“No, I won't.” And this time Marcella's eyes filled with mischief as she sat down on the rim of the tub and whispered to Serena. “And if you don't listen to me, Serena, I'll tell them.”

“Tell them what?” Serena brushed a long strand of blond hair from her eyes with a grin. “That I don't know what I'm doing? They probably already know that themselves.” She sat back on her heels with a smile of her own. She had been working for the Americans for almost a month now and it suited her perfectly. She had food in her belly, a bed to sleep in at night, she was living with Marcella, who was the only family she had left, and she was living in what had once been her home. What more could she want? she asked herself daily. A great deal, she answered now and then, but that was neither here nor there. This was what she had. She had written to Mother Constance that everything had worked out well. She had told her of her grandmother's death. She went on to report that she was living once again in her parents' home in Rome, though she did not explain under what circumstances.

“Well, Serena?”

“What are you threatening me with now, you old witch?” The two were bantering in whispered Italian. But it was a pleasant break. Serena had been working ceaselessly since six o'clock that morning and it was almost noon.

“If you don't behave yourself, Serena, I'll expose you!”

Serena looked at her, amused. “You'll steal all my clothes!”

“Shame on you! No, I'll tell the major who you are!”

“Oh, that again. Marcella, my love, to tell you the truth, I don't even think he'd care. The bathrooms have to be scrubbed, by a principessa or whoever else is around, and as hard as he works at his desk every night, I don't even think he'd be shocked.”

“That's what you think!” Marcella looked at her meaningfully and Serena tilted her head to one side.

“What does that mean?” The major had developed a fondness for Marcella since he had moved into the palazzo, and Serena saw them chatting often. A few nights before, she had even seen Marcella darning his socks. But she herself had steered clear of him since their first meeting. She had never quite been sure of his intentions, and he seemed a little too quick and too perceptive for Serena to want to hang around him very much. He had been curious about Serena during his first week in the palazzo—she had seen him watching her on several occasions, with too many questions in his eyes. Thank God her papers were in order, in case he checked. “Have you been hanging around with the major again?”

“He's a very nice man.” Marcella said it with a reproachful glance at the young principessa still on her knees on Charlie Crockman's bathroom floor.

“So what? He's not our friend, Marcella. He's a soldier. He works here just like we do. And it's none of his damn business who I used to be.”

“He thinks you speak very good English.” Marcella said it with defiance.

“So what?”

“So maybe he could get you a better job.”

“I don't want a better job. I like this one.”

“Ah … davvero?” The old eyes glittered. “Really? I thought I remembered you crying last week over the cracks in your hands. And wasn't that you who couldn't sleep because your back hurt so much? And how are your knees from scrubbing the floors, and your feet and your—”

“All right… all right! Enough!” Serena sighed and tossed the brush back into the bucket of soapy water. “But I'm used to it now, and I want to be here.” She lowered her voice and her eyes pleaded. “Don't you understand that, Celia? This is my home … our home.” She corrected quickly and the old woman's eyes filled with tears as she patted Serena's cheek.

“You deserve more than this, child.” It broke her heart that life had been so unfair to the girl. But as she brushed the tears away with the back of one hand, Charlie Crockman found them that way and stared down at them in sudden embarrassment.

“Sorry.” He muttered before backing out quickly.

“Fa niente,” Serena called after him. She liked him, but she seldom spoke to him in English. She had nothing to say. She had nothing to say to any of them. She didn't have to. It didn't matter. Nothing did. Except that she could go on living here. It had become an obsession with her in the past month, being at home again and clinging to the memories. It was all she thought of now as she went from room to room, cleaning, waxing, dusting, and in the morning when she made the major's enormous bed, she pretended to herself that it was still her mother's. The only thing that disturbed the dream was that the room smelled of lime and tobacco and spice, like the major, not of roses and lily of the valley as it had almost ten years before.

When she had finished scrubbing Charlie Crockman's bathroom that morning, Serena took a hunk of bread and a piece of cheese and an orange and a knife and wandered slowly into the garden, where she sat down, looking at the hills beyond with her back against her favorite tree.

It was here that the major found her half an hour later, and he stood there for a long moment, watching her as she peeled the orange carefully and then lay in the grass and looked up at the tree. He wasn't sure whether or not to approach her, but there was still something about her that intrigued him. There was a special aura of mystery that surrounded Marcella's hardworking young niece. He still seriously doubted the story that they were related, but her papers were in order, and whoever she was, she worked damn hard for them. What difference did it make who she was? But the strange thing was that it seemed to make a difference to him. He thought of her often as he had seen her on that first evening, standing in his office in the dark, leaning against the window, looking out at that willow tree.

He wandered slowly closer to where she lay and then sat down quietly beside her, looking down into her face as she looked up at the tree and the sky and then him. She gave a little start as she saw him and then she sat up quickly, smoothing her apron over her skirt and covering her thickly stockinged legs, before she allowed her eyes to meet his.

“You always seem to surprise me, Major.”

Again he noticed that her English was better than she usually let on and he suddenly found himself wanting to tell her that she always surprised him. But instead he only smiled, the thick blond hair brushed softly by the September breeze. “You're drawn to this tree, aren't you, Serena?”

She nodded with a childlike smile and offered him part of her orange. For her, it was an enormous step. After all, he was a soldier. And she had hated all soldiers for so long. But there was something about him that made her want to trust him. Maybe because he was Marcella's friend. His eyes were kind as he accepted half of the orange and began to peel off sections as he sat beside her. For a moment she looked very far away. “When I was a little girl, I lived in a house … where I could see a tree … just like this one … from my window. Sometimes I used to talk to it at night.” She blushed then, and felt silly, but he only looked amused, as his eyes took in the smoothness of her skin and the long lines of her legs spread out ahead of her on the grass.

“Do you talk to this one?”

“Sometimes,” she confessed.

“Is that what you were going to do in my office that night, when I surprised you?”

She shook her head slowly, looking suddenly sad. “No, I just wanted to see it. My window—” She seemed to pull herself back. “The window of my room looked out just as this one does.”

“And that room?” He looked at her gently. “Where is it?”

“Here in Rome.”

“Do you still visit it?” He didn't know why, but he wanted to know more about her.

She shrugged in answer. “Other people live in the house now.”

“And your parents, Serena? Where are they?” It was a dangerous question to ask people after a war and he knew it. She turned slowly with a strange look in her eyes.

“My family are dead, Major. All of them.” And then she remembered. “Except Marcella.”

“I'm sorry.” He hung his head and riffled the grass with his hand. He had lost no one in this war. And he knew that his family was grateful that they had not lost him. Friends of his had died, but no cousins, no brothers, no uncles, no distant relations. It was a war that had barely touched the world he had lived in. And one of these days he knew that he would be going home too. Not yet though. He was still enjoying his work in Rome.

An orderly had come then and interrupted them. There was a phone call from General Farnham and he had to come at once. He looked at Serena regretfully over his shoulder for a moment and then he hurried inside and she didn't see him again.

When she climbed between the cool sheets that night after bidding good night to Marcella, she found herself thinking of the interlude that afternoon in the garden, of the long slender hands playing with the grass, the broad shoulders, the gray eyes. There was something so startlingly handsome about him, as though one expected to see him in evening clothes or playing football. He looked like other Americans Serena had seen in her four and a half years on the Hudson, but he was far more beautiful than any she had seen.

Oddly her thoughts were not unlike what Bradford Fullerton was thinking at that precise moment about her. He was standing alone in his office with the lights off, his jacket cast over a chair and his tie on the desk, looking out at the willow tree. He could still see the sun reflected in her eyes as she handed him half of the orange, and suddenly for the first time in a long time he felt a physical yearning, an overwhelming hunger, his body craving hers, as it had craved no one else's for a long time. He had been home on leave once for a week at the end of the war, and he had made passionate love to Partie, but he had been faithful to her since coming back, and he really had no desire to stray. Until now. All he could think of as he stood there was Serena, the shape of her neck, the grace of her arms, the way her waist narrowed to almost nothing beneath the starched white apron strings. It was insane. Here he was, engaged to the most beautiful woman in New York, and he suddenly had the hots for an Italian maid. But did that matter? He knew that it didn't, that he wanted her, and he didn't just want her physically—he wanted something more from Serena. He wanted her secrets. He wanted to know what lay in the deep mysterious shadows of those huge green eyes.

He stood there for what seemed like hours, staring out the window, his eyes glued to the tree, and then suddenly he saw her, like a vision, a magnificent ghost darting past the tree and then sitting quietly in the darkness, the long hair flowing in the breeze behind her, almost silver in the moonlight, the delicate profile turned up as though to sniff the night air, her eyes closed, and her body shrouded in what looked like a blanket as she stretched out her legs on the grass. He could see that her legs and feet were bare, and as he watched her he suddenly felt his whole body grow tense, as everything within him surged toward the mysterious girl. Almost as though he had no control over his actions, he turned and left the room, closing the door softly behind him, and hastily he ran down the long flight of marble stairs. He walked down the long stately hallway to a side door that he knew led into the garden, and before he could stop himself, he had walked softly across the grass until suddenly he stood there behind her, shivering in the breeze, trembling with desire and not sure of why he had come. As though she sensed him standing there, she turned and looked up at him with wide startled eyes, but she said nothing, and for a long moment he stood there and their eyes met and she waited, and silently he sat down beside her on the grass.

“Were you talking to your tree?” His voice was gentle, as he felt the warmth of her body beside his. He wasn't sure what to say to her, and it seemed foolish, but as he looked down into her face he saw now that it was shimmering with tears. “Serena? What's wrong?” For a long time she didn't answer, and then she shrugged with a little palms-up gesture and a lopsided smile. It made him want to take her in his arms, but he still didn't dare to. He wasn't sure what she would think. And he still wasn't sure what he thought himself. “What's the matter?”

She sighed then, and almost without thinking, she rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. “Sometimes …”She spoke softly in the cool darkness. “Sometimes it is very lonely … after a war.” Her eyes burned into his then. “There is no one. Not anymore.”

He nodded slowly, trying to understand her pain. “It must be very hard.” And then, unable to resist the questions that always plagued his mind, “How old are you, Serena?”