Remembrance by Danielle Steel Page B

child.
    “Yes.” She kissed the end of his nose. “It always was pretty.”
    “What?” He looked confused.
    “This bed. This room.”
    He smiled at her gently. “Did you come here often with Marcella?” He asked the question in all innocence, and Serena could not restrain a gurgle of laughter. She had to tell him now. She had to. They had been secretly married in the garden by friendly spirits, and consummated their union in her mother's bed. It was time to tell him the truth.
    “I didn't come here with Marcella.” She hung her head for a moment, touching his hand and wondering how to say the words. And then she looked into his eyes again. “I used to live here, Major.”
    “Do you suppose you could call me Brad now? Or is that too much to ask?” He bent to kiss her, and she smiled afterward as she pulled away.
    “All right. Brad.”
    “What do you mean, you used to live here? With Marcella and your folks? Did the whole family work here?”
    She shook her head solemnly, with a serious expression in her eyes. She sat up in feed then and pulled the sheets around her, as she held tightly to her lover's hand. “This was my mother's room, Brad. And your office was my room. That was—” Her voice was so soft he could barely hear her. “That was why I went there that night. The first time I saw you … that night in the dark.…” Her eyes bore into his then, and he stared at her in astonishment.
    “Oh, my God. Then, who are you?” She said nothing for a long moment. “You're not Marcella's niece.” He grinned. He had suspected that long before.
    “No.” There was another pause and then Serena drew a breath and hopped from the bed to drop him a deep and reverent curtsy. “I have the honor to be the Principessa Serena Alessandra Graziella di San Tibaldo.…” She rose from the curtsy then and stood before him in all her extraordinary elegance and beauty, naked in her mother's room, as Brad Fullerton stared at her in amazement.
    “You're what?” But he had heard it all. As she began to repeat it he put up a hand quickly, and suddenly he began to laugh. So this was the Italian “maid” he had worried about seducing, Marcella's “niece.” It was wonderful and perfectly insane and delightfully crazy, and he couldn't stop laughing as he looked at Serena, and she was laughing too, and then at last she lay in his arms in her mother's bed and he grew pensive. “What a strange life for you, my darling, living here, working for the army.” He suddenly let his mind run over the work she had had to do in the past month and it no longer seemed so funny. In fact it seemed desperately cruel.
    “How in hell did it all happen?” And then she told him, from the beginning, how it had been, from the days of dissent between her father and Sergio, her parents' death, the time in Venice, her flight to the States, and her return. And she told him the truth, that she had nothing, that she was no one now except a maid in the palazzo. She had no money, no belongings, nothing, except her history, her ancestry, and her name. “You have a great deal more than that, my love.” He gazed at her gently as they lay on the bed, side by side. “You have a magical gift, a special grace that few people have. Wherever you are, Serena, it will serve you well. You will always stand out. You are special, Marcella is right. You are a principessa … a princess.… I understand that now.” For him, it explained the magic about her. She was a princess … his princess … his queen. He looked at her with such tenderness then that it almost brought tears to her eyes.
    “Why do you love me, Major?” She looked strangely old and wise and sad as she asked.
    “I'm after your money.” He grinned at her, looking very handsome and younger than his years.
    “I thought so. Do you think I have enough?” She smiled into his eyes.
    “How much have you got?”
    “About twenty-two dollars after last payday.”
    “That's perfect. I'll take you.