Ludovico listened halfheartedly. His hand was gathering together the heft of her skirt, pulling it up toward her thigh.
“Is it true what I’ve heard? You still are virtuous? No man has touched you before?” His voice rose barely above a whisper.
Cecilia swallowed that truth like a stone and nodded. Of course this was why she was here. This is what a mistress did, why she was allowed to stay here in the castle with all these beautiful things at all. It had been her decision.
She swallowed hard again, then mustered her courage. “How . . . how much will you wager that I am smarter than any woman of this castle? Smarter than any mistress you have had before me?”
He barked a loud laugh. “I hope you are,” he said, but then she felt his hot breath on her neck, his beard against her jaw. She closed her eyes; she could not help it. His mouth seared her skin with heat as his hands continued their way up under her skirt.
“I . . . I want to be the lady of this castle,” Cecilia gasped the words out as his fingers found their way under her skirts and to the linen ties of her undergarments. She knew what was about to happen to her and in a moment of clarity, she realized that she didn’t want to just be a mistress. Before he could have her, before he could use her up and throw her out, she wanted his word.
“I want to be your wife,” Cecilia blurted.
A deep, rich laugh reverberated from his core. He pulled away and looked her in the eyes. There was something there more than fire, more than a burning, but Cecilia, in her inexperience, did not understand it fully.
“My dear girl,” he said. Then he pushed her toward the bed and turned her roughly onto her stomach.
13
Dominic
Eastern Belgium
September 1944
DOMINIC STARED OUT OF THE OPEN SIDE OF THE QUARTER-TON truck as it rumbled through the countryside. Countryside was the wrong word, he thought. Once, this part of Belgium must have been beautiful. Even now, in the treetops, the fragments of autumn pushing through the warm blanket of late summer held the promise of coming splendor. But the landscape was marred by the still-smoking remains of little villages. Dominic’s heart tightened at the sight. The earth was scarred and blackened in places, fields trampled by tank treads, shell casings, and scattered pieces of equipment strewn everywhere. An orchard stood in tattered ruins, the charred branches of fruit trees twisted and broken against the blue sky.
Paul Blakely tightened his hands on the wheel as they drove into the rubble. The truck crawled through the main street of what was, until recently, a village. Only its church steeple was left, teetering precariously on its half-ruined foundation. The cross at its tip was a brave and tragic silhouette that made Dominic’s fingers itch to sketch. But the rest of the town was anything but picturesque. Blackened shells and broken walls were all that remained of the houses and shops that had once lined this street. The truck detoured around a fallen lamppost and labored through the pockmarked road.
“Man, would you look at that . . .” Paul sat at Dominic’s side, gazing ahead to the wasted landscape, the strap of his helmet swinging with the motion of the truck. Dominic shifted his rifle, wishing he could lay it down, but this territory remained unfriendly. He had to be ready for action at any moment. Now, three months after landing on Omaha Beach, watchfulness had become automatic. His nerve endings felt frayed and electrified, ever on high alert. He wondered if he would ever lose the feeling that there were enemies stalking him.
Before he sent Paul and Dominic off with the empty deuce-and-a-half truck, a Military Police transportation officer had briefed them on their mission. “This new assignment is something different,” he had said. “You two will still be on security detail. But you’ll be part of a squadron of men with a unique job. Yes, we’re fighting Nazis, but we’re also trying to preserve as much as possible of this culture that’s so damned bent on destroying itself.” He gestured at the ruined landscape. “There are important buildings, monuments, and works of art everywhere you look. This war could be the end of all of it—priceless stuff, masterpieces we need to try to save at the same time that we’re trying to save our own asses.”
Dominic had leaned forward, his interest piqued. In his determination to beat the Nazis, to simply survive and go home to his family, he hadn’t considered the war’s impact on art and architecture.
“So we’re supposed to avoid damaging old churches and other monuments,” the officer had gone on. “That should be clear enough. But we’re also looking for paintings, sculptures. This regime has been stealing works of art all through the war, carrying them off to be displayed in their houses like trophies.”
“You mean they’re keeping them for themselves?” Paul had asked.
“Yep. Our intelligence is telling us that some of the highest-ranking Nazis are even hanging up da Vincis inside their own homes.” He had paused, and Dominic let that sink in. For years, he had been reading the news reports of the horrors of the Nazi death camps, of Hitler’s unceasing determination to take over the world. He felt stupid that he had not considered that they were also taking whatever they wanted, raping the countryside for treasures that they had no right to take—even priceless works of art.
The officer had continued. “Some things have already been destroyed, either by the Nazis or even by us. Accidentally, of course. Let’s face it, some destruction is just unavoidable, right? But the president has created a commission called the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Program—the MFAA. Monuments Men.”
“Monuments Men . . .” Dominic said.
“Mostly museum folks, art historians, people who know about that stuff. Our mission is to protect these works and to get them back from those Nazi bastards so that the works can be returned to their rightful owners after this fiasco is behind us.”
Dominic could hardly believe his ears. How could the American president be worried about paintings and sculptures when thousands of people were losing their lives? But at the same time, he couldn’t deny his wonder. “You mean these . . . Monuments Men . . . are just focused on saving art? How are they doing that?”
The officer shrugged. “There’s no guidebook for this stuff. We are looking at aerial photos, marking churches, bridges, monuments to be saved. And we’re going inside to see what’s left, what we can salvage. We’ve already found a bunch of important paintings and portraits, especially, some by the great masters—Rembrandt, Titian, big guys.”
Dominic sat back abruptly, awed. Faced with the prospect of possibly seeing some of those masterpieces, he couldn’t help but feel a thrill of excitement. He thought of da Vinci’s works bombed out and destroyed by the war, or hanging in Hitler’s palace, and bile rose in his throat.
“So your job, fellas, is to protect these Monuments Men,” the officer had continued. “They put themselves at risk daily. They go into some dangerous places to get that art back—and you two are here to watch their backs while they do their jobs. They’ve been waiting for MPs—and especially transport—for weeks now. We finally got the authorization.”
Ahead, on the scorched horizon, the gray encampment seemed almost as much of a blemish as the bombed-out buildings; rows of drab and uniform tents stood between watchful tanks. Paul switched off the truck’s engine, and rifles still held close, he and Dominic disembarked. Soldiers lounged between the sagging tents, their dirty uniforms smelling of unwashed men and gunpowder. At the sight of the truck, several of the men stirred, looking at Dominic and Paul with hopeful expressions. The ground was trampled and littered with shell casings and cigarette butts. Like all encampments, it was a mixture of strict discipline in the tight lines of the tents and messiness in the posture of the exhausted men. But to Dominic, it was beginning to feel more and more like home.