One With the Shadows by Susan Squires

took Kate’s elbow firmly. A sense of his electric aliveness ran through her, making her shudder. Sensation pooled between her legs. What a fool she was, to react so to a man! He seemed to have that effect on her, regardless of the circumstance. That was dangerous. He pulled her along. She squirmed, but couldn’t wrench herself from his grip.
    “Where are you taking me?” she protested as he guided her out of the square.
    “To my mother.”
    Whatever answer she expected, it certainly wasn’t that one. To his mother? It left her speechless for the second time tonight.
    For one thing, it seemed so … unthreatening. And all he had done was threaten her since the moment she met him. She had no illusion she could keep the stone if he wanted to wrest it from her. His grip on her elbow told its tale of strength, despite his being burned.
    At first he walked slowly and painfully, but soon she had to skip to keep up with him. In truth, she felt dazed by all that had happened. Red eyes, her vision of what had happened here tonight, a woman who nearly killed her, then waking up in the square with fire eating up all her hopes and Urbano rushing inside a burning building after the stone … She was numb.
    She recognized the Piazza Navona as they hurried past Bernini’s three fountains. Then, across from a park filled with ancient plane trees that lined the river Tiber, they came to a façade of old stone and arched windows. The door was opened by a very discreet servant, dressed in black, who gasped at the sight of Urbano.
    “It isn’t as bad as it looks, Paolo,” Urbano murmured.
    “May I attend you, signore?” the servant asked, concerned. Then his gaze found Kate.
    “No. But your wife will attend to Miss … Mulroney.” She had never told him her name, so he must have asked after her. “She has lost everything in a fire, but I’m sure there are … things enough somewhere … to provide…” He trailed off, looking around. Perhaps he was dazed too.
    Kate examined him more closely in the light of the well-lit foyer. His burns weren’t as bad as she’d first thought. She had imagined charred flesh beneath the holes in his clothes, but now it was really only reddened, blistered skin and soot. But he was still burned. How was he even standing? How had he hurried her across the entire Centro Storico of Rome?
    A huge standing clock against the wall struck one A.M. Urbano blinked. “Have my carriage ready at five, and Piccolo. Pack a trunk.”
    “Do you … travel during daylight?” Paolo asked. He was hovering anxiously now.
    “I’ll ride inside the carriage during the day.” Urbano staggered toward an elegant curved staircase with a carved wooden balustrade. They both stared as he trudged up the stairs. At the top he turned. “Oh, and did I say you should prepare a trunk for Miss Mulroney as well?”
    Paolo nodded, though Urbano had done no such thing. Even trusted servants didn’t dare contradict him. What must it be like to work for a man so arrogant and unfeeling? She looked around. The house was furnished with taste and elegance. That painting there … was it … was it a da Vinci? It had all the humanity of the master shining from the face of the middle-aged portrait subject. And there, the one that hung at the landing of the staircase … surely the pastels of a Botticelli. How did even a first-rate gigolo afford such luxury?
    She didn’t care. She would be gone soon. These servants didn’t seem too formidable. She need only wait until Urbano was asleep.
    Paolo rang the bellpull at one end of the foyer. He was a compact man with snapping brown eyes and a fringe of longish hair around a bald pate. If he was nonplussed by his master bringing home an unescorted female at one in the morning, he gave no sign. It probably happened frequently, Kate thought grimly.
    “Are you injured, signorina?” he asked, though he kept glancing up to where his master had disappeared.
    Kate put her hands to her