In the Wilderness

Amedeo Dorini, the long‑serving porter of Milan’s Hotel Cavour, watches the late‑autumn omnibus arrive with a practiced eye. He catalogues the strangers spilling out—an economical German, a flamboyant French traveler, a solemn Englishwoman known as the Tabby—measuring their luggage and guessing their habits before they even set foot inside. His observations reveal a man who has turned the bustle of a grand hotel into a quiet study of human nature.

When a tall, graceful figure steps from the carriage and offers a hand to an elderly guest, a ripple of curiosity spreads through the lobby. The stranger’s polite command, “And now for Beatrice!” hints at hidden relationships and unseen motives among the guests. Among them is Dion Leith, an Englishman whose brief, lingering stare at a departing girl suggests a lingering mystery that will draw Amedeo deeper into the lives intersecting under the hotel’s glass‑roofed hall.