Estelle peered at the plaque below the painting. ‘“Raphael, Portrait of Pope Leo X with Two Cardinals.” With a spyglass in his hand too. Do you think he was short-sighted? He looks to me like a man who bears a grudge. I don’t think I’d like to be in the cardinals’ shoes.’
Standing beside her in one of the portrait galleries in the Uffizi, Aidan laughed softly. ‘It does look as if they’ve brought him some very unwelcome news.’
‘Are they standing or sitting?’ Estelle peered closer. ‘Either they are sitting, and that one at a very odd angle, or they are very short.’
‘It’s about fixing the perspective,’ Aidan said, going on to explain, as he had with several paintings they had examined that morning, the mathematics and ratios behind the composition.
‘Do you think Raphael understood all this?’
‘Well da Vinci certainly did, and they were contemporaries.’
Estelle wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t make me like it any more. I certainly wouldn’t want it hanging on my wall. Which is just as well, since I don’t have one, far less four to call my own.’
They made their way through the gallery stopping when the fancy took them to speculate, sometimes about the art, sometimes about the spectators of the art. It had been ten days since they had first met here, and they’d spent a large part of every one of those days together. Aidan had given up any pretence of studying. When he was with Estelle, the world was a golden place, with no past and no future to tarnish it. They talked of everything and nothing. Like him, she seemed content to forget the real world and to wallow in this one. There were still moments when unbidden memories caught him unawares, when he was reminded of the terrible burden he carried, but in Estelle’s company, those were quickly banished, and if she noticed them—he knew she did—she made no comment.
Did she have her own secrets? It astonished him sometimes, alone in his rooms, thinking over the day, how little he really knew of her, but what did fact and history matter, when they understood each other on a more elemental level? Mind and body, there was a connection between them that grew stronger every day. They both knew perfectly well that it would have to be severed, and soon, and they both knew that the sensible thing would be to wean themselves off it. But instead, each day they fed the flames further, greedy for more, and never quite satisfied that they’d had enough.
She made him feel alive. She made him feel young. She made him feel new. He revelled in being the person she saw, not being the man he had become. With her, he could fool himself into believing he really was that person. Though there was a part of him patiently watching, ready to pounce when he was alone, that knew this was all a lie. No, not a lie, a dream. If only he never had to awake.
They had reached the Tribuna, the most popular of the galleries, where, despite the early hour, the usual assortment of people were sketching and staring. Estelle had joined a small group in front of one of the more infamous works featuring lasciviously nude women. It made him want to laugh, the way she tilted her head, wrinkled her nose, shuffled from one side of the frame to the other, attempting to see what so fascinated the others. She had no idea she was so transparent, and no idea it was one of the things about her which he found most endearing. For such an independent, seasoned traveller, she had a surprising innocence about her. She was not naïve, but she consistently underestimated herself. It made him fiercely protective, though he was careful not to let her see that. And careful, very careful, not to let the kisses they shared lead to anything more significant.
He wanted her. There wasn’t a moment when he was in her company when he wasn’t aware of her, and she of him too. They were forever brushing against each other, their fingertips touching on table tops, while their knees did the same, hidden from view. Her hand was always tucked into his arm when they walked. Their kisses were searing, heady, delightful. He couldn’t get enough of her kisses, but he rationed them all the same, lest they lose their innocence. Such pleasurable kisses could so easily lead to more darkly sensual pleasures. Deeper kisses, more intimate caresses. Estelle would follow where he led. It was her implicit trust in him that made it easy to restrain himself—if frustrating. And he did permit himself to speculate how it might be. Such fevered imaginings!
‘If you were a painting, Aidan Malahide, I’d say that you were a man about to devour a most excellent dinner. You have a look of ravenous anticipation.’
‘Do I?’ he said, smiling. ‘My appetite for art is certainly utterly sated. I think a coffee is called for. Shall we?’
Estelle took Aidan’s arm, and he pulled her a little closer, as he always did, as they made their way to the Piazza della Signoria. The waiter waved them to what had been her table and had now become theirs, bringing coffee and pastries without asking. Above her, the sun shone from a perfect blue sky decorated with what seemed like impossibly fluffy clouds. Beside her, Aidan was idly surveying the promenade of tourists, artists setting up their easels, hawkers setting up their wares. He sat at an angle to the little table, stretching his legs out, leaning slightly back in his chair, his coat unfastened. His stomach was quite flat. There was a very pleasing breadth to his shoulders. There were any number of statues of naked men in this city, but until now, she’d never compared art to life. How would Aidan compare with Michelangelo’s masterpiece over there? Aidan was flesh and blood, not cold marble. His skin would be warm. Smooth? Pale or tanned? She had absolutely no idea. Her experience of naked male flesh began and ended with statues, and until now, she’d had no inclination whatsoever to broaden her knowledge.
Estelle Brannagh! She reached for her coffee just as Aidan reached for his, and their hands brushed each other. He smiled at her, one of his slow, lazy smiles, and her breath caught, and her stomach fluttered as she returned his smile. He couldn’t possibly have read her thoughts, but his gaze lingered on her, and something in his eyes made her hot under the summer gown she had so carefully chosen for today, and his fingers curled around hers, and he lifted her hand to his mouth and he kissed her fingertips. She’d taken her gloves off to drink her coffee, and the touch of his lips on her bare skin made her shiver in the most delightful way, and her shivering made his hand tighten on hers, and he kissed her fingertips again, his lips soft, warm. Dear heavens!
She blinked. He released her hand. A dog, one of those small, fluffy creatures with a coat so long that it almost completely obscured its feet, came racing towards them. ‘It looks like a fur-covered ottoman on wheels,’ Estelle said. ‘Do you have a dog? I feel sure you must, for all castles should have at least one dog roaming the halls. A hound of some sort, perhaps?’
But Aidan seemed not to be listening to her. ‘Ah, here comes the cavalry. Give me a minute.’
It took him three strides to catch up with the runaway lapdog, which he scooped up so suddenly that the creature’s legs were still paddling the air. The two children who had been in hot pursuit took eager charge of their pet, thanking Aidan in careful English which became a stream of Italian when he responded in their own language. He knelt down on the cobbles to converse with the pair. A boy and a girl, twins, Estelle thought, or very near in age, and most certainly brother and sister. The boy hugged the dog while the girl attached the leash it must have slipped. The girl did most of the talking, while the boy soothed the dog, setting it carefully back on to the cobblestones, shaking his head furiously at something his sister said, launching into a speech that involved much gesticulating, while the little girl watched, her arms crossed, her expression so like Eloise listening to one of Phoebe’s flights of fancy, that Estelle couldn’t help but laugh.
When the trio were interrupted by a flustered mama, Aidan seemed reluctant to leave them. They talked on, the mother smiling, garrulous, now that she had her babes safe, stooping every now and then to kiss one or other, or to include them in the conversation, and Estelle felt such a yearning, she had to look away.
Aidan sat back down beside her, waving at the departing family. ‘They’re