North from Rome by Helen MacInnes Read Free Book Online

always did when she was nervous), her long slender body tense, had begun making the introductions. She gave the appearance of doing this very expertly, but Lammiter never managed to catch the princess’s name. It sounded something like Zabaglione, which was most unlikely unless an ancestor had spent his life whipping up Marsala and hot egg yolks. But the thin middle-aged Englishman turned out to the Bertrand Whitelaw, a journalist who spent much of the year in Italy, visited America for lecture tours, wrote weekly columns for a London paper and seasonal articles for a New York literary magazine, and produced an occasional book on whither are we drifting, alack, alas. A slightly younger version of his tired and troubled face had occasionally peeked out from the glossy pages of high-fashion magazines, where American women were now having their minds as well as their chin lines lifted. For Mr. Whitelaw was an Authority. (Lammiter had never been quite sure on what Whitelaw was an authority, but then writers have a healthy disrespect for one another.)
    The two boys embarrassed Lammiter by studying him with open approval. He wasn’t quite sure what nationality they were, didn’t even listen to their names. They now posed for him with heads cocked to one side, their brown eyes so liquid that they threatened to pour out of the large sockets and cascade over the beardless cheeks. But no one paid any attention to them, and they gradually grew disconsolate as the princess didn’t even twitch their leash. They became silent and motionless, as unnoticed as the ashtrays on the table.
    The princess had her sharp eyes on more entrancing sport. In her white face, their strange amber colour glowed withanticipation. Her small red tongue ran its little point across her thin scarlet lips, gathering distilled malice. The dry ends of her russet-dyed hair seemed to spring loose with the electricity of her emotions, as she peered at Lammiter and then at Pirotta. She smiled. “How nice this is! Luigi, isn’t there a chair for Mr. Lammiter? Find a waiter!” She turned to Bill Lammiter. “He’s my nephew,” she said. “My only brother’s only son. He’s a dear boy. Aren’t you, Luigi?”
    Pirotta refused to be baited. He smiled, and found a chair for Bill Lammiter. “What will you have to drink?” he asked amiably. The princess looked disappointed, but Eleanor relaxed for the first time, and all her old charm suddenly uncurled from its tight bud of worry, and blossomed. Yes, Lammiter decided, as conversation became general and harmless around him, Eleanor would make a very good countess. He could imagine her standing at the head of a marble staircase, extending a tight white kid glove to stiff white shirtfronts. She’d make a most attractive countess, he had to admit. And she was in love with Pirotta. She kept watching the Italian, silently, wide-eyed. Truly, as Eleanor herself would say, she was in love with her man, and not just with a marble staircase. What about Pirotta? He was in love, too. There was no doubt about that.
    “But you aren’t going? So soon?” the princess said as he rose. She stopped arranging her large grey straw hat (with its pink and blue flowers so carefully matched to the printed roses on her grey silk suit) and looked at him with amazement. “Why you’ve been so polite listening to all our chatter that you haven’t even told me what you’ve done with Rosana.” She flashed a glance at his startled face. “What have you done?”
    Bertrand Whitelaw said, “He has kidnapped her and is holding her for ransom. That is, after all, one of America’s favourite indoor sports. Isn’t it, Mr. Lammiter?”
    Bill Lammiter studied Whitelaw silently.
    “Now, Bertrand!” the princess chided, absolutely delighted. “After all, the Americans pay you enough for six lectures—or is it one lecture given six times?—to keep you living in Italy for the other forty-six weeks of the year. One shouldn’t snap at the hand