reverent curtsy. “I have the honor to be the Principessa Serena Alessandra Graziella di San Tibaldo.…” She rose from the curtsy then and stood before him in all her extraordinary elegance and beauty, naked in her mother's room, as Brad Fullerton stared at her in amazement.
“You're what?” But he had heard it all. As she began to repeat it he put up a hand quickly, and suddenly he began to laugh. So this was the Italian “maid” he had worried about seducing, Marcella's “niece.” It was wonderful and perfectly insane and delightfully crazy, and he couldn't stop laughing as he looked at Serena, and she was laughing too, and then at last she lay in his arms in her mother's bed and he grew pensive. “What a strange life for you, my darling, living here, working for the army.” He suddenly let his mind run over the work she had had to do in the past month and it no longer seemed so funny. In fact it seemed desperately cruel.
“How in hell did it all happen?” And then she told him, from the beginning, how it had been, from the days of dissent between her father and Sergio, her parents' death, the time in Venice, her flight to the States, and her return. And she told him the truth, that she had nothing, that she was no one now except a maid in the palazzo. She had no money, no belongings, nothing, except her history, her ancestry, and her name. “You have a great deal more than that, my love.” He gazed at her gently as they lay on the bed, side by side. “You have a magical gift, a special grace that few people have. Wherever you are, Serena, it will serve you well. You will always stand out. You are special, Marcella is right. You are a principessa … a princess.… I understand that now.” For him, it explained the magic about her. She was a princess … his princess … his queen. He looked at her with such tenderness then that it almost brought tears to her eyes.
“Why do you love me, Major?” She looked strangely old and wise and sad as she asked.
“I'm after your money.” He grinned at her, looking very handsome and younger than his years.
“I thought so. Do you think I have enough?” She smiled into his eyes.
“How much have you got?”
“About twenty-two dollars after last payday.”
“That's perfect. I'll take you. That's what I want.” But he was already kissing her, and they both wanted something else first. And after they had made love again, he held her and said nothing, thinking back to what she had gone through, how far she had come, just to come home, to return to the palazzo, where, thank God, he had found her. And now he would never let her go. But just as he thought that about Serena, his eyes drifted across to the photograph of a smiling dark-haired young woman in the silver frame on the marble-topped table beside his bed. It was as though Serena sensed where he was looking and she turned to see the photo of Pattie, smiling down at them both. She said nothing, but her eyes went to the major's and there was a question in them and he sighed softly and shook his head. “I don't know, Serena. I don't have the answer to that yet.” She nodded, understanding, but suddenly worried. What if she lost him? And she knew that she had to. The other woman was part of his world in a way that Serena wasn't, and perhaps could never be.
“Do you love her?” Serena's voice was gentle and sad.
“I thought I did. Very much.” Serena nodded and said nothing, and he gently took her chin in his hand and made her raise her eyes to his again. “I will always tell you the truth, Serena. I won't hide anything from you. That woman and I are engaged to be married, and I have no idea what in hell I'm going to do. But I love you. I honestly, truly, love you. I knew it the first minute I laid eyes on you, tiptoeing through my office in the dark.” They both smiled at the memory. “I have to think this thing out. I don't love her the way I love you. I loved her as part of a familiar, comfortable world.”