A dark shadow passed over Gabriel’s features. “It isn’t like that with you.”
“But when a person is upset, old patterns of behavior emerge. It’s true of me too, except my coping mechanisms are different.” She kissed him softly but long enough for his panic to recede and for him to kiss her back.
When they pulled apart they stood wrapped around one another until Julia decided to break the silence. “Your lecture last night reminded me of something.” She pulled her phone from her purse and quickly scrolled through some pictures. “Here.”
He took the phone from her hand and gazed at an exquisite painting. In it, St. Francesca Romana cradled an infant child with the assistance of the Virgin Mary, while an angel looked on.
“It’s beautiful.” He returned her phone.
“Gabriel,” she said softly. “Look at the painting.”
He did. And the strangest feeling passed over him.
She began to speak in a low voice. “I’ve always loved this painting. I thought it was because there are similarities between Gentileschi and Caravaggio. But it’s more than that. St. Frances lost some of her children to the plague. This painting is supposed to portray one of her visions of what happened to those children.”
She searched Gabriel’s eyes to see if he grasped her meaning. But he hadn’t.
“When I look at this painting, I think of your baby, Maia. Grace is holding her, surrounded by angels.” Julia pointed to the figures in the painting. “See? The baby is safe and loved. That’s what Paradise is like. You don’t have worry.”
Julia looked up into his face. His pained, beautiful face. Gabriel had tears in his eyes.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was trying to comfort you.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, gripping him tightly.
Eventually, he wiped at his eyes. He hid his face in her hair, feeling grateful and relieved.
The following afternoon, the rain stopped. So the couple took a taxi up to the Piazzale Michelangelo, which provided a sweeping view of the city. They could have taken a city bus like regular people, but Gabriel was not like regular people.
(Few Dante specialists are.)
“What did Rachel say in her email?” he asked as they admired the tiled roof of the Duomo.
Julia fidgeted with her fingernails. “She and Aaron said hello. They wanted to know if we were happy.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “Is that all?”
“Um, no.”
“So?”
She shrugged. “They said that Scott had a girlfriend. That was about it.”
“Good for Scott.” He chuckled. “Was there anything else?”
“Why do you ask?”
He cocked his head to one side. “Because I can tell when you’re hiding something.”
He began to run his fingers up and down the soft flesh at her waist, a particularly ticklish spot.
“You aren’t going to do that in public.”
“Oh, yes I am.” He grinned and began moving his fingers with purpose, trying to tickle her.
She started giggling and trying to wriggle out of his grasp, but he held her close.
“Come on, Julianne. Tell me what Rachel said.”
“Stop tickling,” she gasped, “and I’ll tell you.”
Gabriel stilled his hands.
She took a deep breath. “She wanted to know if we’d, um, slept together.”
“Oh, really?” His lips turned up into a half-smile. “And what did you say?”
“I told the truth.”
He searched her eyes. “Anything else?”
“She said she hoped you were behaving yourself and that I was happy. And I said yes—on both counts.” She waited for a moment, thinking about whether or not she should mention the email from a certain Vermont farm boy.
“But there’s something else. Go ahead.” He was still smiling indulgently.
“Well, Paul emailed me.”
Gabriel scowled. “What? When?”
“The day of your lecture.”
“Why didn’t you mention this before?” he fumed.
“Because of this.” She gestured to the irritation visible on his face. “I knew it would upset you, and I didn’t want to do that when you had to speak in front of a room full of important people.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that you passed Christa’s dissertation proposal.”
“What else did he say?”
“He wished me a Merry Christmas and said that he was sending something to me in Selinsgrove.”
Gabriel’s nostrils flared. “Why would he do that?”
“Because he’s my friend. It’s probably maple syrup, which I will gladly give to my dad. Paul knows that I have a boyfriend and that I am very, very happy. I’ll forward the email to you, if you like.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Gabriel’s lips thinned visibly.
Julia crossed her arms in front of her chest. “You were eager to have me spend time with Paul when Professor Pain was around.”
“That was different. And I don’t particularly wish to discuss her ever again.”
“Easy for you to say. You don’t keep running into people I’ve slept with.”
Gabriel glared.
Julia clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. That was a terrible thing to say.”
“As you may recall, I have run into at least one person with whom you’ve been sexually involved.”
He turned and walked away, approaching the edge of the lookout. She gave him a moment or two to himself, then she stood beside him and cautiously wrapped her little finger around his. “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t respond.
“Thank you for rescuing me from Simon.”
Gabriel scowled. “You know that I have a past. Do you intend to keep bringing it up?”
She lowered her gaze to her shoes. “No.”
“That remark was beneath you.”
“I’m sorry.”
He kept his eyes trained on the city that was spread out before them. Red tiled roofs shone in the sun, while Brunelleschi’s dome dominated the view.
Julia decided to change the subject. “Christa was behaving strangely at your last seminar. She seemed resentful. Do you think she knows about us?”
“She’s sour because I haven’t welcomed her outrageous advances. But she met the deadline for her revised proposal and her work was acceptable.”
“So she wasn’t—blackmailing you?”
“Not every woman is your rival for me,” he snapped, pushing away her hand.
Her eyes widened in surprise. “That remark was beneath you.”
After a moment, the anger seemed to seep out of him. His shoulders slumped. “Forgive me.”
“Let’s not waste our time together arguing.”
“Agreed. But I don’t like the idea of Paul emailing you. Although I suppose you could be friends with worse persons.” Gabriel sounded unusually prim.
She smiled and pressed her lips to his cheek. “There’s the Professor Emerson I know and love.”
He pulled out his phone so he could take her picture against the background of the beautiful view. Julia was laughing, and he was taking picture after picture when his phone began to ring. The not so dulcet tones of London’s Big Ben sounded between them.
Julia gave him a challenging look.
He grimaced and pulled her into an intense kiss. He cupped her face with his hand, determinedly parting her lips with his own and gently slipping his tongue inside.
She kissed him back, wrapping her arms around his waist to pull him closer. And all the while, Big Ben chimed.
“You aren’t going to answer it?” she finally got a chance to ask.
“No. I told you earlier, I wasn’t going to speak to her.”
He pressed his lips to Julia’s once again, but only briefly.
“I feel sorry for her,” Julia said.
“Why?”
“Because she created a child with you. Because she still wants you, but she’s lost you. If I were to lose you to someone else, I’d be devastated.”
Gabriel huffed impatiently. “You aren’t going to lose me. Stop that.”
Julia smiled weakly. “Um, I need to say something.”
He moved back.
“This is coming from my concern for you. I want you to know that.” She looked at him in earnest. “I feel sorry for Paulina, but it’s clear that she’s been holding what happened over your head in order to keep you in her life. I’m wondering if she gets into trouble just so you’ll rescue her. I think it’s time for her to develop an emotional attachment to someone else. Someone she can fall in love with.”
“I don’t disagree,” he said stiffly.
“What if she can’t be happy until she lets you go? You let her go and you found me. It would be a mercy on your part for you to let her go so she can find her own happiness.”
Gabriel nodded grimly and kissed her forehead but refused to say anything more on the subject.
The rest of their stay in Florence was a happy one, a counterfeit honeymoon of a sort. They frequented various churches and museums during the day, in between returns to their hotel, where they would make love sometimes slowly and sometimes madly. Every evening Gabriel would choose a different restaurant for dinner, and they would walk home afterward, pausing on one of the bridges to make out like teenagers in the cool evening air.
On their last evening in Florence, Gabriel took Julia to Caffé Concerto, one of his favorite restaurants, which was positioned on the banks of the Arno. They spent several hours over a multi-course dinner, leisurely talking about their holiday and their burgeoning sexual relationship. They both confessed that the past week had been an awakening of sorts—for Julia, an awakening to the mysteries of eros; for Gabriel, an awakening to the mysteries of the four loves intertwined.
In conversation, he finally revealed his surprise. He’d rented a villa in Umbria for their second week of holidays. He promised to take her to Venice and Rome on their next vacation, possibly in the summer after they visited Oxford.
After dinner, Gabriel led her one last time to the Duomo. “I need to kiss you,” he whispered, pulling her body close to his.
She was going to reply, she was going to tell him to take her to the hotel and mark her body in a deeper way, but she was interrupted.
“Beautiful lady! Some money for an old man…” A voice called to her in Italian from the front steps of the Duomo.
Unthinkingly, Julia leaned around Gabriel to discover who was speaking. The man continued, begging for money so he could buy something to eat.
Gabriel caught her arm before she could approach the steps. “Come away, love.”
“But he’s hungry. And it’s so cold.”
“The police will come around and carry him off. They don’t like panhandlers in the city center.”
“People are free to come and sit on the steps of a church. Sanctuary…” she mused.
“The medieval concept of sanctuary no longer exists. Western governments abolished it, starting with England in the seventeenth century.” Gabriel grumbled as she opened her purse and withdrew a twenty Euro note.