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5
Elena slept, but it had been far too tumultuous a day for her to rest easily. Her emotions were slipping out of control. After Aiden’s disgrace and the pain and humiliation that it brought her, she had been determined never to fall in love again…at least not to the point where her judgment was impaired. She would love, certainly. To deny the possibility of loving was like choosing to freeze to death.
And she had loved Aiden, hadn’t she? Or was she only in love with what she thought he was? He had fooled many people, most of all the Foreign Office! Everyone who worked with him had trusted him.
But trusting someone and being in love with them are quite different things. When you are in love and there are things that go against your taste, instead of seeing them as a warning, you blame yourself for being narrow, intolerant, and continue lying to yourself as long as you can. You deliberately don’t ask the questions to which you would rather not know the answers. You call it trust. You know too late that it is cowardice. Handsome, charming, deceitful Aiden had taken them all in. Elena was at fault because she had known him better.
She now shuddered and huddled her body into itself, drawing her knees up, as if closing herself off in defense against memory.
She was hot with shame, and then shivering cold. It had all been there for her to see, if she had not been so dazzled by his gentleness, his good humor, his sophistication, and yes, she had been flattered, too. Of all the smart young women, well educated, ambitious, and clever, why had he chosen her? Had he really liked her at all? Or was she just the most gullible?
No, she was the best placed to get him the information he wanted. She was Charles Standish’s daughter. How that stung! Her father had not forgiven her yet.
So why was she falling in love now with Ian Newton, whom she knew so briefly, and who had been so shaken yesterday by the death of a man he claimed not to know? Certainly he was good-looking. He was also charming, clever, and amusing, besides being a good dancer and a good listener. And he had tuned in to what interested Elena so that their dining together yesterday evening had felt easy and natural even on so short an acquaintance. There was a score of reasons for his reaction to seeing the dead man, perfectly innocent explanations she had no right to ask for. It might be as simple as a resemblance to someone else. She had called out to a man in the street once, he looked so like her grandfather. But when he had turned around, he was nothing like him at all. Tall, with gray hair, that’s all. She was doing it again. Silencing the voice of fear with cool reason, because she liked Ian enormously already. She should quiet her mind with explanations and go back to sleep.
She woke early when the first light came in through her curtainless windows. They had wooden shutters on them, and she had deliberately left them open to let in the soft night air and the smell of the sea. Now it was pale, faint light filling the room, though not yet dawn.
She got up, washed and dressed quickly and silently, without disturbing Margot. She crept out and closed the door behind her. She would go for a walk. They were facing more or less east; she could watch the sun rising over the land, the light suddenly bursting above the horizon and flooding the sky, picking out every east-facing window to mirror itself, every dome, every wall in soft peach or blush pink.
The air was cool, and Elena was only on the first flight of steps down from the hotel when she saw Ian standing by the railing. He heard the slight sound of sandals on the steps and turned. His face lit with pleasure when he recognized her. “Come and watch,” he said quietly, indicating farther along the terrace where there was a view of the town rising up behind the hotel. “This is a perfect place to see the victory of light over darkness.” He held out his arm.
She fought against all her old anxieties and went to join him.
The light was spreading rapidly now, and even as they stood there, it tipped above the town and leaped across the sky. It spread a silver path over the distant water and bathed the white walls in the town, touched the burning reds and purples of bougainvillea. What a photograph this would make, if the camera could catch the color! Or the silence, or the smell of the sea.
All sorts of ideas tumbled through Elena’s mind about light and darkness, but she said nothing. This was a time when those things did not need words. As if in tacit understanding, Ian did not speak either.
Half an hour later, in full daylight, they found a café serving crusty bread still hot from the oven, butter, homemade apricot jam, and hot coffee. Words were still unnecessary, an intrusion, even a misunderstanding.
After they had finished the last fresh roll, and each had a second cup of coffee, they walked out onto the street and deliberately turned in the opposite direction from the hotel. They ought to return and work, but without needing to glance at each other, they knew they did not intend to. They walked instead toward the old city, sometimes in companionable silence, sometimes sharing their thoughts. Elena told him that, after the conference ended the following day, she planned to go to Paris before returning to London. The air was warm, with a light wind. The weather was infinitely changeable along Italy’s western coast, and the locals discussed it exhaustively, and could forecast it with skill built up over generations. It would be fine all day today, the café waitress had told them.
They looked at mosaics in the pavement, endless statues of Madonnas smiling with benevolent patience on the visitors, admired churches whose tiled floors were smoothed by the feet of over a thousand years of the faithful, the grieving, the penitent, and those seeking refuge from day-to-day turmoil.
“Did you know,” Ian asked suddenly, “that there is a saying here that when the people born in this place die, if they go to heaven, it’s just a day like any other?”
Elena looked at him to see if he had really heard that, or was making it up. She knew from his eyes—the laughter, the softness, almost wistfulness—that he was speaking the truth. “No,” she answered, “but I believe it.”
They continued, st
opping occasionally to consider a painting, a dome seen against a perfect sky, the grace of a statue. She could feel his arm around her, and sometimes his hand in hers, and that was all that was necessary.
* * *
—
When they arrived back at the hotel, the police were still there asking questions about the man whose body had been found in the linen cupboard.
Elena glanced at Ian, saw him hesitate, a shadow crossing his face. “Did you know him?” she asked quietly.
Ian’s silence stretched out to half a minute. “No. When I first saw him, he reminded me sharply of someone I knew. It was foolish of me, because the man I knew is dead. I saw him when he was dead…and seeing this man reminded me of it. I’m sorry, I should have—”
“Don’t be sorry,” she interrupted. “We shouldn’t be feeling guilty because we can’t forget the people we’ve known, or even the ones we haven’t. It’s not…it’s not a fault to grieve over the dead, just to make it about ourselves when it isn’t; it’s about them.”
He smiled at her with sudden sweetness, a warmth in his eyes that made Elena catch her breath.
The next moment, one of the police spoke to him. “Signor Newton? I believe you were the one to find the body of the dead man late yesterday evening? That is so, yes?”
“Not quite,” Ian answered. “The housemaid found him and let out a cry. I was very close, on the way to my room, and I heard her. She had opened the linen cupboard and the body fell out.”
