Free Song Above the Clouds by Rosemary Pollock Page A

the sake of something to do she decided that they tasted bitter.
    “No,” she admitted, “I didn’t know.”
    'For several moments the Conte didn’t say anything, and she felt that his eyes were penetrating her soul. And then he shrugged. “You will see him soon, I expect.”
    A short time later they got up to go, and he asked her if there was anything she would like to do or see during what was left of the morning.
    “There is scarcely time for St. Peter’s, but we could perhaps go to the Piazza di Spagna. It is near here, and there will be flower-sellers ...” He hesitated, waiting possibly for her to betray some sign of enthusiasm. “On a bright winter morning there is nowhere more pleasant.”
    “I’m taking up too much of your time...” She felt dazed, as if the information that had just been passed on to her about John Ryland had had almost the effect of a physical blow. She scarcely knew what the man beside her was talking about, but she did understand that he was offering her a choice between remaining in his company for a while longer and being taken back to Caterina Marchetti’s flat, there to be left to her own devices, and she suddenly knew that whatever happened she didn’t want to be alone. Not just at the moment.
    “Thank you,” she said. “I’d love to see—to see... ”
    “To see the Piazza di Spagna? I am glad.”
    He suggested that they should walk, and as he guided her through the laughing, hurrying crowds that packed the pavements, he pointed out everything that he thought would interest her. He was a good guide, and although the babel of bewildering sound that ebbed and flowed around them prevented her from hearing everything he said she heard enough to realize that he knew his city very well indeed. The Piazza di Spagna was the ancient square dominated by the graceful height of the Spanish Steps, and during the nineteenth century, her companion told her, it had been the favourite haunt of nearly all the British and American artists who at that time flocked to Rome. He told her how they had used the colourful figures of the flower-sellers for models, paying them very well, sometimes, to pose in picturesque attitudes amid the profuse brilliance of their flower baskets, or against the soaring honey-coloured campanili of Santa Maria Maggiore, the church at the top of the steps. He pointed out the house where Keats di e d, the famous English tea-room which had consoled generations of English exiles , the graceful bulk of the Renaissance palaces, and the worn cobbles under their feet that had once echoed to the ring of thoroughbred hooves' and the rumble of princely coach wheels. I n the eighteenth centu r y, the Conte said, the Piazza di Spagna had been one great parking place for the ponderous equipages of the nobility. As he said it, Candy recollected that he himself was a part of that nobility, and glancing up for a moment at his thin, classically perfect features she found herself wondering just how much of the old dark soul of Rome lurked behind that shuttered, unreadable face.
    All at once she realized that he was asking her where she would like to go for lunch, and with a shock it occurred to her that he seemed to think it was his duty to entertain her for the rest of the day. Feeling a flush creep into her cheeks, she thanked him enthusiastically for giving her a wonderful morning.
    “But now you’ve got to leave me to my own devices. I’d rather like to wander about by myself. Well, I mean ... ” She floundered awkwardly.
    “You would prefer to be alone?” His soft voice was neither surprised nor hurt. It was just completely expressionless.
    “No, of course not.” She shook her hair back from her face in a gesture that had recently become a nervous habit. “It’s just that I’m being a nuisance to you.”
    “You are not a nuisance,” he said seriously. He bent his head to study her, and a faint smile began to play about his lips. “Listen, Signorina Candida, you