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lean but muscular, and very beautiful, as had been the unknown gentleman in the wheat field all those years ago. He was saying something to her, but his voice was a distant echo, and she couldn’t understand. Her heart was pounding, and her mouth was dry as he climbed in beside her. He pulled her toward him in me candlelit darkness and whispered something, but again she could not hear. Then he took her hand and drew it to the hard, upstanding shaft that showed how ready he was to complete this marriage of convenience. He pressed himself into her palm, and the blood thundered through her veins as her fingers closed tentatively around him. Wild emotions ran through her as she felt his heat and urgency, and she wanted to do all the things those other lovers had done, but as he pulled her into his arms and put his lips to hers, the fantasy was shattered by a sudden fierce gust of wind that blew her bedroom window open. It banged back upon its hinges as if it would fly away on the storm, and the curtains billowed as an icy draft swept into the room, where she was very much alone in her bed.
    For a moment she lay in confusion, but as the window banged again, she threw the bedclothes aside to get up. Her hair and nightgown were tugged by the gale, and rain spattered her face as she leaned out to seize the window catch. In the darkness below she could see the shivering hedges of the maze and the convoluted path that twisted and turned back upon itself in a pattern known as the City of Troy, because it was said to be a plan of that city’s defenses. The ornamental rotunda in the center of the maze was pale and white, holding her attention for a breathless moment before her fingers felt the catch and she managed to close the window again.
    * * * *
    Far away in Naples at that moment, Bacchus Night was in full swing as Gervase and Hugh sat in a relatively quiet candlelit comer of the inn farther along the street from their lodgings. Signora del Rosso did not provide meals, and neither cousin tried to persuade her to do so, because she was a dragon of the highest order—in Gervase’s opinion she’d been coughed up by Vesuvius as indigestible, and so would be her cooking.
    Macaroni had indeed proved the order of the day, and had been brought to their table by the saucy maid who, from the outset, had made clear her interest in Gervase. Ignoring Hugh, she kept leaning across in such a way that the lighted candle on the table treated Gervase to frequent glimpses of the contents of her tight bodice. Her dark eyes invited, and when he’d tossed her some scudis, she’d caught them deftly. “Grazie,” she’d whispered, as if thanking him for pleasuring her in love, then she’d very pointedly slipped the coins between the breasts she’d made so certain he noticed.
    Later, as the cousins lingered over their postprandial wine, Gervase glanced around the dining room, in which he and Hugh were among the few not to be wearing Carnival costumes. Disguises ranged from animal masks and skins, through several Harlequins and Columbines, to clothes from previous ages, including, he noted with interest, a large number of bacchantes and fauns—or were they satyrs? No, he decided, they were fauns, for satyrs were the Greek counterpart. Not for the first time that evening he wondered how lightheartedly the Neapolitans really regarded their ancient gods. Was it possible that Bacchus was still worshipped in fact as well as fiction? Yes, he decided, looking around again.
    Hugh hadn’t had a good evening. First there had been Teresa, and then his visit to the theater had only served to remind him of Kitty Longton’s preference for Gervase. Now his jealous resentment was being further fanned by the serving girl’s obvious liking for that same unfairly privileged cousin. He had drunk more than was wise and was only just on the right side of pleasantness, although his true state hadn’t yet become apparent as he used the candle on the table to light one