She spun around to watch the coin splash, but it was too late. It had vanished.
“Did my coin land in the fountain?” she asked.
Nicolo put his arm around her and drew her close.
“Of course. Did you make a wish, cara? Will you tell it to me?”
She felt the beginning sting of tears in her eyes, and she shook her head wildly, averting her face from him.
“If you tell someone what you wished, it won’t come true.” She forced a smile to her lips. “Didn’t you say something about a picnic? My stomach’s reminding me that all I’ve put in it so far today is coffee.”
He grinned. “I almost forgot that insatiable appetite of yours,” he said. “Come. We will go to the Campo de’Fiori, and you will tell me what you want for our lunch.”
It was hard not to want everything at the vast open-air market. Luscious fruits and vegetables, sausages and cheeses of every description, breads that smelled as wonderful as they looked, lay heaped in profusion on market stalls shaded by cream-colored umbrellas.
“The Campo de’Fiori…” Caroline glanced at Nicolo as they strolled from vendor to vendor. “The Field of Flowers?”
“Yes.” He smiled wryly. “Some would say that is a fanciful name for a place where heretics were put to the torch four centuries ago.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Here?”
“Why do you look so surprised, cara? Wasn’t it Salem, in your New England, where they drowned witches? Like many places, the good happened here as well as the bad.” He gave an expressive shrug. “I think that is what I love most about my city. It’s a place of reality, yes? To always smile, never to cry—it is a dream, but it is not the way life is.”
His words made her throat tighten. No. But it didn’t have to be that way, when you were in love. If only this day could last for the rest of her life. If only a miracle would occur…
“Caroline.” Nicolo hugged her to him. “I have made you unhappy, telling you about the burnings,” he said, dropping a kiss on her upturned face. “You have too soft a heart, bellissima. There is no sense in crying over what has been.”
She wasn’t, she wanted to tell him. She was crying for what would not be. But she only smiled and said he was right.
Nicolo bought a bit of this, a bit of that, until finally, when she was sure they had enough to feed a small army, he was satisfied.
“Basta. Now we will sit and have a coffee, yes? So you can enjoy the sights.”
They sat at a rickety table on the perimeter of the square, under the shade of an umbrella, sipping espresso, eating anisette biscuits, and watching the large, colorful crowd.
Caroline was enthralled. “Does this go on every day?”
“Every morning, for who knows how many years. Roman housewives come here to buy the freshest fruit and vegetables. And flowers,” he said, gesturing to an old woman carrying a woven basket. He handed her a bill, plucked a spray of violets from the basket, and presented it to Caroline with a flourish.
“Oh.” She smiled as she buried her nose in the velvety petals. “They’re lovely, Nicolo. Thank you.”
“Nico,” he said, very softly.
She looked up. He was watching her with such quiet intensity that, for just an instant, she felt as if there were no one else in the square but the two of them.
“Will you call me Nico, Caroline, as you did last night?” He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. “There is something in the way you say it that makes my heart sing.”
Her heart seemed to turn over. How was she ever going to leave him? Everything about him was so dear to her now; his smile, his face, the soft huskiness in his voice that told her he wanted her.
Perhaps she didn’t have to leave him. What would she gain by running away? She would not stop loving him, just because she was in New York and he was here. And—and why was she being so precipitate? He had not yet said he loved her, but that didn’t mean he never would. There was time for that. Plenty of time.
She was an adult, not a child, and there was no one to answer to back home. She was free to stay in Rome, not at the palazzo—she could never do that, never let Nicolo provide her with room and board and a salary, and yet take her into his bed each night. But she could find a job and a furnished apartment, and then she’d be free, free to give herself to Nicolo as his lover…
“What are you thinking, cara, that has brought such a glow to your eyes?”
Caroline looked at him. “Nothing,” she said with a little laugh. “Just—just something I hadn’t considered.”
Smiling, he took her hand and drew her to her feet. “You can consider this something which is nothing in the car,” he said. “We have a short drive ahead of us now.
They headed southeast from the city, the Ferrari moving as fast as the wind, following the “Via Tuscolana” signs for Frascati where, Nicolo insisted, they would find the best white wine in the world.
Caroline, who was feeling happier and happier, laughed at him teasingly.
“The absolute best?”
“Certainly.” He smiled, too. “I am never wrong about such things.”
She laughed, but he was only telling her the truth. He’d been right about the entire day: the fountains in Rome, the quiet beauty of the little villages they passed and the gentle sweep of the campagna. They bought the wine, then drove on, the time passing swiftly in a blur of easy laughter and pleasant conversation.
In midafternoon, they parked on the side of a dirt road and carried their picnic lunch to a grassy knoll that gave a perfect view of the dark blue waters of Lago Albano. Caroline discovered that Nicolo had not bought too much food, because they finished it all, right down to the last bit of crusty, delicious bread.
“Good?” he said, and she sighed with contentment.
“Wonderful.”
He smiled as he lay his head in her lap. “Are you glad you came with me, cara?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “Very glad.”
“You aren’t bored?”
“No. Of course not. Why would I be?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “It just occurred to me that you might have preferred to shop in the Via Veneto. Or the Piazza di Spagna. Cartier is there, and Bulgari…”
Caroline shook her head. “I’ve seen enough of places like that to last a lifetime. I’d much rather be here. It’s beautiful.”
“I’m glad. I have never brought anyone here before, and—”
“Not even Arianna?” Her lips clamped together and she stared at him in horror, unable to believe she’d really asked him such a question. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s all right, Caroline.” He sat up ad gave her a quick smile which she supposed was meant to be reassuring. But it wasn’t; she could see that it was not a real smile at all. “The subject is not forbidden.”
“Still, I didn’t mean to pry.” She looked down into her lap, plucked a blade of grass, and twisted it in her fingers. “It’s just that—well, no one ever talks about her but—but she’s always around, like a—a ghost or a shadow.”
“There is no great mystery. I told you, she came to live with us after her parents were killed in an accident. A plane crash, somewhere in Argentina, I think.”
“What was she like?”
“I have told you that, as well.” There was tension now, in his face and in his voice. “She was young, she was very beautiful—”
“I don’t mean what did she look like. I mean—I mean…” Caroline paused. “Anna confused me with her, remember? And—and the other night you—you said I was—”
“I remember what I said.” He got to his feet and brushed off his pants. “I was wrong—and I was right.”
“I don’t understand what that means, Nicolo,” Caroline said, as she rose and stood beside him.
He sighed. “It means, in some ways you are the same, and in others you are different.”
“Can’t you explain any better than that?” There was
a sudden sharpness in her voice; she could hear it. She gave Nicolo a quick smile to soften it. “It’s—it’s weird to be compared to someone you’ve never seen.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “She was a tease. She would smile at a man, lead him on a few steps, then turn cold.” For the first time since Arianna’s name had been mentioned, he smiled. “You are not like that, cara. I know that now.”
“But—but in other ways, we’re the same?”
Again, he gave that expressive shrug. “I thought, at first, you looked alike. But it’s not so. She was not so fair, nor so tall—nor so beautiful. But there is a similarity just the same. Anna and I both saw it. A certain grace in the walk, a mystery in the smile…”
“Why did she go away?”
He stared at her for a long moment, and then he turned, stuffed his hands into his pants pockets, and stared out over the lake.
“I know I told you this, Caroline. She had no wish to settle down. She wanted to travel, to see the world—to have a career.” His voice hardened. “In that, you and she are the same.”
Caroline bit her lip to keep from telling him how wrong he was. Why would she want to travel any farther than his arms? This was where the world began and ended.
“And—she left you?”
There was a barely perceptible pause. “Yes.”
She took a step toward him. But did you love her? She wanted to ask, but what was the point? Of course he’d loved her. She didn’t want to hear him say it; it would only drive the pain she felt deeper into the heart.
Suddenly, he swung around and faced her. “I have no wish to talk of this any more.”
Why would he? He had loved Arianna and she had run away from him, and now he was judging her by what Arianna had done. It wasn’t fair, she thought angrily. She wasn’t Arianna; she wasn’t anything like her…