"What?"

    "Oh, nothing." She shrugged. "Men are as men are. Why should they change?"

    Adam's instinct was to defend his sex against the charge, but the news about Signora Fanelli's marital status was really quite agreeable. He chose silence and a grave nod of the head.

    "How long will you be with us?"

    "Two weeks."

    "Is it enough time?"

    "I don't know. I've never studied a garden before."

    "You'll find it's a little neglected, I'm afraid. Gaetano left last year. It was his responsibility. The other gardeners do what they can." She pointed to some French windows, which were open, although the louvered shutters remained closed. "There's a view behind those. You can't see the memorial garden from here, but I can point you in the right direction."

    Adam pushed open the shutters, squinting against the sunlight flooding past him into the room. He found himself in an arcaded loggia. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he made out the commanding view. Patchwork hills spilled away to the west, their folds cast by the lowering sun into varying grades of shade. There was a timeless, almost mythical quality to the panorama—like a Poussin landscape.

    "It's special, isn't it?" said Signora Docci.

    "If you like that kind of thing."

    This brought a laugh from her. Adam peered down onto the gardens at the rear of the villa, the formal arrangements of gravel walks and clipped hedges.

    "There are some umbrella pines at the edge of the lower terrace, on the left. If you walk through those and follow the path down, you'll come to it."

    Just beyond the knot of pines the land dropped away sharply into a wooded valley.

    "Yes, I see."

    He pulled the shutters closed behind him as he reentered the room.

    "Why put it down there? In the valley, I mean."

    "Water. There's a spring. Or there was. It's dry now, like everything. We need rain, we need lots of rain. The grapes and olives are suffering." She reached for a slender file on the bedside table. "Here. My father put it together. It's not much, but it's everything we know about the garden."