Caroline blew out her breath. “Yes, but—”
“Well, then, go and make yourselves ready.” Anna smiled happily.
Nicolo lifted his head. His eyes met Caroline’s. They were cool and unreadable, as was his face.
“Be ready in half an hour,” he said coldly.
Anna Sabatini, oblivious to everything, sighed. “I just know you’re going to have a wonderful time!”
* * *
NOT EVEN THE MOST dedicated tourist could have managed to complete Anna’s travel plan, although Nicolo was certainly giving it a determined try. He wove his Ferrari in and out of traffic with an abandon that kept Caroline pinned back in her seat.
“The Arch of Constantine,” he growled, as they zoomed by an enormous triumphant monument. “It was built in honor of the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century.”
She peered out the window, but they were already past it.
“The Colosseum,” Nicolo said, jamming the car into a lower gear as they approached a snarl of traffic. “Built by the Emperor Vespasian in A.D. 72.” The tires squealed as the Ferrari shot forward. “It is where the Christian martyrs met their deaths, and where wild animals and gladiators battled for the pleasure of the city’s populace.”
Caroline peered out again. The Colosseum was huge and wonderful to behold, even though much of its decorative sculpture had been stolen over the centuries for the building of many of Rome’s palaces. She knew that much from the English-language books she’d read during the evenings, sitting in the Sabatini library. What she longed to do was get out and walk through the ancient amphitheater—but, clearly, that was not going to happen.
“Il Foro Romano,” Nicolo said as they shot by a clutch of tumbled white marble ruins. “The Roman Forum.”
Caroline stared back over her shoulder. The Forum, she thought longingly, where Caesar spoke to the Senate.
“You may have heard of it in history class in school.”
She looked at Nicolo. “I suppose,” she said, “if I try very hard, I might recall some reference.”
“And the Campidoglio,” he said, ignoring the sarcasm of her response. “It was the Capitol in ancient times, and the smallest of the seven hills of Rome. Michelangelo designed the ceremonial ramp and staircase that leads to the summit.”
Caroline shaded her eyes. “Is that where Roman generals marched in celebration? To the Campidoglio, from the Via Sacra?”
Nicolo looked at her. “What?”
“Did I pronounce it wrong? The Via Sacra. The Sacred Way. It was the route of triumph for—”
“I know what it was,” he said coldly. “I am only surprised that you know of it.”
Caroline smiled tightly. “Did you think I was incapable of memorizing anything but my own measurements?”
He looked at her again. For just an instant, she thought he was going to smile and say, “All right, Caroline, this isn’t so terrible after all. I don’t mind taking you on this silly tour, in fact, I think I might just enjoy it.”
But then his mouth tightened again, and he looked away. Caroline slumped back in her seat. Why on earth would he ever say such a thing to her? He had never made a secret of what he wanted from her, and pretending he enjoyed her company, pretending he wanted to laugh with her or show her his favorite places in Rome, wasn’t part of it.
What was the matter with her? She didn’t want to be with him, any more than he wanted to be with her. The tension of being in his company had to be getting to her. Dammit, this was infuriating!
“I give you your choice of what to see next.” She looked over at him. He was staring straight ahead, his eyes fixed to the road. “The Via Veneto? The Baths of Carcalla? The Circus Maximus?”
“Why don’t we do ourselves a favor?” she said through her teeth. “You let me out at the next corner. I’ll buy a guide book, go see some stuff, kill a couple of hours while you go plop yourself down somewhere cool and shady and have a beer or whatever this season’s trendy drink is, and then we’ll meet at six o’clock or so, ride back to the palace together, and tell Anna we had an absolutely smashing day.” She paused for effect. “How’s that sound?”
“Perfect.” Nicolo shot her a cold smile. “Except for one or two minor problems.”
“For instance?”
“For instance, we can’t show our faces at the palazzo until at least eleven tonight.” He gave her another terrible smile. “Children dine at six. Romans have their evening meal at nine. Whatever you may think of us, Caroline, we are not children.”
“Meaning Americans are?”
Nicolo sighed. “Look. I’m no happier doing this than you are. But since we’re stuck to each other for the next several hours—”
“Stuck with each other,” Caroline snapped. “If you can’t get those expressions right, why do you insist on using them?”
Nicolo’s jaw shot forward. “Perhaps for the same reason I foolishly asked you to stay with Anna in the first place,” he snarled. “Because it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Ha!” Caroline swung away and stared out the windshield.
“Ha?” Nicolo’s brows lifted. “What does ‘ha’ mean, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“It means,” she said coldly, “that you asked me to stay with Anna because you thought you could seduce me.”
“By the bones of my ancestors!” Nicolo slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “Are we back to that again?”
She spun around to face him. “Are you going to try and deny it? You’ve done nothing but hit on me since the day—”
“Hit?” He glared at her. “I have never, in my life, hit a woman. Any woman. Not even one as impossible as you.”
“It’s an expression, for God’s sake! It means you’ve—you’ve been coming on to me…” His brows rose and Caroline puffed out her breath. “I told you, right from the start, that I wasn’t interested.”
“Yes.” His tone was grim. “You made that most clear today.”
“I hope so.”
“Don’t worry. I am not so thick-brained that I didn’t get the memo.”
“Thick-skulled,” she said. “What you mean is, you’re not so thick-skulled that you didn’t get the message.”
Nicolo shrugged stiffly. “It is the same thing.”
“It isn’t. You—you…” Caroline stared at him, then shook her head wearily and lay it back on the seat. “You just don’t understand.”
“Oh, but I do.” He shot her a cold look. “We are trapped together for the day.”
She sighed. “I’m afraid we are.”
“Then I suggest we do the best we can for the next several hours. We shall see Rome with a guide, we will be polite to each other, and, eventually, the day will end. Will you agree?”
Caroline sighed again. Did she have a choice?
“I agree.”
His jaw tightened. “So be it.”
He jammed his foot down on the accelerator and the car shot forward.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CAROLINE AND Nicolo stood inside the Pantheon with their guide, a little man with a pedantic style and a phenomenal level of endurance. He had met them at the Piazza Venezia two hours before. Nicolo had made the arrangements by telephone.
“I will show you all the best of Roma,” he’d announced with a modest smile, and, to be kind, Caroline supposed he was trying to do just that.
But she was in no mood for sightseeing, and neither was Nicolo, judging by the look on his face. Not that he’d said so; he hadn’t spoken a word to her since the guide had joined them.
It was ridiculous to pretend that either of them gave a damn about columns and arches and treasures of the old world just now. But Nicolo was right. They had no choice. To go back to the palazzo would mean having to explain their early arrival to Anna, and how would they manage that?
The thing to do, Caroline told herself, was lose herself in the beauty and lore of Rome, and she might have done that—if the guide had only let her. But he was fil
led with facts and figures and determined to recite every one, as effective a way as any to silence the whispers of antiquity that danced in the air. Nothing seemed to deter him, not even his audience’s lack of response.
“…built in 27 B.C. by Marcus Agrippa, son-in-law of the Emperor Augustus. The dome is forty-three point two meters in diameter. The height of the building is, as well, forty-three point two meters.” He smiled, as if he were personally responsible for the perfection of those measurements. “Note, please, the center opening.”
Caroline tilted her head obediently.
“The opening, which admits the sun, is nine meters wide. Visitors through the centuries have been impressed by the beauty and harmony of these proportions.”
As I would be, Caroline thought, if you’d only be still for a moment.
“Interesting,” she said, when she realized he expected a comment.
He nodded and looked at Nicolo. Caroline looked at him, too, and her eyes widened. She might be so bored that her jaw ached from trying not to yawn, but Nicolo—Nicolo looked as if he were about to explode.
He was truly miserable! How nice. She smiled for the first time in hours.
“Very interesting,” she said.
The guide looked at Nicolo, whose brows knitted together.
“Yes,” he growled. “Interesting.”
The guide nodded and set off briskly across the floor.
“Statues of the gods once stood in the niches that surround us, but they were borrowed over the centuries and not returned. I say ‘borrowed’ because it would be impolite to suggest that anyone might have stolen them.” He smiled to show that he’d made a joke.
“Did they, though?” Caroline said.
“Did they what, signorina?”
“Steal the statues?”
Unplanned interruptions were not part of his repertoire. His frown made that clear.
Nicolo made an impatient gesture. “Of course they did! Barbarians stole the statues.”
“Perhaps, Excellency. Now, if you will follow me—”
“Barbarians stole the statues,” Nicolo repeated in a way that made it clear he would accept no argument. “But Urban the Eighth took the bronze from the inside of the dome and gave it to Bernini so he could create a baldacchino—a canopy—for the papal altar in Saint Peter’s.”
Caroline frowned. “How do you know all that?”
“It is public knowledge,” Nicolo said arrogantly. “And I have read the story about Bernini in the diaries of Gregorio Sabatini.”