Shadowed by Grace (30 page)

The lieutenant shrugged. “I don’t know but it’s likely.”

“That would explain things.”

“What things?” He watched her intently, with an intelligence that made her want to trust him.

“I’ve often felt like someone followed just out of sight.”

“So they weren’t all as bold as me?”

Rachel laughed. “No, they weren’t.” She glanced around, taking in the way twilight fell in trickles. “This must be what the old writers meant by gloaming.”

“Pardon?”

“I’ve always wondered what that felt like when I’d read the word. This fits.”

He paused and turned toward her. “You are a most unique woman.”

She dipped her chin. That was one way of putting it. “I’ve heard that before.”

“You act like it’s a bad thing.” He tipped her chin up, and she caught her breath at the intensity in his eyes. A lock of dark hair fell over one eye, as if it had been too long since his last regulation cut. His attention never wavered as he released her chin and brushed her cheek.

She stepped away from his touch with a nervous chuckle. She did not want a war romance that could go nowhere. She needed someone who would stay.

Even as the thought trailed through her mind, Scott’s words chased them.
“God is the Father who is always there. He never leaves us.”

What would that be like? To have a father who cared that much?

Lieutenant Barkley nodded at her. “Until next time.”

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” The officer turned on his heel and headed back toward the tents.

She watched him move, frozen by her fears. Annie or Heidi would have prolonged the time with the officer. They would have known the words to say, the ways to move to keep him by their side as long as they wanted. Maybe Rachel didn’t know how to interact with men on a romantic level because she’d never had a father to make her feel cherished and loved beyond all capacity to understand.

Could she trust God to love her like that?

The thought left her wanting to hyperventilate. To relinquish that kind of control and trust?

God, are you here? If you are, will you show me? Because I’m not sure I can trust something I can’t see.

The sound of families gathered inside the grounds clashed with the soldiers moving around. She should go inside, find her way to the room before it was too dark to navigate the maze. A door stood with the top half open, letting the breeze pass into the villa. Rachel walked toward it. Maybe someone on the other side could help her find her way back to her room. A bevy of activity flowed on the other side. As she looked in, a collection of women bounced off each other as they moved about a kitchen, each focused on cooking, chopping, or other culinary skills.

Rachel grabbed her camera and took a photo. “What is this?”

A startled pause greeted her before the women took to chattering in Italian. Rachel rubbed her forehead wishing she could understand.

A thin woman stumbled forward, pushed by another. “A kitchen.” She raised her chin so her dark eyes could search Rachel’s face. Her face looked drawn, pulled down by weariness and fear, yet there was a spark of hope in the way she refused to be intimidated.

“Yes, I know. But so many?”

The woman studied the ground as if searching for words. “We . . .” She looked up and ran her hands around in the air as if spinning something. “We mix together. Share.”

“A community kitchen?”

Her head bobbled to the side. “Yes.”

Movement toward the back caught Rachel’s attention. A thin woman in a worn dress covered by a voluminous apron, one that had once been as white as her cap, gasped something, then turned to the side, her face fading to the color of her apron. Another placed a hand beneath her elbow to steady her.

“Is she okay?”

The woman who interpreted studied the woman, muttered a few words, then paused to listen. She turned back to Rachel. “Not okay. She says you a spirit.”

Mutters flowed around her at the word. That must be one word that translated well in both directions.

“Why?”

The woman shrugged but said nothing.

Rachel rubbed her forehead. Wasn’t her life complicated enough?

“All right.” Scott felt the guard eye him as he inserted the key in the doorknob and twisted. The heavy baroque door eased open, and he stepped into a darkened room. Renaldo strode toward a row of windows and pushed open the curtains.

“With the electricity out, natural light must suffice.” With each set of drapes the man opened, more wonders were revealed.

Rows of dusty bookshelves lined a wall of the vaulted hall. Against those, two or three deep, stood paintings. Rows and rows of them. In the middle of the large space stood a rack, against which more paintings leaned.

Dust played in the faint sunlight streaming into the salon. Faint rays touched an impossibly large piece. It might be larger than some rooms if laid on the floor. Scott inhaled, captivated by the color and figures posed across the canvas.
“Primavera.”

“Yes.”

“I thought you had the
Birth of Venus
.”

“Elsewhere. I bring you this Venus. No two masterpieces of such caliber from the same artist hide in one place. Too dangerous. Instead, I can show you
Supper at Emmaus
by Pontormo or Rubens’s
Nymphs and Satyrs.
There is also Raphael’s
Madonna del Baldacchino
. And in another room Ghirlandaio’s
Adoration of the Magi.
”

Scott stood in front of the massive frame. This was why he had come to Europe. To ensure masters like this had been preserved. Standing in the presence of this painting made everything right. “She’s beautiful.”

“
Sì
.” Renaldo smiled like a proud papa displaying his treasured daughter.

“You’ve brought the Uffizi here.”

“Yes. I would give my life for these.” He turned Scott toward the sweeping work. “This is but one piece. This is what I protect.”

Scott stepped closer, drawn by the figure in the middle of the massive canvas. “This is worth protecting.”

“They all are.” Renaldo stepped back while he absorbed the details.

“And the shelling?”

“It comes and goes, a constant companion since I arrived.”

Scott nodded, understanding why the man risked so much as the intermittent, punctuated refrain of artillery whistled around the castle. If an errant shell landed at Montegufoni, better to know only one of Botticelli’s life works stood exposed to destruction or harm. “Where is
Venus
?”

The man waved a hand in the air. “Irrelevant at this moment. Enjoy this . . .”

Scott walked to the windows to catch the glory of the setting sun when movement across the way caught his attention. A woman dressed in the American uniform walked next to an Indian officer. Even with her head down and away from his line of sight, he could tell it was Rachel. Who else could it be? No one else could cause his heart to stutter at sight. Nor could anyone cause this surge of protectiveness.

He didn’t know the officer. Would he honor Rachel or draw something from her she didn’t recognize or anticipate? Scott shut his eyes and clenched his jaw. This was ridiculous. He needed to back from the window and return to why he was here.

“What draws your attention?”

Scott tightened his fists as Rachel and the officer paused. Any other person and Tuscany in the evening light would be perfect for a romantic moment. Instead Rachel was sharing a moment he longed to have.

Now wasn’t the time.

It might never come.

Renaldo approached, stood next to Scott, and looked out. Scott swallowed the urge to punch the soldier who touched a strand of Rachel’s hair. She slipped a step back and lowered her chin. Yet he felt the pressure of the touch, of the man’s forwardness.

Rachel would never be his.

Not while the barrier of her questions and her quest stood between them. Not while he had a niggling doubt about how she had acquired the sketchbook.

Not until some questions were answered. Questions Renaldo might answer.

Scott couldn’t deny the way she drew him. Her creativity and the gift she had for seeing the things, the people, everyone else missed. The way she brought a tinge of joy to situations. There were depths to her he hadn’t seen in Elaine, yet Rachel held herself aloof like an island. Isolated yet longing to join the fray around her. To do something that mattered.

“She stirs much in you. Women have great power.”

Rachel turned and made her way into the courtyard. The officer returned to the sea of tents that lined the field. Good riddance.

“Who is she?”

“She takes photos of the war, sends them to papers in the States.”

“Why would a woman do such a thing?”

“Because she is gifted.”

“She looks familiar, but it is impossible.”

Maybe not as impossible as Renaldo thought. Scott turned to him. “Who does she resemble?”

“An impossibility.” Renaldo swept his hands wide. “I have never seen her before you arrived. Yet . . .” He sighed heavily.

“She had a sketchbook of preparatory drawings. For an art series. Paintings.”

Renaldo shrugged, a movement Scott could feel. “And?”

“The drawings could lead to the series of your paintings my museum holds.”

The man bristled. “On loan.”

“Of course.” Scott held his hands in front of his chest and took a step back. “Rachel asked me to look at the sketches. See if I could identify the artist.”

“Did you tell her?”

“That you were the artist?” Scott shook his head. “I’m not 100 percent certain, and I couldn’t think why she would have something so personal.”

Renaldo nodded, then turned from the window. A slight hunch shifted his frame forward as he moved toward the painting that consumed the room with its presence.

“If it’s yours, why would she have the sketchbook?” Scott kept pace with Renaldo’s quick steps. The man moved as if he needed to stay a couple steps ahead of the German SS or
Kunstschutz
.

The man shrugged again, his shoulders rolling in a fluid motion. “How could I know?”

“One of life’s mysteries?”

“Maybe.”

There was something in the way the man refused to meet his gaze that alerted Scott that something wasn’t quite right. “You have a theory.”

The man pulled a pipe from his pocket and shoved it in his mouth. He chewed the end, not seeming to mind he had nothing to put in the bowl. “Life is not a straight line.”

Scott nodded but remained quiet.

“Life inserts a curve. A stop. That happened with me.”

“Makes life more interesting.”

“More complicated.” The man pulled his pipe out and pointed out the windows at the hills around Montegufoni. “You see there. Farmers have tended that plot for centuries. Maybe at first little grew. Now grapes are trained. They grow in abundance. Our lives are like that. A barren area, one that shows nothing for the work, later it flourishes.”

“How does this relate to Rachel’s sketchbook?”

“I wish to see it. To be certain.”

Scott hesitated a moment. “I have it.”

“Why, if it is hers?”

“I wanted to protect it until I could find you, see if my theory was correct.”

A storm clouded his features as Renaldo thrust his shoulders back. “It was not yours.”

“Nor hers.” Scott stopped and inhaled the loamy scent of earth that seeped through the old windows. “It was stolen from your possession?”

The man shifted his head and grimaced. “Not from me.”

Scott turned to face Renaldo. “Spit it out.”

“I gave it to a woman who formed my heart one summer.”

“Who?”

“It does not matter now. At the time it conveyed my love.”

“But how did it get to Rachel Justice in the United States?”

The man’s skin sallowed under his olive complexion. “Justice?” He took a stumbling step, then moved toward a chair. “That woman? The one out there? Her name is Justice? I’ll sit now.”

“Are you all right?”

Renaldo held up a hand. “It is much to take in. I have spent months trying to stay alive. Trying to keep my
famiglia
alive. And now this.” His hand wavered, then sank to his lap.

Scott eased down beside his mentor, keeping a close eye on him. Maybe all the stress and tension had caught him. That didn’t explain why this sketchbook held such power. The fading light filtering through the window did nothing to warm the room. Instead, goose bumps trailed up Scott’s arms as he waited for Renaldo to say something. The man seemed spooked beyond what Scott would expect for a conversation about a sketchbook. Yes, it was a piece of his artistic, creative process, but more underlay his sudden pallor and need to sit.

Renaldo cleared his throat. “As a youth I knew an American. Loved her. Cherished her as best I could.”

“Many of us had such a love.”

“You Americans. Never let a man finish a story.”

“You Italians. Always so slow to get to the point.” Scott smiled at the memory of the times they’d had such discussions in the past. An answering smile did not grace Renaldo’s face. “I’m sorry.”

The man waved him off. He took a wavering breath, then seemed to settle something in his mind.