CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Polidori held out his hand to assist Mary up into the cabriolet. She placed her slipper onto the step, held tight to his grip, and lifted herself up onto the platform. Instead of sitting on the bench, she remained standing and tightened her grasp of Polidori’s hand, staring at the vista.
The afternoon sun was far from setting; it had, however, fallen below the Alps surrounding the valley to throw it into deep green and purple variegated shadows. The pasture across the lane had been turned, the pungent aroma of cultivated soil overpowering and brilliant. Further afield, succulent grasses grew high to fringe the tops of ancient, ramshackle stone walls that had been built and rebuilt by farmers and vintners and landlords over the centuries. Mary suspected the valley had c
