“Listen, there are piles of ancient rubble all over Italy. We’ll go see all the other ones. I prefer the Renaissance shit, anyway. Florence, for example. Much more colorful. Those Medicis? They knew how to splash their money around.”
“You know who else does? The Catholic Church.” He leans up on an elbow and tilts my face around to kiss me. “So let’s get ready to pay the Pope a visit.”
Chapter Forty-Five
LUCA
My dreams last night were disconcerting—not violent or fearful, but each time I woke I felt like I should have done something differently in the dream to procure a better outcome. Morning crept past the curtains and when I gave up on sleep, I checked the view of St. Peter’s Square, or as much as I could see from the window.
And I wondered again about Róisín.
Now that Finch is wide awake, I can’t stop him from his breakfast mission: out on the terrace garden, which, according to the information pamphlet the clerk gave us, is the reason people come to this hotel. I can see why when we step out onto it. It’s high enough to see over the colonnades of the piazza next door, and the Apostolic Palace is directly though distantly opposite, including the window at which the Pope will appear today to give the Angelus.
We aren’t alone on the terrace, despite the early hour. Indeed, the streets below are already busy, and I can see people already lining up in St. Peter’s Square, although the Pope won’t appear until noon.
“Come and eat,” Finch calls to me. I’ve stood a long time at the railing, observing the scenes below and to each side. I wore my baseball cap down to breakfast, although Finch has taken his off, despite my warnings. If anyone was going to get assassinated this close to the Vatican, he told me, the Pope was the odds-on favorite.
He does have a point. And his newly dark hair is still disconcertinglyun-Finch.
I join him for breakfast, which includes very good coffee and seasonal fruits that taste much more flavorsome than at home. Maybe it’s just being in Rome that has perked up my tastebuds. Despite the stress and the adrenaline-fueled flight from the hotel last night, I have to admit that Iamenjoying myself.
Perhaps the danger is evenpartof that enjoyment, I muse, while I watch Finch stuff his face with pastries. Life has been both extremely dull and extremely painful since the attack on the townhouse, and once I got over my seething anger and wounded pride that I lay bleeding in the street while Nick Fontana saved my husband, I was left with a wistful boredom.
Sponge baths just didn’t thrill me allthatmuch—not that I would ever admit as much to Finch. There are so many things I’d rather be doing. Like last night, for example. Taking my husband in a dirty alleyway, roughly, painfully, ecstatically, has reminded me of the pleasures that life has to offer. I want more of that.
Less of being endangered, betrayed, and shot.
“What’s the plan?” Finch asks, chomping on a crisp slice of apple from my plate.
“I’m still considering.” I move my plate a little further out of his reach. “But we’re close enough that we can leave it to the last minute before we go down to the Square, allowing for security.”
Finch lowers his voice. “You think we have any pesky hangers-on?”
I let my gaze travel around the terrace. “No,” I say after a minute.
Finch has cocked his head to one side, watching me scope the room. “You need to teach me to do that.”
“Be observant?” I say, with the faintest of smirks.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m serious. I don’t know how you do it, but you have this trick where you—you seem to knowwhatto observe. If I try to do it, I just get hyper-panicky about everyone in the place. Besides,” he finishes, grabbing the last honey-drizzled fig from my plate before I can take it, “you’re the one who said I needed to be my own last line of defense. Right?”
It’s not a bad suggestion, and he’s quite right. He does need training and he does need to get better at it. Fast. “Alright,” I allow. “After breakfast, we’ll go back up to the room, andobserve.”
“We can’t stay out here?” He stretches back in his chair, kicking out his legs to find the morning sun.
“I want to have oversight of the square without anyone having oversight of us.”
He sighs, but he doesn’t argue with me. He really is taking things more seriously than I’m giving him credit for. I need to remember who he is, this husband of mine.
When we first met I thought he was just a beautiful boy, a rich fool living a life addicted to pleasure. But he had kept himself protected and alive, alone, for many years by that stage. And he is the son and heir of my own Don, the man who elevated me to my position.
His mother seems like a real piece of work, too.
Finch is no fool, and when he puts his mind to something, he always accomplishes it.
“Why are you smiling like that?” he asks. “What are you thinking about?”
“You. And how amazing you are.”
