Page 28 of The Villa

Mari had hung on the edges of the room, and that’s where she’d found Arabella Gordon. She remembered wondering how on earth two such different people had ever decided to get married, but now that she knows Noel a little better, it makes sense in a strange way. He’d probably needed the calm solidity that had been radiating off the petite brunette, and Arabella… well, who wouldn’t want to be the one to tame the wild Noel Gordon?

Hadn’t taken, of course.

Looking at Noel now, draped at the end of the rowboat, shirtless and very clearly flirting with Pierce, Mari wonders how Arabella could have ever thought it would. “S’ppose the next thing will be that I’m working for the papers,” Johnnie continues, leaning back on his hands. “Or the government. He comes up with some wild shit, let me tell you. If he put half as much thought into his music as he does into wondering who’s keen to fuck him over, he’d have three albums out already.”

Lara has perched herself on the end of the pier now, her bare feet dangling in the water. She’s singing something Mari vaguely recognizes, a Judy Collins song Lara was obsessed with a few months ago. Lara’s always had a lovely voice, pretty and clear, strong enough that Pierce has invited her onstage a few times to sing with him.

The song carries across the grass, and even though Lara’s giving a good performance of someone singing solely for the pleasure of it, it’s clear this is another attempt at drawing Noel’s attention.

It’s not working, from what Mari can tell, and next to her, Johnnie makes a sound of disgust, ruffling his hand over his hair as he sits up. “Anyway, this is the first time I’ve got you to myself since you got here, don’t want to talk about bloody Noel.”

Surprised, Mari looks over at him and realizes for the first time that his face is a bit pink, too, even beneath his tan.

“Is it completely inappropriate to tell you how gorgeous your hair is in the sunlight?” he asks.

That was the last thing she expected him to say, and now she searches Johnnie’s handsome face for some sign that he’s just taking the piss, but his expression is so serious it almost breaks her heart.

She’s suddenly aware of how young he is.

He’s still older than you,she reminds herself, but she’s not sure anyone has ever felt as old at nineteen as she does now. She seems to have already lived a thousand lifetimes, has lost her family, lost a child, and it’s aged her. Maybe not in her face, but her soul feels heavier, and she can see from Johnnie’s face that his soul is as light as air.

It’s nice, having a sweet boy look at her, paying her compliments about something as mundane as her hair.

The first night she’d met Pierce, when he’d come by her father’s house and ended up staying for hours, talking music and art and philosophy, Mari had walked him to the door, her heart beating so hard she was sure he could see it, already so infatuated with him she could barely see straight.

They had paused there just outside the house, cloaked in shadows, and Pierce had cradled her face in his palm, his eyes moving over her face. “How have I gone this long without knowing you?” he’d murmured, and she’d felt that, too. That every moment up until that one had been wasted, but now they’d found each other and life could truly begin.

Pierce still says things like that to her, and while they thrill her in their own way, she realizes she’s missed this kind of mindless flirting, the kind that girls her age are supposed to engage in.

Girls her ageshouldbe sitting in the grass with charming boys, hearing how pretty their hair is. Girls shouldn’t be sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night with married men, running off to Europe, holding a baby that coughs and coughs and burns so hot.…

It’s a dark memory for such a bright day, so she does her best to shake it off.

“Thank you,” she says to Johnnie, giving him a little smile. “And you may, by the way. Tell me my hair is pretty.”

“Gorgeous,” he corrects her, and there it is, that slightly cocky, winning smile. “I said it was gorgeous.”

“That’s fine, too,” she says. And even though there’s no real racing pulse, no frisson of sexual tension, despite how handsome Johnnie is, that little moment by the pond warms her for the rest of the day.

Later that evening, after they’ve all finished dinner and begun to drift to their own corners of the house, Mari picks up her notebook from where she’d left it in the front drawing room to see a small piece of paper sticking out.

The edges are ragged, and with a little bit of dismay, she realizes the page was torn from this same notebook, leaving a jagged place halfway through the mostly blank pages.

The window seat,the note reads.In the glass, at the bottom.—J

Curious, she climbs to the second floor. There’s only one window seat in the house, and it’s in the upstairs hallway, halfway between the room she shares with Pierce and the staircase. It’s a cozy spot, one she’s used for reading several times already, even though the cushion is torn and every time she gets up, she seems to have little bits of stuffing stuck to her legs.

It’s dark in the hallway. The villa has electricity, but there are no lamps up here, certainly no overhead lights. There arecandles all over the place, though, piles of thin tapers messily stacked on top of end tables, tucked into corners of bookcases, stuffed into drawers, matchbooks usually close at hand.

Mari moves to one of the little tables lining the hallway now, and sure enough, there’s a candlestick and a matchbox from some club in Rome.

Setting her notebook down on the table, she feels like a Gothic heroine as she lights the candle, laughing at her own reflection in the window.

Her face looks so white and so serious, her red hair drifting around her shoulder, the flame flickering, and she leans down, careful to keep her hair away from the fire.

It takes her a minute to find it, but then she sees it, the four carefully etched marks in the glass.

AnM.

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