Frederick, Felicity, and Prince Filippo Fumagalli entered the narrow courtyard of the Uffizi, their footsteps ringing off the pavement stones like money. To either side, stone columns and the sparkling reflections of the windows’ little panes. Above them, a low, threatening sky. Inside them, longing, desperation, and, in Felicity’s case, three quarters of a bottle of wine, which she had consumed, to Frederick’s horror and Filippo’s delighted surprise, during the short ride to the museum. “To better appreciate the paintings,” she had said.

Filippo–in reality Oliver J. Swindleton, accomplice to The Stable Boy and visitor of English prostitutes–had been prattling on all the while. “Ina di Uffizi,” he said, “You willa not believe how many of da antiques you cana see. Da statues, da paintings: da Vinci, Duccio, Angelico, Dante! All there inna single room!”

“Yes,” said Frederick, “but what of this English master you’ve been telling us all about? I hope we’ll at least have time to view his exhibit.”

“Si, si, absolutamente!” replied Ollie. “I only hope that the English paintings are-a better than the English food!”

Felicity laughed: “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” Then they entered the museum.

Once inside, they were some time in getting to the Englishman’s gallery. Felicity demanded that they stop to examine the male nudes, constantly bemoaning the placement of leaves or folds of cloth. Ollie was only too happy to encourage her.

“Ah, signorina woulda like to have a little peek? She would like to see the trunk of da tree underneath da leaf?”

“Perhaps you could tell me what kind of trunk I might be expected to find,” said Felicity, running her fingers down Prince Filippo’s purple velvet sleeve.

“Ahem,” coughed Frederick, his voice breaking. “This sign says the Englishman’s paintings are in the next room. Follow me, please!” He strode off quickly down the hall.

“Now?” said Ollie.

“Shh!” hissed Felicity, lightly slapping the Prince’s hands, both of which had gone exploring in the folds of her dress. “Later. Soon!” She ran off after Frederick.

She found him frozen in front of a large oil painting. The Englishman had depicted some kind of incomprehensible allegory–a leopard, a sextant, philosophical books, and in the middle of it all a painted man, naked.

Felicity stood, aghast. She felt the rising tide within her breast, the swelling of a liquid blaze that she could not suppress. She knew not from whence this Irish fire came; it overflowed from some inner latent sea to fill her mouth, to seep from her nether regions, straining to burst. She hardly noticed when Frederick departed to the small sculpture gallery off the main hall. No, she was alone here, alone again with The Stable Boy.

The cool stale air, the marble floors, the stone balustrades, the gilt frames, Filippo—all but The Stable Boy dissolved into a ripe sun, a voluptuous ribbon of billowing moor, a stable floor strewn with hay that could not mask the brutal hardness of wood. She felt the splinters scraping her tender back as though it had been yesterday.

And he was here in Italy. She knew it with as much certainty as if the painted figure before her were not oils hardened into ridges upon a canvas, but flesh equally hardened by athletic prowess. It was as though a vital, palpitating ghost inhabited the great hall with her. She felt his mouth on her cheeks, the delicate yet rough line of kisses along her bare arm, her shoulder, her decollatage.

It was true, what he had said in the stable that day. He was almighty. He would call her now, call her as she stood quivering and gasping in this great barren hall, before she had time to find Frederick and attempt to keep the pact that they had made when coming to Italy, when fleeing from the manor. Two fugitives lost in a violent sea in which their ships had catastrophically collided in disputed territory.

But now he had called her. Yes? What? Yes. Yes. She felt as though her insides were ripping, palpably giving way. Her flesh expanded masochistically, straining forward as it sensed the approach of the ravenous tongues of flame, exploded as she felt rather than smelt the heavy aura of manure and wet straw and damp flesh burst into and flood the hall. He had come. Yes. He had conquered. A wave of liquid fire consumed her body: the first. Again, a wave. It was an ocean that begged to be released. Her bosom, her legs, her whole being was aglow. Another. Another. Yes. Yes. The waves burst forth from her breast, shrieking like wild horses or a chorus of whores:

—Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes.

They whispered in, hissed in, licked the whorl of her ear.

—Oh, yes.

—He is here. He has come for his mountain flower!

She must touch him. She extended a trembling hand, admired the tips of her nails as they glided forward, like translucent rosebuds opening to the sun. The raised hills of paint pierced the sensitive throbbing mounds of her fingertips. She traced the musculature of his arm, the delicately shadowed length of him.

From a netherworld, the curator said: “Touching is not permitted.”

The spell was pierced. Felicity whirled about, a snarl distorting her pretty face. “I shall touch! Oh, my little mustard seed!” she cried.

The floodgates opened.

A summer monsoon wracked her body.

She collapsed into Ollie’s gleeful arms.