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‘I don’t mean it to be. It won’t be. I’m going to be in New York in a few months.’

‘You will call?’

‘Yes.’

Suddenly there seemed hope for them. The realisation reached both of them at the same time. Smiles crossed their faces, happiness, joyfulness came forth in a burst of laughter. ‘This is a celebration, I was so afraid we would never see each other again,’ she told him.

‘I wish I could offer you a sumptuous lunch in the
best restaurant in Venice with a view that will never allow you to forget me or the city and will make you always want to return, but I haven’t the means.’

‘Then let me offer you lunch, I have holiday money.’

Before they left the
palazzo
he rushed Amy back to his studio. There he selected a watercolour, one she had admired. ‘I never give my work away. I mean that,
never
. But this, I
lend
to you, to have something of me with you. I don’t want to be forgotten.’

They had their lunch and over it told each other about their day-to-day lives, their hopes and dreams. They exchanged telephone numbers and addresses and gave each other their travelling schedules. Soon Jarret too would be gone from Venice to Istanbul where Fee was opening the house. Istanbul! That came as a jolt to Amy. It would make Jarret even more remote from her than his being in Venice. Before they had even parted, this magical day she was living was receding, becoming a dream or something of the imagination.

They had no friends in common so he spoke of his: Madame Grès and Schiaparelli, Salvador Dali, the Countess this and the Count that, and half a dozen millionaires. High society names. Even their artist friends were different. The outside world was pulling them apart. All that was left was how they felt about each other. They returned to that and clung to each other until lunch was over then walked across St Mark’s Square, a cloud of fluttering wings hovering round and above them, following their every footstep to a water-taxi stand on the Grand Canal.

‘Thank you for a wonderful day. You have the watercolour to remind you,’ he told her.

‘I’m sorry I can’t break my date in Athens this evening.’

‘Should I be jealous?’ he teased.

‘Of James Crier, a man I’ve yet even to meet? No, I don’t think so.’

Jarret began to laugh, and told her, ‘Neither do I. What a relief! I know James and his sister. You’ll like him, but you’ll not love him as you love me.’

‘Are you so sure of that?’

‘Yes, and so would you be if you believed in fate as I do.’

Amy thought he was about to take her in his arms when a middle-aged woman, still a great beauty, approached them. She shimmered with elegance and held out her hand imperiously to Jarret. He immediately took it and lowered his head in a kiss. Immediately he seemed to change, become the courtly society man. They spoke in Italian and finally she turned to acknowledge Amy. Introductions were made and the woman switched to perfect English. The boatman kept pointing to his watch and telling Jarret they must leave if they were to make Amy’s train to Rome. But there was no
they
taking the water-taxi, just Amy. Jarret had yet to tell her that he hated emotional exits and entrances.

It seemed to her their farewell was over before it began. He was helping her on to the boat, wishing her a
bon voyage
. All warmth and intimacy had gone from his voice, except for a squeeze of her hand, a look of sadness
in his eyes, a few whispered words: ‘I’ll come and claim my watercolour.’ Then he was gone on the arm of a Venetian lady. She heard their laughter as the powerboat gave a mournful blast of its horn and eased smoothly into the traffic plying the Grand Canal.

Amy had no sinking feeling, she was not shattered by the way she and Jarret had parted, it was more that she was so very sorry it had happened at all, that her magical day with him was over. If anything she was grateful for the experience of Venice and Jarret, of love on the run, passion dampened down by bad timing; appreciative of a separation that might have been far more painful had they given in to how they really felt about each other. Even with her eyes still on him and unable to see his handsome face, watching the charismatic Jarret with another woman as she sped away from him, Amy began to ask those irritating questions. Had she read too much into his feelings for her? Did she imagine he wanted her because she wanted him so much? Had she misunderstood his words of admiration, taken them to mean more than they did? Had they indeed been words of adoration and love or merely a fantasy on her part?

He had, after all, not bedded her. Seduced her but had not taken her. Why? would have been a good question but Amy didn’t ask herself that. Indeed her heart took over her head and all she could do was stare after him, keep him in sight for as long as she possibly could, holding on to love’s lost dream.

She ran to the stern of the boat the better to keep him in sight and there she remained until she could no
longer distinguish him from anyone else in the square. Amy remained alone there when even the square itself, with its famous bell tower, was out of sight. She had watched him with keen eyes, but eyes that had not been sharp enough. She had missed seeing him turn to look over his shoulder for the boat that was carrying her away from him. Nor could she imagine the profound sense of loss he felt at her departure.

The Principessa on Jarret’s arm did. She smiled at Jarret and spoke to him in Italian. ‘Americans like that pretty girl are so innocent. Children really when it comes to real life. Had I interrupted something? We know it couldn’t have been love.’

‘Someone to do with the New York art world.’

‘Ah, that would explain it. Shall we go home to bed?’

‘And Carlo?’

‘In Rome.’

‘Then your place?’

‘And you must stay to dine. I’m having people in.’

‘Much as I would like to, I don’t think I can.’

‘Go to bed and have sex, or dine with us this evening?’

‘Both.’

‘I saw love in that girl’s eyes, Jarret.’

‘So did I.’

‘Oh, Jarret, my dear Jarret, you’re treading on dangerous territory here. Girls like that do not bring
palazzos
with them, and titles, nor do they further men’s careers. Not at least the men they love. I am surprised at you and so will Fee be. I never beg, Jarret, you should
know that by now, but I do think you would do well to come home with me.’

It was true the Principessa never begged. She commanded, and most of her young lovers obeyed. So did Jarret, and had been doing so discreetly for many years. They shared a sexual depravity that had no need for love or emotional involvement, and she had been good to Fee and Jarret. But it was none of these things and all of them that made him change his mind and go with her. It was too an incredible need to have sex with a woman, lose himself in a warm, moist and willing female. That was what he had wanted from the very moment he set eyes on Amy Ross in Rimboccare. The Principessa Carina Dondolo offered what was needed at that moment: a distraction from the loss of Amy Ross. And it was a loss. The day had had its magic for him as it had for Amy. From the moment he set eyes on her he was struck with desire for this woman, who seemed immediately to fill a void in his life. He had been honest when he told her that he thought she had come into his life at just the right moment.

Sex with the Principessa had been a delightful distraction. By the early hours of the morning, when he left her, Jarret had Amy Ross in a proper perspective vis-à-vis his life and was more himself. He crawled into his bed and slept a dreamless sleep, the sleep of a child, without a care in the world. But the morning sun and the sound of the bells ringing across the city and his stroll through the rooms of his house to the kitchen were
to remind him of the day before and Amy Ross. Her enthusiasm for his work, her attraction to him, her passionate beauty, her rich and loving soul; those things lingered in the very air he breathed like a strong perfume. Like some sweet ghost they floated through the
palazzo
, embraced him and would not let him go.

He sat down in a chair and gazed through the window into his beloved garden. He had been planning his trip to New York for months. Jarret knew he must get that one-man show he had been working towards for so long, that the excitement in the contemporary art world was now in New York and he had yet to conquer that world.

He had chosen Europe years ago and Europe had been good to him. It was his home, the place he lived and worked best in. It had embraced him as the poor struggling American painter and brought him Fee. Together the two men, the odd couple, the American and the Turk, had come a long way as painters and friends, partners in the search for fame and fortune.

Later, when Fee had played matchmaker and Jarret had married Savannah Lee, the three had charmed their way into the lives of the wealthy and aristocratic titled Europeans living in Paris, Rome, Venice. Jarret Sparrow became the link between that world and New York high society when abroad. He and Fee made of these people patrons of Jarret’s work that had brought him dealers and exhibitions, and retired Fee from painting so he could manage their lives. Stepping stones, all stepping stones to the New York art world, fame and fortune –
obsessive desires that were gnawing now at Jarret’s bones.

Now that he had met Amy Ross he had even more reason to make the dreaded trip to New York. It was dreaded because New York was not easy for Jarret. It embraced him socially for his handsomeness, for being a painter, for the lifestyle he lived. It martyred him for his connection to a burdensome wife, and grieved for his having to divorce her to save them from each other. Americans saw him and his sad story of love and marriage as shades of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda.

Amy Ross was new and fresh and had the vitality and passion for the art world he loved, for life itself. For a few hours it had rubbed off on him and he wanted more of it and much more of her. It had been, still was, sexual. He had wanted to throw her down before he had even spoken to her, and had nearly done so several times during the time they were together, but he was a greedy man, and a taste of her sexually would not have been enough. He wanted to possess her sexually but not only sexually, totally. When he saw her off, he saw it in her eyes. He had won, he had taken possession of her. The next time he saw her they would reap their reward, he for having seduced her, she for her submission to a fatal attraction. They would have sex and she would be his for ever. The very idea was enough to arouse him. To feel himself erect, pulsating for her, surprised Jarret. He was usually a master of sexual control, a habit formed to get him what he wanted.

Amy brought him new life and hope and he thought
of her now and wanted her and wondered where she was, what wonders of Greece she was seeing. She was thinking about him no matter where she was, who she was with or what she was doing, of that he was certain. He had seduced her as no other man ever had or could. It had all been there in her eyes. And much to his surprise, in his hand was proof that Jarret Sparrow had been seduced by Amy Ross.

Amy was in Athens, walking on the stones of the Acropolis with James Crier at her side at the time Jarret was in his kitchen coming to terms with the possibility of having fallen in love.

It seemed to her that every step she took on this magical journey of hers was like stepping off a cliff. She felt as if she were in free fall all the time. Paris was Paris and Chartres had been France. Venice had been Italy, there had been no culture shocks there, but from the moment her feet touched the ground in Greece she was transferred into the unknown, another new and wonderful world. Greek culture took her over and James Crier eased the way, softened the shock. Jarret was very much there too, she couldn’t get him and their time together out of her mind. She did make an effort to keep her feelings about him in perspective, and most of the time was able to do that by telling herself, ‘This is madness, love for a stranger, a man I might never see again. A man I know nothing about.’ Suddenly she wanted to know who this man was. A glimpse of his life had only confused her. Her desire to be with him, add
something to his life, disconcerted her.

Amy and James had the Agora to themselves and were very much aware of each other as well as their surroundings. Here was a man more suited to her. Tall and slender and very handsome, erudite, well-dressed, a Greek scholar, a wealthy, sophisticated man with great charm, a romantic who was interested enough in her to send flowers and take time to be with her, a man interested in
her
work. He was all the things she could ever want in a man, but the chemistry she had instantly felt with Jarret was not there. They were memorable, these days and nights with James, but she was a woman in love with another man.

James wanted her to see at least one Greek island before she left for Cairo and took her to Patmos where he had a house. On the boat going there Amy found it impossible to keep Jarret locked up in herself any longer. Reluctantly she let him surface and asked James, ‘Do you know a painter called Jarret Sparrow?’

‘Yes, I do.’ James was too much of a gentleman to allow surprise to come into his voice, though he was surprised.

‘I met him in Venice.’

‘My sister introduced us in Paris. She lives there, and was friendly with him. More so than with his wife.’

How can one word wield such a blow? Amy felt winded by it. Jarret had not mentioned a wife, there had been no sign of one. She managed to conceal the shock she had received from this news.

‘His wife wasn’t in Venice.’ That was not what Amy had meant to say.

‘Well, she wouldn’t be. It is, I understand, a bitter separation. In fact, I think by now it might be that they have divorced.’

‘And his painting, do you know his work?’ asked Amy, trying to keep the relief from her voice.

‘Yes, I do. My sister has a gallery in Paris and has shown him in group exhibitions. She likes his work better than I do. I only quite like it. He’s not consistent. Sometimes I like him better than other times. Did you get a chance to see his work?’