She raised her eyes to meet his. “Sì.”

Alessandro growled.

Katerina quickly added, “But Christopher rescued me.”

“By marrying you?”

She nodded. “He is my hero.”

“Then I'm glad to know him.”

She inhaled through her nose, trying to calm herself. Christopher's thumb

stroked over her fingers. Another question rose in Katerina's mind. “Nonno, why

did Mother marry my father?”

“She insisted. We didn't want her to. No matter the scandal, we would have

stood by her. Understand, Katerina, your mother was a good girl, but very young. Your father… manipulated her.”

Poor thing. Somehow, I’m not surprised. “Was she… incinta?”

“Sì.”

“With me?”

“Sì”

“So, I'm responsible.” She closed her eyes against the wave of agony.

Alessandro reached across the seat and grasped her free hand. “No, no one thinks that. You were just a baby. He was the one.”

She smiled sadly. “Right. Nonno, I would rather have been born a bastard.”

His eyebrows drew together, and his mouth turned down. The loss of his

shiny smile made him look old and sad. “I'm sure, but you're safe now, and you

have a kind husband to look after you.”

“I do.” She snuggled up against Christopher and laid her cheek against his shoulder.

“I'm so glad.” He looked away for a long moment.

“What was that all about?” Christopher asked his wife quietly.

“He wanted to be sure I was safe. He knew about my father's behavior.”

Seeing Alessandro's attention wander away, Christopher hugged his wife gently.

She leaned into his embrace. They turned together to watch the hills outside the

carriage window. A river ran parallel to the road. The Arno, their research had told them. On the other side, a massive olive grove shivered its myriad branches

in the evening breeze.

After a little time passed, Alessandro returned his attention to his guests,

catching them snuggled together. He raised his eyebrows, but both looked back steadily at him, unwilling to release each other.

“Well, this brings up another question,” Alessandro addressed them both in

English. “In the past, when I have had visitors from England, husbands and wives have demanded separate rooms.”

“One will do,” Katerina told her grandfather firmly.

“I suspected as much.” He winked at them. “That will be fine. Well, children,

here we are. Come along.”

They climbed down into the chilly evening air and walked quickly to a

gracious, tile-roofed home constructed of golden stones. Full dark had fallen, concealing the olive trees from view, but the golden glow of lanterns illuminated

the house and complimented the warm sunshine yellow of the stones and the thick creamy mortar between.

It was an irregularly-shaped construction, charming in its eccentricity; a two-

story rectangle, with a sharply protruding exterior wall to the right, and a recessed area in the center. All the wings had sloping roofs that appeared, like the buildings in Livorno, to be of bumpy red tile, although in the dark, the detail

was hard to discern.

As they approached the front entrance with its huge, arched double door,

Katerina noticed that to the left, what appeared to be a square stone tower rose

two stories above the normal roofline of the house.

The chill had turned biting, so they hurried through the door and down a hallway lined with cream plaster walls. An ancient wood floor gleamed in the dim light of lamps fueled by olive oil.

They entered the dining room and sat at a rough-hewn table. There, as

promised, a hot meal waited. It seemed to be a kind of stew or casserole made of

beans and sausage, piled on thick yellow plates.