Free Roman Summer by Jane Arbor Page A

them for his professional ends.
    And between herself and him there was not even that necessity. What was she to him but a convenient appendage to his sponsorship of Cicely? He had admitted that even his gift to her had had an ulterior motive—that under his escort she should do him credit with his friends.
    She had seen the danger of Cicely ’s falling for him. Why hadn’t she seen it for herself? Because, she supposed, she had thought she was immunised against a second love. But she hadn’t reckoned with a capacity to love which hadn’t died with Alec. Nor with her woman’s need to give and to share and to partner which had been starved since Alec’s death. More than once she had doubted that she had it any longer. Only tonight, had she rediscovered it in full measure. It was an ache at the heart; a hunger that had to be endured.
    She rose from the dressing-stool and slowly began to undress. There were all the tomorrows of the summer to be faced. For only when Cicely went home could the link with Erle be broken. Though just how much, her honesty wondered, did she want it broken? When the days to autumn could be counted on the fingers, would she do the counting eagerly—or with pain?
    The preliminaries of the Corso del Palio were afoot early the next day. The shops were shut, but outside booths were set up for the sale of snacks and drinks. The central square, the Piazza del Campo, where the historic horse-race would be run, was ringed about with seating-stands, and all the overlooking windows and even the rooftops were at a premium. Ruth and Cicely heard that as the race had some remote religious connections, each horse and each jockey competing would be blessed with holy water before the start. Each of the seventeen town districts had an entrant; the betting ran high, and long before the race was due the jockeys were in their colourful costumes of doublet and breeches and hose, mingling with and being feted by the crowds. Though the race itself would be a headlong stampede round the arena lasting only a few minutes, the whole day was given over to carnival which would last far into the night.
    Erle ’s influence had obtained good viewing seats for his party and after making a morning’s tour of the sideshows, they were in them in time for the parade of runners and riders before the race. They had placed their bets, Erle playing safe with the favourite, Ruth and Cicely hoping to make money with outsiders.
    Suddenly Cicely was staring across the arena and nudging Ruth. ‘Look over there. Who’s that? It can’t be. Why, it is! It’s Jeremy. Keep my place — ’ She was out of her seat and darting through the crowds to accost the young man in scarlet shirt and black jeans whom she had pointed out to Ruth.
    Ruth identified him for Erle . ‘It’s Jeremy Slade, the English boy I told you about,’ she told him as Cicely brought the young man over, plying him with questions and offering him six inches of her seat.
    ‘He hitch-hiked all the way from Rome,’ she told the other two. ‘But I’ve said he can have a lift back with us. That’s all right, isn’t it?’ she appealed to Erle .
    ‘Of course. We’ve got a spare seat, which he could have had on the way up, if he’d asked. What brought you?’ Erle asked the boy.
    ‘Well, Vivien—my sister—went down with a bit of summer throat, and with Cicely away that left me on my own. So as I knew there’s a special Sienese school of painting, I thought I ought to see it and at the same time make some sketches of the Palio that I can translate into colour later on.’
    ‘Just to look and sketch? I hoped you’d say you came because I was here,’ Cicely teased him.
    ‘Well, I did wonder if I might run into you,’ he admitted.
    Erle asked, ‘Where are you staying?’
    ‘Oh, just a cheap youth place behind the Cathedral.’
    ‘But you’ll join us now and have dinner with us tonight?’
    ‘Thanks, sir. I’d like that,’ said Jeremy, and edged in beside