“Diaries?” Caroline’s face lit. “From the Renaissance?”
“Sì. Gregorio was apprentice to Bernini, and—”
“Oh, how exciting! Did he—?”
“I am sure you wish to see the rest of the building,” the guide said sternly, and marched off.
Caroline sighed and fell in behind him. After a second, so did Nicolo.
“The portico is thirty-three meters wide and thirteen point five meters high. It has six granite columns with Corinthian capitals that are twelve point five meters in height. They are spaced four—”
“Four point five meters apart,” Nicolo snapped.
Caroline and the guide stared at Nicolo, who glowered back. “I remember this from my school books.”
“Ah,” the guide said with too perfect a smile, “then you may remember, too, that the doors through which we just passed measure seven point three two meters. And that there were once five steps leading to the portico which measured—”
“Basta!” The word erupted from Nicolo’s throat in a roar.
The guide’s eyebrows rose until they almost met his hairline. “Is there a problem, sir?”
Two spots of color rose on Nicolo’s cheeks. “No. No problem. It’s just…” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a stack of bills. “This should do it.”
“But—I don’t understand. If the tour has not been satisfactory…”
“No, no, it’s been fine! I—I remembered I’ve an appointment. A meeting.” He grabbed the man’s hand and stuffed money into it. “And another fifty thousand lire as a bonus for all the excellent information you gave us,” he said briskly.
The guide gave him a puzzled smile. “It is too much, Excellency. We have not completed our tour.”
“Not to worry,” Nicolo said with a smile. “I shall call you the next time we are free, and we will do the rest. Yes?”
“Yes, if that is what you wish. But—”
“It is. Absolutely,” he said, hooking an arm around the man’s shoulders and leading him from the porch. He looked, Caroline thought, like a host taking leave of a guest who’d resisted all efforts to call it an evening. When he returned, she smiled brightly.
“Well,” she said, “that was certainly—interesting.”
“Yes.” He nodded stiffly. “I hope I did not spoil things for you.”
“An appointment, hmm?”
His eyes met hers. “I will call and arrange for another guide. If you wish to wait here—”
She couldn’t keep from shuddering. “No. No, please, don’t!” She hesitated. “I’d just as soon do it without a guide. Is that possible?”
Nicolo glared at her. “I suppose it is. I do know something of this city.”
“Well, then…?”
“But I am not a professional guide, Caroline.”
“I see.” She nodded. “You won’t be able to tell me the height of the Sistine Chapel?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Nor the number of days it took to build the Palazzo Farnese?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Caroline smiled a little, “But you might know the history of the Farnese family.”
“Yes, certainly. In fact, a Farnese married a Sabatini.”
“When?”
He shrugged. “Not too long ago. In the late seventeen hundreds or perhaps the early eighteen hundreds.”
She sighed happily. “Tell me about it,” she said.
He did, while they crossed the piazza. By the end of the story, she was laughing.
“Oh, that’s so much more interesting than hearing how many tons of marble went into the Arch of Constantine!”
Nicolo chuckled. “I agree. That poor man was impossible.”
“Worse than impossible. I had an English teacher like that once. Mrs. Bengs. She was supposed to teach us poetry, but—”
“But all she talked about was meter.”
Caroline smiled up at him. “How did you know?”
“Because I suffered through a class on American nineteenth-century poetry with a professor who did the same thing.” They stepped off the curb and Nicolo slipped his arm around Caroline’s waist as he guided her to the other side of the street. “I’d hoped for so much from that class since I was taking it at an American university, but—”
“What university?”
“Yale.”
“You went to Yale?”
“Sì. For my undergraduate degree.”
She thought of what he’d said about New England that day he’d brought her to Rome, and how arrogantly she’d reacted.
“Then—you do know something about New England,” she said slowly.
Nicolo shrugged. “I lived in the northeast for six years, first in Connecticut, then in Pennsylvania. I took my graduate degree at Wharton.”
“In business?”
“Of course.” He grinned. “Does Wharton give any other kind? Why do you look so surprised, cara? It is because I studied in your country—or is it because I studied at all?”
It was Caroline’s turn to blush. “I only meant—”
“I am only teasing you, Caroline. Anyway, no matter how much one studies, it is difficult to keep up with changes in the financial world.” He gave her a quick, self-deprecating smile. “Yesterday, for instance, at my meeting in Cannes—”
“Cannes?” she repeated foolishly. “You mean, you went there on business?”
Nicolo looked at her as if she’d lost he
r mind. “Certainly. I told you that before I left.” He grimaced. “For months we talked financing with these people. Do they wish to have us back them in their expansion of their resorts in France? On the Italian coast? On the Riviera?” His arm tightened around her as they stepped off the curb again. “They could not decide—and then, all at once, they came to Rome last week and yes, they want money from Sabatini. And they must have an answer from me subito.”
“You mean, you’re in charge?”
Nicolo gave her a searching glance. “And that surprises you too, eh? Ah, cara, you are like a sheet of glass. You are so translucent—”
“Transparent.”
“What is the difference? The light shines through both, no?”
“No. I mean, yes. But you see right through the one, while the other…”
“While the other you cannot.” He gave her a quick smile. “I know the difference, cara. But you—you do not.”
“Me?” She laughed. “Don’t be silly.”
“You assumed, from the beginning, that you could see through me.”
Caroline flushed. “That’s not fair!”
“The playboy prince. Too many women, too much money, and not enough brains to fill a teakettle. Am I right?”
Caroline felt her flush deepening, but she was not going to be the only one under attack here.
“You’ve got the idiom wrong again,” she said. “It’s teacup, not teakettle.” She looked straight at him. “But it wouldn’t have taken even that much to know that nobody is transparent—or translucent.”
Nicolo gave a little nod of his head. “I admit, you are not what I thought.”
Did he really think he was going to get off that easily? Her chin rose.
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“Meaning,” he said, with a little smile, “that I misjudged your morality.”
“Yes,” she said stiffly. “You certainly did.”
“I should not have made such quick assumptions.”
“No. You should not.”
Nicolo smiled. “You don’t give an inch, do you, cara?”
“Why should I? You insulted me, you—”
“And I have apologized—which is more than you have done.”
Caroline blinked. “Me? But…”