Remembrance (7 page)

“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.