Marilee Kemp’s marriage to Count Portomaggiore is an imposed political arrangement that becomes, for a time, an unexpectedly happy relationship. Mussolini orders his Minister of Culture to marry Marilee, an American, and a separate document restricts what she could inherit. Marilee first refuses the count’s proposal; she ultimately accepts after being urged to marry him for the sake of America. Only near the end of the war does she discover that the man she had regarded as weak and foolish was a British agent.

From Rome’s social life to a royal command

After Dan Gregory and Fred Jones are killed, and before the United States enters the war, Marilee is celebrated in Rome. She shops and dances with the count, who enjoys talking with her, treats her as a gentleman, and grants her wishes. Their courtship is presented through her account as a period of ease and pleasure, not as a relationship she initially understands to be a matter of state.

That changes when the count tells Marilee that Mussolini has ordered him to marry her. The command makes their relationship part of a political arrangement rather than a private decision between two people. Marilee understands the situation as evidence that the world has become irrational. The book’s account emphasizes the reversal: a woman who has enjoyed the count’s company is suddenly asked to become his wife by order of the regime.

A marriage shaped by suspicion and law

The count’s enemies had been telling Mussolini that he was homosexual and a British spy. Mussolini knew that the count loved men and boys, but, in Marilee’s account, did not believe that a man he considered so silly could also be a capable agent. The marriage order is thus tied to an effort to answer suspicion about the count’s sexuality, while the count’s espionage remains hidden from Marilee herself.

Mussolini gives Marilee a document to sign along with his order that the marriage take place. Its terms protect aristocratic inheritance from the prospect of an American outsider permanently acquiring an old family estate. If the count dies, Marilee may use his property during her lifetime, but she cannot sell it or leave it to anyone else. At her death, the estate is to pass to the count’s nearest male relative, who turns out to be an automobile dealer in Milan. The marriage therefore confers a title and a degree of security without giving Marilee the ordinary power to dispose of the property as her own.

Refusal, persuasion, and the title

Marilee initially tells the count that she will not marry him. She thanks him for a happiness she says she has never known before, but the proposal and its accompanying document awaken her from what she describes as a dream. She decides it is time to return to the United States and confront who she is, despite having no home there. Her first response is therefore both gratitude for their companionship and refusal of the political and legal terms attached to marriage.

The narrator recounts that Marilee spoke of Mussolini’s order as an example of the world’s apparent craziness. The reply she received was that, if she had even one atom of love for America, she should marry the count. That appeal changes the outcome: the coal miner’s daughter becomes the Contessa Portomaggiore. The turn does not erase her earlier refusal; it shows that the marriage is accepted under pressure framed as patriotic duty, rather than presented as the inevitable fulfillment of courtship.

What Marilee learns, and what the marriage meant

Marilee does not learn until the war is nearly over that her husband is a British agent. Until then, she too regards him as a weakling and a fool, but forgives what she sees as his shortcomings because they live comfortably and he is kind to her. She recalls his amusing, kind, and flattering conversation, his genuine enjoyment of her company, and their mutual love of dancing. The revelation recasts the apparent mismatch between the count’s foolish public manner and his hidden wartime work, while preserving the affection Marilee says she experienced in the marriage.

The marriage holds together several distinct forms of power and vulnerability. Mussolini dictates that it occur; the document limits Marilee’s inheritance; the count’s British allegiance is concealed from her; and her own decision is presented as a choice made after an appeal to patriotism, against the background of having no home to return to. Yet her recollection is not solely a record of coercive politics: she also describes genuine happiness and kindness. Its significance lies in that unresolved combination—a politically commanded marriage that provides companionship and a title, but never grants Marilee full knowledge of her husband or full ownership of the estate associated with his name.