he always struggled to understand and assist his men. Sometimes it made him not quite firm enough as a leader. He was never heartless. He always cared.

“What are you distracted about, B.J.?” He smiled at the nickname his men used. Serena seldom used it. When she teased him, she called him Major. Otherwise she called him Brad.

He looked at her thoughtfully now, and then decided that he had to tell her. He had wanted to wait until the next morning, but what was the point—there was never going to be a right time. “Serena …” Her heart stopped as she heard the way he said it. She knew what was coming. He was leaving Rome. “I had a telegram this morning.”. She closed her eyes as she listened, fighting back her tears. She knew she had to be brave when she heard it, but her insides had just turned to jelly. Her eyes fluttered open again quickly and she saw the pain in her eyes mirrored in his own. “Now come on, sweetheart, it's not that bad.” He took her in his arms and let his lips roam slowly over the soft spun-gold hair.

“You're leaving?” It was a hoarse whisper, and quickly he shook his head.

“Of course not. Is that what you thought?” He pulled away from her gently, his eyes loving yet at the same time sad. “No, darling. I'm not leaving. This is nothing official.” And then he decided to plunge ahead and tell her. “It's Partie. She's coming over. I'm not sure why. She says the trip is an engagement present from her father. Frankly I think that she's worried. I haven't been writing much lately and she called here the other morning, right after… I don't know. I couldn't talk to her.” He stood up and wandered slowly across the room, his eyes troubled and vague. “I couldn't say the things she wanted.” And then he turned to face Serena. “I couldn't play the game with her, Serena. I don't know. I'm not sure what to do. I probably should have written to her weeks ago, to break the engagement, but—” He looked desperately unhappy. “I just wasn't sure.”

Serena nodded slowly, the knife of pain slicing swiftly through to her very core. “You still love her, don't you?” It was more a statement than a question, and B.J. looked at her with fresh anguish in his eyes.

“I'm not sure. I haven't seen her in months now, and that was all so unreal. It was the first time I'd been home in three years. It was all so heady and so romantic, and our families were cheering us on. It was like something in a movie, I'm not sure it's something in real life.”

“But you were going to many her.”

He nodded slowly. “It's what everyone wanted.” And then he knew he had to be honest. “It was what I wanted too. It seemed so right at the time. But now …”

Serena closed her eyes for a moment as she stretched out in front of the fire, trying to bear the pain of what she knew would come. And then she looked at him again, not in anger, but in sorrow. She knew that she couldn't fight the pretty dark-haired woman. She had already won him. And Serena was no one. Just the upstairs maid, as she had said to Marcella. The ugliness of it all was that it was true.

“I know what you're thinking.” He said it miserably as he dropped into a chair near the window and ran a hand through his already tousled curly hair. Before she had come to him that evening, he had been sitting there for hours, thinking, weighing, asking himself questions to which he didn't have answers. “Serena, I love you.”

“And I love you too. But I understand also that this is very romantic, that it is wonderful, but it is this, Brad, that is not real. That girl, her family, they know you. You know them. That is your life. What can this really be between us? An extraordinary memory? A tender moment?” She shrugged. “This is more like ‘something in a movie.’ ” She was quoting him. “It is nothing in real life. You can't take me home. We can't get married. She's the one you should marry and you know it.” Her eyes filled with tears and she turned away as he strode rapidly toward her and pulled her into his arms.

“But what if I don't want to?”

“You have to. You're engaged to be married.”

“I could break the engagement.” But the bitch of it Was that he wasn't sure if that was what he wanted. He loved this girl. But he had loved Pattie too. And he had been so proud, so exhilarated, so excited. Was that what he felt now? Was that what he felt for Serena? No, it wasn't excitement, it was something different, something quiet. He felt protective and tender, and sometimes almost fatherly toward her. He wanted to be there for her. And he knew also that at the end of every day he wanted her to be there for him. He had come to count on her quiet presence, her thoughtful words, her quiet moments in which she weighed all that he said. She often said things that helped him later. As he sat at his desk, tackling a problem, he would hear the soft voice beside him and move steadily ahead. She gave him a force of which Pattie knew nothing. She had survived sorrow and loss and it had made her stronger, and it was that strength that she shared with him. At her side he felt as though he could scale mountains, in her arms he found a passion he had never known before. But would it last for a lifetime? And could he truly take her home with him? These were the things he wasn't sure of. Pattie Atherton was of his world, of his culture, she was part of an already existing tapestry. It was right that they should be together. Or was it? As he stared down into the deep green eyes of Serena, he was no longer sure. What he wanted was what he had as he held her, the passion, the warmth, the longing, the strength that they shared. He couldn't give that up. But maybe he would have to. “Oh, Christ, Serena … I'm just not sure.” He held her closer and felt her tremble. “I feel like such an ass. I know I should be doing something decisive. And the bitch of it is that you know and Pattie doesn't. I should at least tell her the truth.” He felt guilty about everyone, and torn from deep within.

“No, Brad, you shouldn't. She doesn't have to know. If you marry Pattie, she need never know about me.” It would be just another wartime affair, a soldier and an Italian. There were certainly enough of them around, Serena thought bitterly for a moment, and then she forced the anger from her mind. She had no right to be angry. She had given her heart to him and her self —done what she had done, knowing that there was another woman, and knowing full well that the affair might come to naught. She had gambled and probably lost. But she didn't regret the game. She loved him, and she knew that, whatever he felt for his fiancée, he also loved her. “When is she coming?” Her eyes burned into his and he took a deep breath.

“Tomorrow.”

“Oh, my God.” This was to be their last night, then. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I wasn't sure exactly when she was coming until tonight. I just got another telegram.” He pulled her into his arms.

“Do you want me to go now?” It was a small voice of bravado, and Brad was quick to shake his head and pull her closer still.

“No… oh, God, don't do that… I need you.” And then he felt suddenly guilty again as he realized how unfair he was being. He pulled back from her slowly. “Do you want to go?” This time it was Serena who shook her head, her eyes locked into his.

“No.”

“Oh, baby …” He buried his face in her neck. “I love you … I feel like such a weakling.”

“You're not. You're only human. These things happen. I suppose,” she sighed wisely, “that they happen every day.” But nothing like it had ever happened to him before. He had never felt this confused. There were two women he wanted, and he had no idea which one was the right way to turn. “Come.” Serena stood up and took his hand then. And when he looked up at her, she seemed more a woman to him than she ever had before. The idea that she was only nineteen was preposterous. She was as old and as wise as time as she stood there, smiling gently, holding out her arms to him, and slowly he stood up. “You look tired, my darling.” She was aching inside, but she didn't let him see that. Instead all that she showed him was her love for him, and her quiet strength. It was the same strength that had allowed her to survive the death of her parents, her banishment to the States, and the loss of her grandmother during the war. It was the same strength that had allowed her to return, and live in the palazzo in the servants' quarters, scrubbing bathroom floors and forgetting that she had ever been a principessa. Now it was that strength that she gave to him. She led him silently into the bedroom, stood beside her mother's bed, and began to take off her clothes slowly. It was an evening ritual between them, and sometimes he helped her and sometimes he only watched, admiring the graceful beauty of her young body and long limbs. But tonight he couldn't keep his hands from her, as the moonlight danced in her platinum hair, and his own clothes lay in a heap beside him before she was undressed, and rapidly he lifted her onto the bed and covered her body with his warm, hungry lips.

“Oh, Serena darling … I love you so.…”

She whispered his name in the moonlight, and for long hours before sunrise they forgot that there was another woman, and again and again Serena was his.

9

Major B.J. Fullerton stood looking very tall and straight and handsome at the military airport outside Rome. Only his eyes looked faintly troubled, and there were weary smudges to indicate that he had slept little, and as he lit a cigarette he realized that his hands were trembling. It seemed foolish to be nervous about seeing Pattie, but he was. Her father, Congressman Atherton of Rhode Island, had arranged for her to join a military flight over, and she was due in ten minutes. For a brief moment B.J. wished that he had had a drink before he left the house. And then suddenly he saw the plane, circling high above and then drifting lower, heading toward the runway, and finally making a graceful landing, then taxiing down the runway toward the small hastily erected building where he stood. He stood very still as he watched two colonels and a major step down the gangway, then a small cluster of military aides, one woman dressed in the uniform of a military nurse, and then he felt his heart break into a gallop as he saw her, standing at the top of the gangway, looking across the tarmac until she saw him, waving and smiling gaily, the raven hair neatly tucked into a bright red hat. She was wearing a fur coat and dark stockings, and she touched the railing, as she made her way down the stairway, with one elegant little hand neatly encased in a black kid glove. He was struck, even at this distance, by how pretty she was. That was the right word for Pattie. Pretty. She wasn't beautiful like Serena. She wasn't striking. But she was pretty, with a brilliant smile, wide baby-doll blue eyes, and a little turned-up nose. In the summer her face was lightly dusted with freckles when she went to Newport with her parents and summered at their fourteen-bedroom “cottage” with all the other friends she joined there every year. Pretty little Pattie Atherton. He felt his stomach quiver as he watched her. He wanted to run toward her as she was running toward him, but something stopped him. Instead he walked toward her with long slow strides and a wistful smile.

“Hi, pretty girl, can I show you around Rome or is someone meeting you?” He kissed her playfully on the forehead and she giggled, turning her face up toward his with her dazzling Miss America smile.

“Sure, soldier, I'd love to see Rome with you.” She slipped a hand through his arm and squeezed tightly, and B.J. had to fight not to close his eyes, so afraid was he that they would show his feelings. He didn't want to do this, didn't want to play games with her or be funny. He wanted to tell her the truth as they stood there at the airport, looking at each other.… Pattie, I fell in love with another woman.… I have to break our engagement.… I want to marry her.… I don't love you anymore.… But was that true? Didn't he love Pattie Atherton anymore? He didn't think so as he watched her. In fact as he picked up her suitcase and followed the fur coat out of the airport, he was almost sure.

He had arranged for a car and driver, and a moment later they were sitting side by side in the backseat of the car … when suddenly she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hard on the mouth, leaving a bright red imprint of the lipstick that so perfectly matched her hat.

“Hey, babe, take it easy.” He reached quickly for his handkerchief while the driver stowed her bag in the trunk.

“Why should I? I came four thousand miles to see you.” Her eyes glittered a little too brightly, as though already she knew, as though she sensed something different. “Don't I get a kiss for all that?”

“Sure you do. But not here.” He patted her hand and as she took off her gloves he saw the sparkle of the engagement ring he had given her only that summer. And now it was not yet Thanksgiving and he was already having second thoughts.

“All right.” She looked at him matter-of-factly, and he could see shades of her domineering mother in the way her jaw set. “Then let's go back to the palace. Besides,” she smiled sweetly, “I want to see it. Daddy says it's divine.”

“It is.” He felt a tremor pass through him. “But wouldn't you rather go to where you're staying first? Where are you staying, by the way?”

“With General and Mrs. Bryce.” She said it smugly, like Congressman Atherton's daughter, and for a moment he hated her for her arrogant ways. How different she was from gentle Serena, how harsh she seemed in comparison. Was this really the pretty girl he had spent so much time with in Newport, and taken out so ardently last summer when he'd been home on leave? She didn't seem nearly as attractive now as they sat here, and he watched her out of the corner of his eye as he asked his driver to take them to his home.

He looked at the sleek waves of her bobbed hair and the expensive red wool hat. “Partie, what made you come over here now?” B.J. had put up the window between them and the driver and now he looked Pattie straight in the eye as he sat back in his seat. He was on his guard, though he wasn't sure why. “I told you I'd try to come home at Christmas.”

“I know.” She attempted to look at the same time petulant and alluring, and she was almost successful. Almost. “But I missed you too much.” She kissed him playfully on the neck, leaving her imprint on him once again. “And you're such a lousy correspondent.” But as she looked at him there was something searching. She was asking him a question, if not with her words, then with her eyes. “Why? Do you mind my coming over, Brad?”

“Not at all. But I'm awfully busy just now. And”—he stared out the window, thinking of Serena, before he looked back at Pattie again with reproach in his voice and his eyes—”you should have asked me.”

“Should I?” She arched one eyebrow, and again he found the resemblance to her mother striking. “Are you angry?”

“No, of course not.” He patted her hand. “But, Pattie, six months ago this was a war zone. I have work to do here. It won't be easy having you around.” In part it was true, but the real reason was hidden beneath. And Pattie seemed to sense that as she looked him over appraisingly.

“Well, Daddy wanted to know what I wanted for my birthday, and this was it. Of course”—she looked at him with faint accusation—”if you're too busy to see me, I'm sure that General and Mrs. Bryce will be happy to take me around, and I can always go on to Paris. Daddy has friends there too.” It all sounded so petulant and so petty, and it annoyed him. He couldn't help listening to the contrast between her veiled threats of “Daddy” and Serena's solemn, whispered explanations about “My father,” as she told B.J. about his conflicts with his brother, their implications, and the political pressures that had eventually led to his death. What did Pattie know of things like that? Nothing. She knew of shopping and tennis and summers in Newport, and deb parties and diamonds and El Morocco and the Stork Club and a constant round of parties in Boston and New York. “Brad.” The look which she gave him was part angry, part sad. “Aren't you happy that I came to see you?” Her lower lip pouted, but the big blue eyes shone, and as he watched her he wondered if anything really mattered to her. Only that she got her own way, he suspected, from Daddy or anyone else.

The summer before, he had found her so charming, so cute, and so sexy, and so much more amusing than the other debutantes he had known before the war. But he had to admit now that the only thing different about her was that she was a little bit shrewder and a lot smarter. He suddenly wondered if she had manipulated the engagement. She certainly had had him panting for her body on the summer porch in Newport. A diamond ring had seemed then a small price to pay for what lay between those shapely legs. “Well, B.J.?” She still wanted an answer to her question, and he had to pull his mind back to the woman sitting beside him in the car hurtling through the streets of Rome.

“Yes, Pattie, I'm happy to see you.” But it had the dutiful ring of an unhappy and long-married husband. He didn't feel like a lover as he sat beside her in the car, glancing at the pretty face, the red hat, and the fur. “I think I'm just a little surprised.”

“Surprises are nice though, B.J.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “I love them.”

“I know you do.” He smiled at her more gently then, remembering how pleased she had been by all of his offerings, flowers and little presents and once a horse-carriage ride in the moonlight that he had arranged especially for her. He reminded her of it now and she grinned.

“When are you coming home again, B.J.?” The petulance was back in her voice again and he sighed. “I mean for good this time.”

“I don't know.”

“Daddy says he could arrange it real soon, if you'd let him.” And then she winked. “Or maybe even if you don't. Maybe that could be my Christmas present to you.” But just hearing her say it made him panic. The thought of being torn from Serena before he was ready filled him with dread.

He squeezed Pattie's hand too hard, and in his eyes she thought she saw terror. “Pattie, don't you ever do that. I'll handle my life in the army myself. Do you understand that?” His voice rose harshly and her eyes held him in check. “Do you?”

“I do.” She answered quickly. “Maybe even better than you think.” He wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but he didn't dare. Whatever she knew, or suspected, he didn't want to hear about it yet. Sooner or later he would have to talk to her. He would have to make some kind of decision, and perhaps even tell her what had happened in the past months. But not yet. In a way he knew that she was smart to have come over. If there was a way that she could have kept him, this was it. If they were truly to be married, it was good that he be reminded of her now, in person, before it was too late. But just as his thoughts began to fill with Serena, the driver passed through the palazzo's main gate. “Good heavens, B.J.!” She looked at it in astonishment. “Is this it?” He nodded, half in pride and half in amusement at the look on her face. “But you're only a major!” The words slipped from her and she clapped a gloved hand over her mouth as he laughed.

“I'm glad you're impressed.” He was distracted as he helped her out of the car, and he felt a wave of nervousness sweep over him. He had wanted to take her to the general's and not bring her here in the daytime. They were sure to run into Serena, and he wasn't sure that he could handle that. “I'll give you a quick tour, Pattie, and then we'll get you settled at the Bryces.”

“I'm in no hurry. I slept all the way to Ireland on the plane.” She smiled happily at him and walked majestically up the steps to the main hall. Here one of the orderlies swept open the enormous bronze doorway, and Pattie found herself standing beneath the magnificent chandelier. Her eye caught the grand piano and she turned to see B.J. behind her, looking amused, despite himself, at her reactions. “War is hell, huh, Major?”

“Absolutely. Would you like to see the upstairs?”

“I sure would.” She followed him up the stairs, as all eyes followed. In her own way she was a very striking young woman, and none of them had seen a woman like her in a long time. Everything about her reeked of money and class. She looked like something right out of Vogue magazine, deposited on then-doorstep, some four thousand miles from home. The orderlies exchanged quick glances. She was a looker, all right, and they had all heard that she was a congressman's daughter. If the major's old man hadn't been a senator once, and if they hadn't all known that he came from money too, they'd have wondered what he was after. But this way it seemed like they were made for each other, and as one of the orderlies whispered to another, “Jesus, man … just look at them legs!”

B.J. took her from room to room, introducing the men in various offices, and the secretaries, who all looked up from then-work. They sat in a little drawing room where he sometimes entertained guests, looking out over the garden, and then suddenly she looked up at him, tilted her head to one side, and asked the question he'd been avoiding. “Aren't you going to show me your room?” He had whisked her quickly through his office, but he had purposely avoided the enormous room with the antique canopied bed.

“I suppose so, if you'd like that.”

“I certainly would. I suppose it's as lavish as the rest of all this. Poor B.J.,” she crooned jokingly. “What a hard life you live over here! And to think, people feel sorry for you, still being in Europe after the war!” But mere was more than amusement and raillery in what she was saying, there was accusation now and suspicion, and resentment and anger. He began to sense all of it as he led the way down a marble hall and opened a pair of handsomely carved double doors. “Good Lord, B.J.! All this for you?” She turned to face him too quickly, and suddenly she saw him blushing to the roots of his hair. He said nothing further and walked swiftly to the long rows of windows, opened one of them and stepped onto the balcony, saying something about the view. But it wasn't the view he was seeking. He was longing for a glimpse of Serena. After all, this was her home too. “I had no idea you lived so comfortably, B.J.” Pattie's voice was smoky as she stepped outside and stood beside him on the little balcony looking out over the gently rolling lawns below.

“Do you mind it?” His eyes looked deep into hers now, trying to understand who she was, and what she felt. Did she really love him, or merely want to have him? It was a question he had been asking himself now for quite a while.

“I don't mind it … of course not … but it makes me wonder if you'll ever want to come home.”

“Of course I will. Eventually.”

“But not for a while?” Her eyes sought other answers in his, but the slate-gray eyes were troubled and he looked away, and as he did so he saw her, sitting quietly under her tree. She sat turned so that he could see her profile, and for a moment he was mesmerized into silence, as Pattie saw her too and looked rapidly into Brad's eyes. “B.J.?” He didn't answer for a long moment. He didn't hear her. He was seeing something different about Serena, something he had never seen quite the same way before, it was a quiet dignity, a solemnity, an almost unbearable beauty, as he realized that watching her was like looking at the sky reflected in still waters, and being with Pattie was like being constantly tossed in a turbulent sea.

“I'm sorry.” He turned toward Pattie in a moment. “I didn't hear what you said just then.” But there was something strange in her eyes once he turned toward her, and there was something very different in his.

“Who is she?” Pattie's eyes began to smolder, and her full pouting mouth seemed almost instantly to form a thin line.

“I'm sorry?”

“Don't play that game with me, B.J. You heard me. Who is she? Your Italian whore?” A torrent of jealousy coursed through her, and without knowing anything for certain, she was almost trembling with rage. But B.J. was suddenly angry too. He grabbed Pattie's fur-covered arm in one powerful hand and squeezed it until she felt his grip.

“Don't ever say anything like that to me again. She is one of the maids here. And like most people in this country, she has been through one hell of a lot. More than you'd ever understand with your ideas about ‘war work,’ dancing with soldiers at the USO and going to El Morocco with your friends every night.”

“Is that right, Major?” Her eyes blazed into his. “And just why is she so important to you, if she isn't your little whore?” She spat out the word, and without thinking, he grabbed her other arm and began to shake her, and when he spoke again, his voice was loud and harsh.

“Stop calling her that, damn you!”

“Why? Are you in love with her, B.J.?” And then, viciously, “Do your parents know that? Do they know what you've been doing here? Sleeping with some goddamn little Italian maid.” He pulled an arm back to slap her, and then stopped himself just in time, trembling and pale, as instinctively he looked toward Serena and found her standing just below them, a look of horror on her face and tears brilliant in her eyes.

“Serena!” He called out her name, but she disappeared instantly, and he felt a swift slice of pain. What had she heard? Pattie's ugly accusations, her raging speech about his parents and “some goddamn little Itlaian maid”? He was horrified at what had happened, but only because it might have hurt Serena. He suddenly realized that he didn't give a damn about Pattie Atherton anymore. He let go of her arms and stood back carefully, with a grim look on his face. “Pattie, I didn't know this when you sent the telegram that you were coming, or I would have asked you not to, but I'm going to marry that woman you just saw there. She isn't what you think she is, but it really doesn't matter. I love her. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before.”

Pattie Atherton looked at him in mingled shock and horror and began to shake her head slowly as tears sprang to her eyes. “No! You can't do this to me, damn you! I won't let you! Are you crazy, marrying a maid? What will you do? Live here? You can't take her back to New York with you, your parents would disown you and you'd embarrass everyone.…” She was spluttering and there were tears beginning to slide from her eyes.

“That's not the point, Pattie. This is my life, not my parents'. And you don't know what you're talking about.” His voice was suddenly quiet and firm.

“I know that she's one of the maids here.”

He nodded slowly, and then looked long and hard at Pattie. “I don't want to discuss this with you, Pattie. The issue is us, and I'm sorry, I made a mistake last summer. But I don't think either of us would have been happy if we'd got married.”

“So you're going to ditch me, is that it?” She laughed shrilly through her tears. “That simple? Then what—bring home your little whore? Jesus, you must be crazy, B.J. !” And then, with eyes narrowed, “Or maybe I was to believe the line of crap you gave me. All that junk about how much you loved me!”

“I did … then.…”

“And now you don't?” She looked as though she would have liked to hit him, but she didn't dare.

But B.J. stood his ground. He was sure. “Not enough to marry you, Pattie.” His voice was gentle now, in spite of everything she had said. “It would be a terrible mistake.”

“Oh, really.” She pulled the ring from her finger and shoved it into his hand. “I think you just made a terrible mistake, buddy. But I'll let you figure that out for yourself.” He said nothing, but followed her into the room, where she saw her picture, which in a moment of cowardice he had reinstalled. She walked across the room, picked up the silver frame, and hurled it against the wall. The sound of the glass shattering broke the silence between them and as B.J. watched her she began to cry. He moved toward her and put his hands on her shoulders.

“I'm sorry, Pattie.”

“Go to hell!” She spun on her heel to face him. And then in a tone of viciousness, which hit him like a blow, “I hope you rot. In fact, B. J. Fullerton, if I can ever do anything to help screw up your life the way you just loused up mine, I'd be happy to help out. Anytime.”

“Don't say things like that, Pattie.” He felt compassion for her, and wanted to believe that she didn't mean it.

“Why not? Don't you think I mean it?”

“I hope not.” He looked more handsome than ever as he stood there and she hated him, as she looked at him for a last time.

“Don't kid yourself, B.J. I'm not some two-bit dago tramp. Don't expect me to fall at your feet and beg you … and expect me to forgive you either. Because I won't.” And with that, she turned and left the room. He followed her quietly down the stairs, and in the main hallway he offered to accompany her to the Bryces, but she looked at him in cold fury and shook her head. “Just have your driver take me there, B.J. I don't want to see you again.”

“Will you stay on in Rome for a few days? Maybe we could talk a little more quietly tomorrow. There's no reason why we can't be friends in a while. I know it's painful, Pattie, but it's better this way.” She only shook her head.

“I have nothing more to say to you, B.J. You're a skunk, a louse.” Her eyes overflowed. “And I hate you. And if you expect me to keep quiet about this, you're crazy.” Her eyes narrowed viciously again. “Everyone in New York is going to know what you're doing over here, B.J. Because I'm going to tell them. And if you bring that girl back with you, God help you, because they'll laugh you out of town.”

It was obvious from the way he looked at her that he wasn't afraid of Pattie, but he was angry at what she had just said. “Don't do anything you'll regret.”

“Someone should have told you that before you ditched me.” And with that, she walked past him and out the door. She slammed it behind her, and B.J. stood there for a long moment, wondering if he should go after her, and knowing that he could not. The orderlies had discreetly disappeared when they heard them coming, and a moment later B.J. quietly went back upstairs. He needed a moment to himself to think over what had happened, but he knew even then that he wasn't sorry. He didn't love her. Of that he was now certain. But he did love Serena, and now he would have to make all right with her. God knows what she had heard as Pattie shrieked at him on the balcony. As he remembered her words he suddenly realized that there was not a moment to lose in finding Serena, but as he left his office to find her, his secretary stopped him. There was an urgent phone call from headquarters in Milan. And it was two hours later before he could get away again.

He went quietly to their quarters, knocked on the door, and was answered instantly by Marcella.

“Serena?” She pulled the door open rapidly with tears on her face and a handkerchief in her hand, and she seemed even more overwrought when she saw B.J.

“Isn't she here?” He looked startled, as Marcella shook her head and began to cry again.

“No.” She assaulted him instantly with a flood of Italian, and gently he stopped her, holding the old shaking shoulders in both of his hands.

“Marcella, where is she?”

“Non so … I don't know.” And then suddenly it hit him, as the old woman cried harder and pointed to the empty room behind her. “She took her suitcase, Major. She is gone.”

10

The major had sat with Marcella for almost an hour, trying to piece together what had happened and figure out where she might have gone. There weren't many places he could think of. She certainly wouldn't go to her grandmother's house in Venice with strangers living there, and as far as Marcella knew, there was nowhere else. She had no friends or relatives to go to, and the only thing that B.J. could think of was that she had gone back to the States. But she couldn't have done that at a moment's notice. She'd have to get another visa and make arrangements. Maybe she was staying somewhere in Rome and she would attempt to get a visa back to America in the morning. He couldn't call the American Embassy until the morning to check on that. There was nothing he could do. He felt powerless, empty, and afraid.

Brad questioned Marcella until the old peasant woman was wrung dry. Serena had run into their quarters from the door that led into the garden, rushed into her room, and locked the door. Marcella knew that because she had tried to go in when she had heard her crying, but Serena wouldn't let her in.

Half an hour later Serena had emerged, red eyed, pale, and with her suitcase in her hand. She had told Marcella simply that she was leaving, and in answer to the old woman's tears and entreaties, she had said only that she had no choice. At first Marcella thought that she had been fired, at this the old woman cast a sidelong glance of apology at the major, explaining that she had thought that it was all because of him. But Serena had insisted that it wasn't, that it was a problem that had nothing to do with him, and that she had to leave Rome at once. Marcella wondered if she was in danger, because the girl had looked so distraught that it was hard to tell if she were only upset or also frightened, and with tears, and kisses, and a last hug, Serena fled. Marcella had been sobbing hopelessly in her room for almost two hours when she heard the major's knock on the door, and hoped that it was Serena, having changed her mind.