She laughed. “What if the insurgent agrees to call a temporary truce?”
“You mean, put down her weapon and enter into peaceful talks?”
“Yes, that sort of thing. Only temporary, of course.”
“I think that can be arranged. Perhaps we had better walk on neutral ground.”
He jumped onto the wall and reached out his hand. She took it and let him pull her onto the top. Touching him felt like the most natural thing in the world, as if they had been familiar with each other’s skin forever, and she felt her spirits expand with happiness that they were finally reunited, as God had so clearly intended.
Once on the other side, they began to stroll up the track, side by side, Good-Night at their heels. There was a strange intimacy between them, as if they knew each other so well they didn’t need to talk.
“Did you miss me?” he asked, sensing, as she did, that he was being carried along by a strong current.
“Yes,” she replied. There was no point hiding the truth. “Did you miss me?”
He paused and took her hand. “I didn’t think I did,” he said, surprised by a sudden rush of tenderness. “But now I realize that I did. You have no idea how much.”
23.
Floriana knew now that those five years of waiting had not been in vain. Nothing could keep them apart, because the superior forces of Fate would always draw them back together again, as inevitably as the pull of gravity. It no longer mattered that she hadn’t been invited to the party, because Dante had sought her out in the one place he knew where to find her.
They ambled slowly up the track, hand in hand, closing the gap that those five years had opened. Then they sat on the rocks overlooking the ocean, and the moon lit a path across the water all the way to Heaven. Floriana thought the night had never been more beautiful. The stars were clearer than ever before, twinkling like shiny new memories, and the breeze was warm and sweet with the scent of pine.
“I didn’t expect to find a woman at the wall,” Dante confessed, sweeping his eyes over her features.
“What did you think, after five years?”
“That you’d be the same little girl lost, with knotted hair and big, frightened eyes.”
“I was never frightened.” She laughed, nudging him playfully.
“Yes, you were. You just knew how to hide it.”
She shrugged. “I can’t allow myself the luxury of fear, Dante.”
He put his arm around her, drawing her against him. “I’ll never forget the first time I saw you at the gates. You were like a little prisoner, all grubby and disheveled, gazing through the bars at freedom. I’d taken the gardens for granted until I saw them through your eyes. Everything touched you, and you gazed in wonder at the simplest, most overlooked things, like the birds in the trees, or the water whooshing out of the fountain. And now, you’re a young woman, a beautiful young woman, but inside you’re still the same little girl lost, and I want to take care of you.”
He took her face in his hand. He had spent the last five years adrift, not knowing the reason for his disquiet, like a sailor so busy navigating the sea that he cannot hear the small voice calling him home. Looking into her eyes, he knew that voice had been Floriana’s all along, and that now he was with her, he was home where he belonged.
Slowly, he bent his head and brushed her lips with his. She closed her eyes and shut out the world, her senses aware only of the warm sensation of his mouth parting her lips and kissing her deeply. Every nerve tingled with the novelty of his touch and the naked intimacy of his kiss, and she gave herself to him joyfully. Dante wrapped his arms around her and held her fiercely, determined to cherish and love her as no one else had ever done.
The countess was disappointed that Dante had dismissed them so swiftly. She had hoped that he and Costanza would have more to talk about. But he had mentioned Floriana, and from that moment on, an air of distraction had blown him out of their reach. Her one consolation was the sight of her daughter and Giovanna sitting by the fountain, heads close together as they giggled and shared secrets. That was a friendship time would only make stronger. If her daughter didn’t manage to win the heart of Dante, she would win the heart of another like him, for with Giovanna she would be sure to meet the very best society had to offer.
The count looked at his watch and saw that it was past two o’clock, time to gather his family together and go home. The countess was ready to leave. She had talked to everyone she felt might be useful to her and made some important new friends.
Costanza was not ready to go. She had just been invited to dance by a shy young man with thick brown hair and glasses, and had drunk enough champagne to give herself the confidence to accept. Reluctantly, she followed her parents to the front of the villa where their car waited on the gravel, the young chauffeur fast asleep in his seat. They weren’t the only ones leaving. Most of the adults were sweeping off in their big, shiny motors, leaving the young to dance until sunrise.