Bestseller. Olivia Goldsmith

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       Often while reading a book one feels that the author would have preferred to paint rather than write; one can sense the pleasure he derives from describing a landscape or a person, as if he were painting what he is saying, because deep in his heart he would have preferred to use brushes and colors.

       —Pablo Picasso

      Camilla and Frederick arrived in Assisi at twilight, and the driver expertly maneuvered the narrow street that led first up the hill to the apex and then down through a gate, passed the church of Saint Francis, and wound around to the venerable Hotel Subiaso. It was the only hotel perched beside the huge basilica. The suite had a terrace large enough to host a small drinks party on, and Camilla couldn’t help but be drawn through the French doors. There was a spectacular view of the Umbrian plain seven hundred feet below. Despite her horrid nervousness, her concern about the sleeping arrangements and the lot, she couldn’t help but be seduced by the scene, if not by Frederick himself.

      “It’s wonderful,” she said reverently. He joined her and nodded. “It’s like the landscape behind a Leonardo painting.”

      “You have a good eye.”

      “I would have been a painter if I had the talent,” Camilla told him.

      “And I’d have been a painter if 1 had the talent.” She looked at him, surprised. Then she was lured back to the view. “Do you like it?” he asked.

      “I like everything. Especially you.” Then she was embarrassed by her warmth. “With the exception of your sadly misguided preference for Guardi over Canaletto.”

      “Hah!” He put his hand up and examined her hair. “You’re showing your bourgeois roots, my girl.”

      She jumped involuntarily, then stared back out at the view, not knowing what to feel. She felt exposed somehow. Her roots were not bourgeois at all—they were far lower than that. What did his little joke mean? Below them lights were beginning to twinkle. “It’s wonderful,” she said. “I’ve never stayed in Assisi overnight, and I’m sure you don’t get this view from anywhere except the hotel.”

      “That’s nothing,” Frederick said. “Take a look at this.” Gently he took her arm and turned her to the right. There, abutting the side of the hill, the church of Saint Francis extended itself to the very end of the peak, illuminated and as nobly beautiful as the prow of a ship. Camilla actually gasped. Although she had seen the basilica by night, lit at the entrance, the massive stone portals viewed from the piazza didn’t reveal even a tenth of the structure.

      “Amazing, isn’t it?” Frederick said. “And they built it in three years.”

      The building was astonishing. It was, essentially, a full church built upon a full church. Although there was no dome, the double height of the two floors combined, built into and rising out of the hill of Assisi itself, made the whole deeply impressive. The rows of riblike flying buttresses were like the exposed bones of a fossil along the escarpment of the Assisi cliff. It was a breathtaking sight, and it brought Camilla great joy—the kind of joy that cannot be planned for or sought but that comes serendipitously. Suddenly she was flooded with it, nearly drunk with it, and it must have showed.

      Camilla wished she could talk about it, could thank him and tell him how much the sight meant to her. But she wasn’t good with words—not unless she wrote them down. She hadn’t even been able to broach the subject of his intentions—whether Frederick expected her to sleep with him. She hated being so tongue-tied.

      Maybe Frederick understood. “I’ll leave you here,” he said. “My room is next door.” Before she could say anything, he withdrew. She felt a momentary stab of guilt: It had so far been so easy. No embarrassing fumblings, no need for gentle explanations or—far worse—awkward struggles and recriminations. She was, apparently, free. No strings attached. Free to take in this beauty without having to bonk him. She had misjudged Frederick.

      Tonight she felt herself among the privileged. On other day visits she had looked up and seen people on the many terraces and balconies of the Subiaso. She had known that it was not, as her mother surely would have put it, “for the likes of us.” But now it was for her. She smiled in the dark. Looking out at the view was like owning a wonderful painting. She tried to memorize the sight, so that she could recall it at will.

      Just then a shutter door opened and, on a much smaller balcony, Frederick appeared. He waved. “Do you think you might consider relinquishing the view if I tempted you with dinner on the terrace below?” He gestured, and though she couldn’t see his hand in the increasing darkness, his white shirt cuff gleamed. She looked down. Two or three stories below was a vast piazza. She hadn’t noticed it because it was completely roofed with green leaves. Just below the verdant canopy she could glimpse the diners who were beginning to take their tables. “I have a reservation. I wanted to be sure we had a seat by the railing,” he told her. His head was cocked in that funny way of his—birdlike and pushed almost down to one shoulder. “Do you think you could stop drinking all this in and start eating instead?” His white teeth flashed in the darkness. She nodded, then realized he wouldn’t be able to see her gesture.

      “Yes,” she called to him. “I’m starving. But aren’t you knackered?”

      “What? Knackered? Sounds like something done to a horse.” She heard him laugh, and she blushed.

      She always said the wrong thing. She probably sounded like a yob. “Tired,” she said, flustered. “I meant tired. Anyway, knock on my door when you’re ready. I’ll go down on you.” She realized then what she’d said and blushed furiously. “Go down with you,” she corrected.

      “Well, I think I prefer the former, but I’ll do the latter,” Frederick laughed.

      Perfect. He was genteel, and I throw in the smut! What a balls-up. Camilla wondered about Frederick again. He was certainly attentive, but so were so many homosexual men. And why else would he be traveling with his mother? But perhaps he was not gay. Nervously Camilla went back inside and only then realized the room was actually a small suite. The parlor was furnished in old but tasteless Italian furniture of the if-its-gilded-or-painted-it-must-be-bellisimo school. A small door led to the minuscule bedroom. There was only enough space there for a large bed painted with garlands of peonies and a huge matching wardrobe. But there were shutters that opened to a small balcony, similar to the one Frederick had stood on. Camilla looked from the balcony to the bed and realized that she could sleep tonight with the shutters open and wake up to a view unsurpassed in all of Umbría. She smiled, then forced herself to get down to business, washing up and dressing. She was just finishing up when she heard Frederick’s tap at the door. Grabbing a jumper to throw over her shoulders, she joined him in the hallway.

      Camilla was charmed by the dining room—if a veranda covered with vines could be classified as a room. Once again, as in San Gimignano, she and Frederick were led to the best table, in the corner where the two railings met. The leafy roof rustled, and Camilla put the jumper around her shoulders.

      “Cold?” Frederick asked. “Shall I give you my jacket?”

      “No,” she told him, “it’s perfect.”

      And it was. The meal was perfect, the view was perfect, and the wine was perfect. Despite her awkwardness, they talked about Saint Francis and Saint Claire and planned how they would spend the day tomorrow. The dining room buzzed pleasantly with the talk of couples and families enjoying themselves.

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