The Italian Doctor's Mistress. Catherine Spencer

enough, Zarah Brunelli was the one who triggered an idea, the day she happened to bump into Danielle outside the observation window overlooking Alan Blake’s room.

      “It does not go well,” she remarked. “We do not see the progress we hoped for.”

      Discouraged, Danielle said, “No. I might as well have stayed at home, for all the good I’m accomplishing here.”

      “Not necessarily.” Zarah Brunelli regarded her coolly. “Hearing a familiar voice speaking a language he understands might be the only thing to stimulate a response in your father.”

      Danielle knew it would take more than that. Alan Blake had never found his daughter stimulating company; they shared too little in common. His passions were arguing politics and discussing the justice system with his cronies at his club, or attending the opera with his latest mistress on his arm—often a woman younger than Danielle; someone who, in return for an expensive trinket or two and her photograph on the society page of the newspaper, was prepared to bat her eyelashes and prop up his middle-aged ego with flattery.

      Unfortunately he didn’t confide his romantic entanglements to Danielle. She had no idea who his current lover might be, and consequently no way of bringing the woman to his bedside. The opera, however, was another matter, one she could do something about.

      We have professionals to assist out-of-town relatives. You have only to ask at the desk, Zarah Brunelli had once informed her disapprovingly, and for that and her latest advice, Danielle owed her a smidgeon of gratitude now. Within the hour, she was once more headed into town, armed with a map and very specific directions for finding what she needed.