Serena nodded slowly, the knife of pain slicing swiftly through to her very core. “You still love her, don't you?” It was more a statement than a question, and B.J. looked at her with fresh anguish in his eyes.
“I'm not sure. I haven't seen her in months now, and that was all so unreal. It was the first time I'd been home in three years. It was all so heady and so romantic, and our families were cheering us on. It was like something in a movie, I'm not sure it's something in real life.”
“But you were going to many her.”
He nodded slowly. “It's what everyone wanted.” And then he knew he had to be honest. “It was what I wanted too. It seemed so right at the time. But now …”
Serena closed her eyes for a moment as she stretched out in front of the fire, trying to bear the pain of what she knew would come. And then she looked at him again, not in anger, but in sorrow. She knew that she couldn't fight the pretty dark-haired woman. She had already won him. And Serena was no one. Just the upstairs maid, as she had said to Marcella. The ugliness of it all was that it was true.
“I know what you're thinking.” He said it miserably as he dropped into a chair near the window and ran a hand through his already tousled curly hair. Before she had come to him that evening, he had been sitting there for hours, thinking, weighing, asking himself questions to which he didn't have answers. “Serena, I love you.”
“And I love you too. But I understand also that this is very romantic, that it is wonderful, but it is this, Brad, that is not real. That girl, her family, they know you. You know them. That is your life. What can this really be between us? An extraordinary memory? A tender moment?” She shrugged. “This is more like ‘something in a movie.’ ” She was quoting him. “It is nothing in real life. You can't take me home. We can't get married. She's the one you should marry and you know it.” Her eyes filled with tears and she turned away as he strode rapidly toward her and pulled her into his arms.
“But what if I don't want to?”
“You have to. You're engaged to be married.”
“I could break the engagement.” But the bitch of it Was that he wasn't sure if that was what he wanted. He loved this girl. But he had loved Pattie too. And he had been so proud, so exhilarated, so excited. Was that what he felt now? Was that what he felt for Serena? No, it wasn't excitement, it was something different, something quiet. He felt protective and tender, and sometimes almost fatherly toward her. He wanted to be there for her. And he knew also that at the end of every day he wanted her to be there for him. He had come to count on her quiet presence, her thoughtful words, her quiet moments in which she weighed all that he said. She often said things that helped him later. As he sat at his desk, tackling a problem, he would hear the soft voice beside him and move steadily ahead. She gave him a force of which Pattie knew nothing. She had survived sorrow and loss and it had made her stronger, and it was that strength that she shared with him. At her side he felt as though he could scale mountains, in her arms he found a passion he had never known before. But would it last for a lifetime? And could he truly take her home with him? These were the things he wasn't sure of. Pattie Atherton was of his world, of his culture, she was part of an already existing tapestry. It was right that they should be together. Or was it? As he stared down into the deep green eyes of Serena, he was no longer sure. What he wanted was what he had as he held her, the passion, the warmth, the longing, the strength that they shared. He couldn't give that up. But maybe he would have to. “Oh, Christ, Serena … I'm just not sure.” He held her closer and felt her tremble. “I feel like such an ass. I know I should be doing something decisive. And the bitch of it is that you know and Pattie doesn't. I should at least tell her the truth.” He felt guilty about everyone, and torn from deep within.
“No, Brad, you shouldn't. She doesn't have to know. If you marry Pattie, she need never know about me.” It would be just another wartime affair, a soldier and an Italian. There were certainly enough of them around, Serena thought bitterly for a moment, and then she forced the anger from her mind. She had no right to be angry. She had given her heart to him and her self —done what she had done, knowing that there was another woman, and knowing full well that the affair might come to naught. She had gambled and probably lost. But she didn't regret the game. She loved him, and she knew that, whatever he felt for his fiancée, he also loved her. “When is she coming?” Her eyes burned into his and he took a deep breath.
“Tomorrow.”
“Oh, my God.” This was to be their last night, then. “Why didn't you tell me?”
“I wasn't sure exactly when she was coming until tonight. I just got another telegram.” He pulled her into his arms.
“Do you want me to go now?” It was a small voice of bravado, and Brad was quick to shake his head and pull her closer still.
“No… oh, God, don't do that… I need you.” And then he felt suddenly guilty again as he realized how unfair he was being. He pulled back from her slowly. “Do you want to go?” This time it was Serena who shook her head, her eyes locked into his.
“No.”
“Oh, baby …” He buried his face in her neck. “I love you … I feel like such a weakling.”
“You're not. You're only human. These things happen. I suppose,” she sighed wisely, “that they happen every day.” But nothing like it had ever happened to him before. He had never felt this confused. There were two women he wanted, and he had no idea which one was the right way to turn. “Come.” Serena stood up and took his hand then. And when he looked up at her, she seemed more a woman to him than she ever had before. The idea that she was only nineteen was preposterous. She was as old and as wise as time as she stood there, smiling gently, holding out her arms to him, and slowly he stood up. “You look tired, my darling.” She was aching inside, but she didn't let him see that. Instead all that she showed him was her love for him, and her quiet strength. It was the same strength that had allowed her to survive the death of her parents, her banishment to the States, and the loss of her grandmother during the war. It was the same strength that had allowed her to return, and live in the palazzo in the servants' quarters, scrubbing bathroom floors and forgetting that she had ever been a principessa. Now it was that strength that she gave to him. She led him silently into the bedroom, stood beside her mother's bed, and began to take off her clothes slowly. It was an evening ritual between them, and sometimes he helped her and sometimes he only watched, admiring the graceful beauty of her young body and long limbs. But tonight he couldn't keep his hands from her, as the moonlight danced in her platinum hair, and his own clothes lay in a heap beside him before she was undressed, and rapidly he lifted her onto the bed and covered her body with his warm, hungry lips.
“Oh, Serena darling … I love you so.…”
She whispered his name in the moonlight, and for long hours before sunrise they forgot that there was another woman, and again and again Serena was his.
9
Major B.J. Fullerton stood looking very tall and straight and handsome at the military airport outside Rome. Only his eyes looked faintly troubled, and there were weary smudges to indicate that he had slept little, and as he lit a cigarette he realized that his hands were trembling. It seemed foolish to be nervous about seeing Pattie, but he was. Her father, Congressman Atherton of Rhode Island, had arranged for her to join a military flight over, and she was due in ten minutes. For a brief moment B.J. wished that he had had a drink before he left the house. And then suddenly he saw the plane, circling high above and then drifting lower, heading toward the runway, and finally making a graceful landing, then taxiing down the runway toward the small hastily erected building where he stood. He stood very still as he watched two colonels and a major step down the gangway, then a small cluster of military aides, one woman dressed in the uniform of a military nurse, and then he felt his heart break into a gallop as he saw her, standing at the top of the gangway, looking across the tarmac until she saw him, waving and smiling gaily, the raven hair neatly tucked into a bright red hat. She was wearing a fur coat and dark stockings, and she touched the railing, as she made her way down the stairway, with one elegant little hand neatly encased in a black kid glove. He was struck, even at this distance, by how pretty she was. That was the right word for Pattie. Pretty. She wasn't beautiful like Serena. She wasn't striking. But she was pretty, with a brilliant smile, wide baby-doll blue eyes, and a little turned-up nose. In the summer her face was lightly dusted with freckles when she went to Newport with her parents and summered at their fourteen-bedroom “cottage” with all the other friends she joined there every year. Pretty little Pattie Atherton. He felt his stomach quiver as he watched her. He wanted to run toward her as she was running toward him, but something stopped him. Instead he walked toward her with long slow strides and a wistful smile.