hexameters of it. Wouldn’t life be so much emptier without the world’s eccentrics?” She was laughing as she said it, but there was a ring of passion in her voice and a vividness in her face that lent her the sort of beauty that made others in the room turn to look at her, as if she might, for an instant, have been Helen herself.
Charlotte thought back to the intensity of the emotion she had seen in Blantyre’s face when he looked at Adriana: the protection, the pride, something that could have been lingering amazement that she should have chosen him, when she had had perhaps a dozen suitors, a score. How much did her beauty matter to him? Would he still have loved her had she been ordinary to look at? How much was her vulnerability, and his need to protect her, a part of his feelings for her?
Charlotte knew she had to learn more about Croatia, about the past there, about Adriana’s father’s death, and above all about Serafina Montserrat.
They finished the tour of the exhibit and Adriana’s carriage took them to luncheon at the restaurant she had spoken of. She was eager to share everything about her country and the culture with which she had grown up.
“You’ll enjoy this,” she said as each new dish was brought. “I used to like this when I was a child. My grandmother showed me how it was made. And this was always one of my favorites. It is mostly rice with tiny little shellfish, and very delicate herbs. The art is in cooking it to just the right tenderness, and being careful with the seasoning. Too strong and it is horrible.”
“Do the Croatians eat a lot of fish?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes. I don’t know why, except that it’s easy to cook, and not very expensive.”
“And like us, you have a long coastline,” Charlotte added.
Adriana gazed at some vision inside her own mind. “Ah.” She let out a sigh. “Beautiful as England is, you’ve never seen a shore like ours. The air is warm, and the sky seems so high, with tiny drifting clouds in wonderful shapes, delicate, like feathers, and bright. The sand is pale, no shingle, and the water is colors you wouldn’t believe.”
Charlotte tried to see it in her mind. She pictured blue water bright in the sun, warmth that seeped through the skin to the bones. She found that she was smiling.
“Croatia is very old,” Adriana went on. “Not older than England, of course. We became part of the Roman Empire in AD 9, and we had Greek colonies before that. In AD 305 the Roman emperor Diocletian built a palace in Split. The very last emperor, Julius Nepos, ruled from there, until he was killed in AD 408. You see, we too have great Roman ruins.” She said it with pride.
“Our first king, Tomislav, was crowned in AD 925.” She stopped and pulled her face into an expression of resignation. “In 1102 we entered a union with Hungary; that would be after you were conquered by William of Normandy. Then in 1526 we chose a Habsburg king, and I suppose that was the beginning of the end. At least that is what my father used to say.” Pain laced through her voice, and was apparent in her eyes. She looked down quickly. “That was about the time of your Queen Elizabeth, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, yes, it was,” Charlotte said quickly, struggling to remember. Elizabeth had died around 1600, so it must be close. She felt brutal, but she had no better chance than this. She might betray Adriana’s guilt, but on the other hand, she might prove her innocence. That would be infinitely worth all her efforts and discomfort.
The second course was a white fish baked in vine leaves with vegetables Charlotte was unfamiliar with. She tried them, tentatively at first, then, aware that Adriana was watching her, with more relish. Their time was slipping away. She must introduce the subject of Serafina; how could she do it without being appallingly clumsy?
“I wish I could travel,” she said, not knowing where that subject might lead. “You must miss your home. I mean the one where you grew up.”
Adriana smiled with an edge of sadness. “Sometimes,” she admitted.
“Do you know other people who have lived there, beside Mr. Blantyre, of course?”
“Not many, I’m afraid. Perhaps I should seek a little harder, but it seems so … forced.”
Charlotte took a deep breath. “Did you know Mrs. Montserrat, who died recently? She lived in Croatia once, I believe.”
Adriana looked surprised. “Did you know her? You never mentioned it before.” Her voice dropped. “Poor Serafina. That was a terrible way to die.”
Charlotte struggled to keep from contradicting herself and letting too much of the truth into her questions.
“Was it?” She affected ignorance. “I know very little. I’m sorry if I gave the impression that I knew her myself. She was a great friend of my aunt Vespasia-Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould.”
“Lady Vespasia is your aunt?” Adriana asked with delight.
“Actually she is my sister’s great-aunt, by marriage to her first husband. But we hold her in higher regard and affection than any other relative we have.”
“So would I,” Adriana agreed. “She is quite marvelous.”
Charlotte could not afford to let the conversation slide away from Serafina. “I’m so sorry about Mrs. Montserrat. Aunt Vespasia said she died quite peacefully. At least I thought that was what she said. Was I not listening properly? Or was she …? No, Aunt Vespasia would never circle around the truth to make it meaningless.”
Adriana looked down at the table. “No. She wouldn’t. She was a fighter for freedom too, I believe.”
“Like Mrs. Montserrat,” Charlotte agreed. “They knew each other long ago. Aunt Vespasia said Mrs. Montserrat was very brave-and outspoken in her beliefs.”
Adriana smiled. “Yes, she was. I remember her laughter. And her singing. She had a lovely voice.” She struggled for a moment, trying to catch her breath and steady her voice before going on. “My father used to say she was the bravest of them all. Sometimes she succeeded just because no one expected a woman to ride all night through the forest, and then be able to think clearly by daylight, and even hold a gun steady and shoot. He said …” Tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks. Blindly she fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief, finally finding it and blowing her nose gently.
“There is no need to apologize,” Charlotte assured her. “The loss of your father must have been terrible, and I know that you still miss him very much. Did you say that Serafina was there, when he died?”
Adriana was surprised. “Yes. I … I must have. I don’t talk about it because it always makes me lose my composure. I apologize. This is ridiculous. Everyone must be looking at me.”
“Lots of people were looking at you anyway,” Charlotte responded with a smile. “Men look at beautiful women with pleasure, women with envy, and if they are stylish as well, to see what they might copy. Or to see if they can find a flaw, if they are particularly catty.”
“Then I will have satisfied them,” Adriana said wryly.
“Nonsense. There is nothing wrong with a tender heart,” Charlotte assured her. She was losing her grip on the conversation. “Did Mrs. Montserrat talk to you about your father? That must have been sweet as well as painful for you, to have someone to remember with, who could tell you stories of his courage, or just the little things he liked and disliked.”
Adriana’s eyes softened. “Yes. She told me about his love of history, and how he could tell all the old tales of the medieval heroes: Porga who went to the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, and had the Pope send Christian missionaries to the Croatian Provinces in AD 640. And Duke Branimir, and on and on. Serafina knew all their names, and what they did, even though she was Italian. She enabled me to recall the stories he told me, when I had only bits of them in my mind.”
Charlotte tried to imagine Adriana sitting beside Serafina’s bed, waiting patiently as the old woman salvaged fragments from her wandering mind and pieced them together, bringing back for a brief moment the presence of her beloved father.
Did she remember that she had seen him beaten, covered in his own blood, and then forced to his knees and shot in the back of the head? The sight of faces distorted with rage, the gleam of light on gun barrels, the cries of terror and pain, then the stillness and the smell of gun smoke; and then Serafina coming, grasping her, holding her, hurrying her away, perhaps on horseback, on the saddle in front of her as she rode like a wild thing to escape, to protect the child Adriana.
Looking at her now, so exquisitely dressed, her skin paper white, Charlotte could see that the demons were still in her eyes. If Serafina had let something slip, been careless in even a couple of words, had she led Adriana to believe that it was she who had betrayed Lazar Dragovic?
