Sarah tried to throw off her unease, and spent the morning wrapping the smaller statues in scraps of sheep fleece, and then sewing them into a coarse sailcloth, and handing them to the Russos’ servant, who crated them for her: building little cages of wood around the irregular shapes. She could not rid herself of the sense of working among a mortuary: every now and then she looked around, and the sightless eyes were watching her. Even the little stone animals seemed to silently yearn for a sun that had been lost.

At four, as the light from the warehouse window darkened and the canals gleamed with gondola lanterns reflected on their still waters, the whole family gathered together in the first-floor dining room for their evening meal: the mother of the family, Signora Russo; her handsome adult son; her little son; and the sulky daughter, Chiara. Sarah, as guest, took the foot of the table opposite Signor Russo, and when the children withdrew after dinner and his mother put a bottle of brandy before him, she set three glasses and sat with him and Sarah, as if Sarah were a gentleman guest, a man of quality, who should be served with honor.

“You enjoyed yourself today among the antiquities?” the young man asked her.

She did not tell him that she had looked for him all day, and had been wishing he would stroll into the storehouse and flirt with her.

“Yes,” she said. “They are all things of such beauty, I kept looking around and surprising myself.”

“One day I shall take you to the feather market, and we can visit a milliner’s also. You might like to see how they work here. They make masks as well as hats, their speciality is masks and crowns and fantastic headgear, and beautiful creations which cover the face and the hair, for those ladies who wish to be unknown.”

“You would take me?” Sarah asked, and felt her face warm in a blush as he smiled at her.

“It would be my pleasure,” he said.

“When I first arrived, I saw some ladies in masks and standing very tall on pattens, so high that they had to be held up by maids.”

“Those are our courtesans,” he said. “The courtesans of Venice on their chopines. Pattens, as you say, but so tall they are almost like stilts. Very expensive, very famous, very beautiful.”

Sarah felt herself flush hotter. “I didn’t know. In London, of course, especially at court there are…”

He took a sip of his wine. “The whole world knows of the London court, and the ladies who whore for the king. But you are not of that world?”

“No,” she said, falling back on her usual excuse. “I don’t know anything about it. I’m just a milliner.”

“I believe that Signora Nell Gwyn was just an orange seller. But it didn’t prevent her making her fortune from favor. D’you never think of that life? You have such beauty that you would surely be a success?”

Sarah knew she was blushing furiously. “No,” she said. “My mother is a woman of great…” she could not find the words. “Great…”

“A puritan, in fact,” he helped her.

“Yes,” she gasped. “Very respectable. I would never…”

“But you like pleasure? You like beautiful things?”

“Yes I do…”

“And you hope to marry? You are betrothed perhaps?”

“I have no thoughts of marriage.” Sarah tried to compose herself. “I’ve just finished my apprenticeship. I have to make my own way in the world. I cannot afford any luxuries.”

“You call a husband a luxury?” he laughed.

“In my world, a lover or a husband is a luxury,” she managed to say. “And one I can’t afford.”

“I toast you!” he said, raising his glass to her. “A young beauty who thinks of men as expensive luxuries. Indeed, you come from a country which has turned everything upside down. The English throw down their kings and then bring them back, raise young women who cannot afford to marry! What a novelty! Bless you, Bathsheba Jolie!”

His mother smiled and raised her glass to the toast in English, which she could not understand. She asked her son a quick question in Italian.

“She asks me what I have said to make the English rose blush red?” he reported.

Sarah smiled and shook her head. But she knew that those had not been the words. The woman had spoken too quickly for her to follow, but she would have recognized the words “rose” and “English.” She was almost certain that she had heard Livia’s name in the stream of rapid Italian.

“If you had been raised as I have been, you would think the same,” she told him staunchly.

“No father?” he asked. “Me neither.”

“No father; but the hardest-working mother that ever blessed a home, and a grandmother who never complains, who understands more of this world and the next than any ordained minister. A home where we don’t really live together, we cling together while the world turns upside down and back again.”

“A little business?” he asked sympathetically.

“Clinging on,” she said. “So my brother and I had to make our own livings. He—Johnnie—is doing well, he has a head for numbers. He’s apprenticed to a merchant and they think well of him, and I have my millinery papers. When I go home, I’ll look for work as a milliner and leave service.”

“And is that what you want?” Signor Russo asked, his dark eyes on her animated face. “Now you have come so far and seen Venice? Is that all you want—to go home to a new millinery shop, with a box of feathers?”

She hesitated. “It’s hard not to want more,” she admitted. “Now I’m here, even though I’ve seen only the port and the streets on the way to here… it’s hard not to imagine more.”

He got up from his seat, came to the foot of the table, and leaned over her chair to pour her another glass of wine. “Imagine more,” he counseled softly in her ear. “This is a city where imaginings can come to life. Marco Polo went from here, overland to the court of China: just because he dreamed it was possible. We live here without a king, without an emperor: because we thought it could be done. We won’t run out of great leaders and fetch a king back like the English did. This is a republic that is built to last. Every wall here is painted by a Master: because we love beauty; look up when you walk around and every corner is beautiful. Even the courtesans make a fortune: because we know that beauty is fleeting and precious. Imagine more, Bathsheba, and see where your dreams take you.”

She found she was smiling, filled with excitement. “I must be drunk.” She resisted the spell his words were weaving around her. “I can’t be imagining and dreaming. I have too much to do. I have to pack up my mistress’s goods and go home.”

He laughed. “Then I will light your candle for you to go to bed, you drunkard,” he said. “Good night, Bathsheba.”

“Good night, Signor Russo, good night, signora,” she replied, rising from the table and going to the beautiful marble-topped side table where her candle stood ready in a beautifully wrought gold candlestick.

He lit her candle from one of the branch on the dining table and as she took it, he held her hand. “You may call me Felipe,” he said quietly. “You can say: Buonanotte, Felipe.”