She walked slowly inside then, with a look of glazed pain, and walked straight into her room and closed the door. Marcella said nothing at all to her. It was too late for reproach. She had made her decision and now she would live by it, if it killed her. And after two days of her lying there, Marcella feared that it would. By the third day Marcella was truly frightened. Serena refused to get up, wouldn't eat, never seemed to sleep. She just lay there, crying silently and staring at the ceiling. She didn't even get out of her bed the one time that he called and the orderly came to tell Marcella. She was beginning to panic and the next day she went to the orderly herself.

“I have to call the major,” she announced firmly, trying to make it look as though it were official business, as she stood in the secretary's office in a clean apron with a freshly pressed scarf on her head.

“Major Appleby?” The secretary looked surprised. The new major wasn't due until the next morning. Maybe the old woman wanted to quit. They were all beginning to wonder if her niece would. No one had seen Serena since Major Fullerton had left.

“No. I want to call Major Fullerton in Paris. I will pay for it myself. But you must make the call and I wish to speak to him in private.”

“I'll see what I can do.” The secretary glanced at the indomitable old woman and promised that he would do his best. “I'll come and get you, if I get him on the line.” As it happened, luck was with him and he got hold of B.J. less than an hour later, sitting bleakly in his new office, wondering why Serena wouldn't take his call. He didn't have good news for her anyway. Her traveling papers for a weekend in Paris had been denied. There had been some vague hint about fraternization being frowned on, and it was deemed “wisest to leave one's indiscretions behind.” He had burned angrily when he had got word, and now he knew he had to tell her. All he could offer was to come back to Rome in a few weeks, when he could get away, but he had no idea yet as to when. He was sitting staring out into the Paris rain on the Place du Palais-Bourbon in the Seventh Arrondissement, when the call came in from his old secretary in Rome, and he gave a little start and smiled to hear a familiar voice. “I'm calling for Marcella, Major. She said it was important and private. I've just sent someone to fetch her. You'll have to hang on for a minute, if that's all right with you.”

“It's fine.” But he was suddenly very frightened. What if something had happened? Serena could have had an accident, or she could have run off to that godforsaken farm again, and this time he wasn't there to go and get her, she could fall in the well, she could break her leg, she could.… “Is everything all right there, Palmers?” He spoke to his secretary with concern and the junior man smiled.

“Fine, sir.”

“Everyone still on board?” He was asking about Serena but didn't quite dare say her name.

“Pretty much. We haven't seen much of Marcella's niece, in fact we haven't seen her since you left, sir, but Marcella says she's sick and she'll be fine in a few days.” Oh, Christ. It could have meant anything, but before Brad could give much thought to his worst fears, the secretary spoke again. “Here's Marcella now, sir. Think you can manage with her English, or do you want someone on an extension to help?”

“No, we'll manage on our own, thanks.” B.J. found himself wondering how many of them knew. No matter how discreet he and Serena had been, somehow those things always got around. It had certainly got to Paris. “Thanks, Palmers, good to talk to you.”

“And to you, sir. Here she is.”

“Maggiore?” The old woman's voice came to him like a breath of fresh air.

“Yes, Marcella. Is everything all right? Serena?” In answer to his question he was pelted with a hailstorm of rapid Italian, almost none of which he understood, except the words eating and sleeping, but he wasn't sure who was eating and sleeping and why Marcella was so concerned. “Wait a minute! Hang on! Piano! Piano! Slowly! Non capisco. Is it Serena?”

“St.”

“Is she sick?” He was assaulted with more rapid-fire Italian, and once again begged the old woman to slow down. This time she did.

“She ate nothing, she drank nothing, she neither slept nor got up. She just cried and cried and cried and …” Now it was Marcella who began to cry. “She is going to die, Maggiore. I know it. I saw my own mother die the same way.”

“She's nineteen years old, Marcella. She is not going to die.” I won't let her, he thought to himself. “Have you tried to get her up?”

“Si. Ogni ora. Every hour. But she doesn't get up. She doesn't listen. She does nothing. She is sick.”

“Have you called the doctor?”

“She's not sick like that. She is sick for you, Maggiore.” He was sick for her, and the damn crazy girl had refused to marry him because of her silly notions of protecting him, and now they were up the creek. “What can we do?”

He narrowed his eyes and stared out at the December rain. “Get her to the phone. I want to talk to her.”

“She no come.” Marcella looked more worried again. “Yesterday when you call, she no come.”

“Tonight when I call, you get her to the phone, Marcella, if you have to drag her.” He silently cursed the fact that there was no phone in the servants' rooms. “I want to talk to her.”

“Ecco. Va bene.”

“Can you do it?”

“I do it. You go to Umbría to find her, now I got to bring her to the phone. Facciamo miracoli insieme.” She grinned in her half-toothless smile. She had just told him that they made miracles together. And it was going to take a miracle to get Serena out of her bed.

“See if you can't get her up for a few minutes first. Otherwise she'll be too weak. Wait a minute.” He thought for a moment. “I have an idea. There's no one in the guest bedroom right now, is there?” Marcella thought for a minute and shook her head.

“Nessuno, Maggiore.” No one.

“Good. I'll take care of everything.”

“You're going to put her in there?” Marcella sounded stunned. Whatever her lineage and her title, Serena was after all just an employee now at the palazzo, and a lowly one at that. No matter that she had been occupying the major's bed for all these months, that was different from moving her into one of the guest rooms, like a VIP guest. Marcella was afraid there might be trouble.

“I'm going to put her in there, Marcella, whether she likes it or not. Get me Palmers. I'm going to have him carry her up there as soon as you get her ready. And an hour from now”—he looked at his watch—”I'll put through a call.”

“What will I tell Sergeant Palmers?”

“I'll tell him, we can say that she is very ill and we're afraid of pneumonia, that it's too damp for her where you are, and I'm ordering all of you to bring her upstairs.”

“What do we do when the new Maggiore arrives?”

“Marcella …” He didn't dare say what he was thinking. “Never mind that. Get Palmers, I want to talk to him now. You go to Serena and get her ready.”

“Yes, Maggiore.” Marcella blew him a kiss. “I love you, Maggiore. If she won't marry you, I will.”

He chuckled at his end. “Marcella, you're on.”

Just as he had known once he had seen Pattie that he knew what he wanted to do, now he knew also that all along Serena had been wrong. She was not only wrong for him, she was wrong for herself, and he wasn't going to let her do this to either of them. As he gave his orders to Palmers he was aware of an iron resolve. And if he couldn't talk sense into her over the phone, he was going to Rome. He'd go AWOL if he had to, and talk his way out of it when he got back. But before he did anything that drastic, he spoke to the military operator an hour later and had her place the call to Rome. He had already arranged with Palmers for the phone to be pulled into the guest room, and when it rang, first Palmers answered, then Marcella, then he could hear sounds of movement, of shuffling noises, muted voices, a door closing, and then in barely more than a whisper he heard her thready little voice.

“Brad? What is this? What happened? They carried me out of my room.”

“Good. That's what I told them to do. Now I want you to listen to me, Serena. And I'm not going to listen to you anymore. I love you. I want you to marry me. What you've done is killing us both. You're willing yourself to die, and I feel as though I died when I left Rome. This is crazy … crazy, do you hear me? I love you. Now, for chrissake, woman, will you come to your senses and come to Paris to get married or do I have to come back there and drag you out?”

She laughed softly in answer and then there was a silence, as he could almost see her weigh her thoughts. What he could not see in the silence was Serena lying back against her pillows, with tears streaming from her eyes, her hands trembling as she held the phone, fighting herself to keep from saying what she wanted, and then suddenly in a great burst of effort, she spoke up. “Yes!” It was still only a whisper and he wasn't sure he'd heard her.

“What did you say?” He held his breath.

“I said I'd marry you, Major.”

“Damn right!” He tried to sound arrogant as he said it, but his hands were trembling harder than hers, and there was a lump in his throat so large, he could barely talk. “I'll get the papers going right away, darling, and we'll get you here as soon as we can.” My God! My God, he thought to himself, she said yes! She said it! He wanted to ask her if she meant it, but he didn't dare. He wasn't going to give her a chance to reconsider. Not now. “I love you, darling, with all my heart.”





12