The Rules in Rome (34 page)

Gracie had tried to visit
Ley every day since they’d left Rome. She’d understood when the hectic field hospital turned her away, but he’d been transferred to a station hospital ten days ago, and he still wasn’t allowed visitors. One of the overworked nurses had explained the official reason: Ley was talking in his sleep, and someone was worried he’d mention something
classified. But Gracie suspected it had little to do with morphine-induced mumbles and everything to do with Captain Vaughn-Harris.

Gracie wore the same outfit she’d been wearing all week—a maroon skirt and jacket with a matching hat and black heels. Maybe she should have been embarrassed to wear the same thing day after day, but she’d thrown away the clothes she’d escaped Rome in, and her luggage from Switzerland was missing. “Excuse me,” she said to the Red Cross lady outside the ward.
“Is Captain Ley receiving visitors this morning?”

The petite woman she’d seen every day for the past week glanced at the head nurse, who shook her head no.

Gracie frowned. “What about this afternoon or this evening?”

The head nurse pursed her lips into a thin line. “Not today, Miss Begni.”

“But I’m sailing back to the US tomorrow. This is my last chance to see him.”

“I’m sorry, but I’ve been given very clear instructions, and I’m not risking my position for you.”

Gracie’s throat tightened at the prospect of leaving with no good-bye, and she fought the urge to cry. Colonel Ambrose had told her Ley wouldn’t die from his injuries, but she was afraid she’d never see him again if she
didn’t see him here in Italy. She still didn’t know his first name and wasn’t sure she’d be able to track him down without it.

Someone called to the head nurse, who followed an orderly down the hall.

The Red Cross lady watched the nurse walk away, then turned her attention to Gracie. “Of course, Captain Ley is still not receiving visitors, but he’s in the farthest room down the left hall, and his room is on the right. It’s one of the few private rooms we have.” She picked up a newspaper, unfolded it to its full breadth, and proceeded to ignore Gracie from behind the latest headlines.

Gracie quickly got over her surprise and rushed down the hallway to the left, mentally wincing with each clack of her shoes. When she reached the end of the corridor, she glanced over her shoulder, half expecting one of the nurses to be chasing after her, but the hallway was deserted.

Even though she knew she’d be kicked out if anyone other than the Red Cross lady saw her lurking in the doorway, Gracie hesitated when she reached the small hospital room and saw Ley sitting in his bed, looking out the window with a blanket pulled to his waist and a folded newspaper on his lap. She still wasn’t sure what she’d say, but she knew how she felt, how she’d felt for months despite her best efforts to feel otherwise.

She brushed her hand along her hair, hoping it wasn’t out of place, and
adjusted her hat. Then she walked in, softly shutting the door behind her. At the slight click, he turned from the window.

He saw her and smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Miss Begni, it’s good to see you again.”

Gracie was halfway across the room when he spoke, and she paused. Why was he being so formal?

“How are you?” he asked. “Colonel Ambrose said you were in good health, but I still wondered.”

Gracie pulled a chair from the wall and turned it around, placing it next
to the bed so she could face him while she sat there. “I’m all right. You?”

He shrugged.

She studied the bandages around his shoulders. “I was worried about you. I wasn’t sure you’d make it after everything that happened that night. Neither were the medics.”

“Well, I’m not going to die. Not from this, anyhow.”

“How bad . . . ?” She stopped, trying to come up with a more delicate way to ask, but she couldn’t think of anything. “How bad is your leg?”

Ley hesitated, then reached for the blanket and pulled it off his legs—or pulled it off what was left of them. Gracie couldn’t hold back a loud gasp. The bottom half of his left leg was gone.

She took a few deep breaths, trying to absorb what it meant. There would
be no more skiing, no more dancing. Would he ever walk without crutches? Drive a car? His injury would change his life, yet as Gracie thought about it, she knew it wouldn’t change how she felt about him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, wondering what he’d gone through since waking up to life without a leg. She reached for his hand, but he busied himself replacing the blanket, so she let her hand fall away. “Will they get you a prosthesis or something?”

“Eventually. In the States.”

“Does it hurt?”

He shrugged again, retreating behind some invisible barrier. “Will you be in Italy long?”

She shook her head, more to clear it than as an answer. She wanted to ask more about his leg but respected his apparent desire to change the subject. “I’m sailing back to the US tomorrow.”

“Heading for Utah?”

“No, Virginia. I’m going to help train recruits.”

“Well then, all future OSS radio operators will be in good hands.” He leaned back into a pillow propped against the headboard. “Virginia? That’s where my mother lives. You could take my motorcycle for a spin. I doubt I’ll be using it.” He gestured to his leg and frowned.

“Will you go home soon?”

“Probably by the end of the week, but if I’m delayed and you’d like to borrow my motorcycle before then, feel free. I can send a note so my mom unlocks it for you.”

Gracie heard footsteps in the hall. She turned to check the door, but the
sound stopped before reaching Ley’s room. “I will come visit you, but I have absolutely no interest in riding your motorcycle.”

“I’m offering you my prized possession, and you don’t want it?” The slightest of smiles tugged at his lips. “I threatened my little brother with serious injury if he so much as touched it while I was gone. I should have just handed it over to him when I left.” The newspaper had been pushed to the side of the bed when Ley showed her his leg. He gathered it up and handed it to her. The front page headline was about the liberation of Rome. It was an old newspaper; all the headlines now were about the invasion of France. “Did you read this? General Clark let most of
Kesselring’s army escape so he could have a photo op in Rome. Idiot.”

Gracie could imagine Ley in five, ten, and even fifty years still second-guessing the military when they made mistakes. And she supposed she would agree with him in the future just like she agreed with him now. The Germans were out of Rome, but Kesselring’s men were still in Italy, fighting at another line of defense. “Maybe they should have made you a general.”

“Hmph. That’s not likely. But they should have focused on engaging and destroying the enemy and let the race for Rome wait. Now they’ll have to fight them again.”

Gracie handed the paper back. “As conceited as he is, I’d rather see pictures of General Clark than the ones I looked at a few days ago. When the Germans withdrew, they loaded up the prisoners from the Via Tasso into two trucks. They took the men in the first truck a few miles from Rome and shot them in the back of the neck. The second truck wouldn’t start, so those prisoners were returned to their cells and freed along with the rest of Rome. Some OSS men wanted me to see if I recognized any of the slain men as Angelo.”

“Did you see him?”

“No. I suppose he was one of the lucky ones.” Gracie’s relief had been almost palpable when she’d finished searching the OSS photographs. Even though he’d succumbed to torture and revealed her identity, she wished him well.

“They’ve had me looking at lists instead of pictures.”

“What type of lists?” Gracie asked.

“Captured German prisoners. They asked me to see if I recognized any war criminals among their catch. While I was searching, I found Heinie’s name.”

“Is he all right?”

“The list said he was wounded but ambulatory, so it can’t have been too bad. In most ways, I think he’s better off. He’s safer in a POW camp than in Hitler’s army, and now he won’t have to battle his conscience. In some ways, I envy him. Waging war with your conscience is the worst kind of fight.” He studied her for a moment, then reached for her chin and gently held it, lifting it into the light from the window. “That cut is healing nicely.” He guided her face to the side so he could see her bruises. They were almost gone—she’d barely been able to pick them out in the mirror that morning. “You’re glorious in the sunlight, Graziella. Remember that when you get back to Utah. Sit in the sunlight, and some good Mormon boy will snatch you up in no time.”

Her breath caught, first with the warmth of his compliment, then with concern that he didn’t want her beauty for himself. “I’m not sure I want some good Mormon boy to snatch me up.”

He frowned and released her chin. “Have you lost your faith?”

“No. If anything, it’s stronger now.”

“Then what happened to your dream of marrying a nice Mormon boy?”

Since leaving Rome, Gracie had spent every spare moment thinking and praying about what to do next. When she pictured a future with anyone other than Ley, she felt unsettled and anxious, but when she imagined a life with him, she felt at peace. She hadn’t expected to feel that way, but each day, the impression grew stronger. It was painful to risk her goals, but she
couldn’t let him go. She looked right into his blue eyes. “I fell in love with someone else.”

“Oh?”

He wasn’t making this easy for her, but she didn’t have time to beat around the bush. “I didn’t want to fall in love with you. I tried not to. But the truth is, I stopped pretending to be in love with you months ago because I didn’t have to pretend anymore; it was just there, every time I saw you, every time I thought of you.”

“You’re not in love with me.”

“Yes, I am.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Your mother wouldn’t approve of me.”

“I don’t care what she thinks anymore.” As Gracie said out loud what she’d gradually realized over the past few months, she felt liberated. She would
always love her mother, but her mother’s opinion didn’t matter anymore.

“Don’t you know what I’ve done? How many men I’ve killed?”

“Yes, I know, and I understand the guilt and the nightmares because I’ve done the same things.”

He met her eyes for an instant, then looked away. “Gracie, you don’t even
know my first name. You don’t know me well enough to be in love with me.”

“I love the parts I know.”

He shook his head slightly. “Graziella Begni, you deserve better than a cripple. So go away and forget about me.”

Was that why he was being so difficult? Because of his leg? “I don’t care that you’re crippled. And you lost your leg saving me.”

“You don’t owe me affection just because the SS shot my knee out.”

“My affection for you began long before you were wounded.”

He sighed. “I’m not right for you, Gracie. Eventually, your memories of our little charade will weaken. Your whole life you’ve wanted someone else. In a few months, you’ll realize you still do.”

She felt her breath catch in her throat again as he called their time in Rome a charade. Was that all it had been to him? “So you were pretending the entire mission?”

He looked out the window again. “We were supposed to be pretending.”

Tears stung her eyes. Humiliation, disappointment, and heartbreak all engulfed her. She sat there for a while, staring at the ground, not ready to give up but not knowing what else she could say. There had been so many times she’d thought his feelings for her were real. Had she misread him so completely? Or had his feelings for her somehow vanished with his injured leg?

She looked at him again, studying his face. It was handsome and sad, and
the thought that it might not be part of the rest of her life caused pain more intense than anything she’d ever felt. “Will you at least write to me so I know how you’re doing?”

He nodded. The hope of a letter was better than nothing, so she took a paper from her pocket that listed the apartment OSS had arranged for her in Virginia and set it on the small table beside his bed, next to a pile of letters. She picked them up, staring at the address on the top one, written in loopy cursive handwriting.
Captain Bastien Ley.
“Bastien?” she whispered.

It caught his attention, and Bastien turned to eye the pile of letters in her hand.

“Now that I know your first name, can I be in love with you?”

“It’s just a name.”

“It’s
your
name.”

“It doesn’t change anything. The smartest thing for you to do now is to put those letters down and walk away.”

“You taught me to never ignore a good intelligence source.”

One side of his mouth pulled into a lukewarm smile. “That only counts at curfew parties. Here, it’s tampering with another person’s mail. That’s a federal crime, certainly beneath the dignity of a good little Mormon girl like you.”

“What are you hiding, Bastien?”