She laughed as she stripped off her black leather gloves and dropped them, like a gauntlet in a challenge, on the desk. She unwound a shawl of black lace from her neck, as if she were undressing before him, as if next she would open her bodice. “Your aunt?” she repeated, as if to invite him to share a joke. “The English aunt?”

“She requests, indeed, she insists, that she meet you before the banns are called. So she is…”

She widened her eyes. “The aunt wishes to inspect me? As if I am a horse?”

“No! No! It’s just that she has been as a mother to me, and she longs to greet you as a daughter.”

“And I her.”

“And she wants to prepare you for your life as the lady of Northside Manor.”

“Does she know that I am a Nobildonna, and that I had a palace in Venice?”

“Yes, I told her,” he said miserably. “I did tell her.”

She raised her beautifully arched eyebrows and she smiled at him. He felt his anxieties melt away under the warmth of her beauty and confidence. “I think I can run a little house like yours,” she assured him.

“She insists,” he said haplessly.

“Then we will welcome her,” she assured him. “Together. When does she arrive?”

“She’s here now. We came together in my coach.”

She raised a white finger to reprove him; she did not show her temper. “Now that was very wrong, my love, to invite her here without agreeing with me. But—ecco!—I forgive you. I should have liked to have been here to welcome her—but no matter. The English have no manners, and I daresay she is not offended. I shall order the cook to prepare dinner for us and she shall dine with us. Where is she now?”

“Out,” he said shortly.

“Out where, cara mia?”

“She has gone to visit my brother-in-law.”

“The brother of your former wife?” she specified, as if she did not know in a moment who he meant.

“Yes.”

“The gentleman who accused me of fraud, and malpractice?”

“You remember, he withdrew his words, and apologized?”

She shot him one sharp look and then she looked down, her long dark eyelashes brushing her cheeks. “I remember everything,” she whispered. “I remember what you did. I remember what you did to me—that afternoon in your bedroom. I remember what you promised me.”

“I did,” he said grimly. “I was wrong, but I do not forget it.”

“I will never forget it,” she told him. “It was the happiest of ordeals for me as it proved to me that you loved me—beyond restraint.” She let that sink in. “So I shall tell the cook to prepare the dinner for later—when the aunt returns. I suppose she dines in the afternoon? Will she bring the brother-in-law with her?”

“She may invite him. She has every right to invite him to this house. She is my honored guest and she has lived with me for many years. This house is as her home.”

Livia rose in a rustle of black silk. “Of course. What a pleasant dinner we shall have.”

DECEMBER 1670, VENICE

Felipe Russo walked down to the ship with Sarah to meet Captain Shore. “I will take this young lady to an officer of immigration, he can be trusted to change her papers,” he said, almost as soon as they had climbed the steep gangplank. Captain Shore greeted them at the top, as if he did not wish them to come on board.

“I’d rather we kept this between ourselves,” he said, shooting a horrified look at Sarah. “She didn’t tell me she had another name when we sailed from London. We sail tomorrow. No reason to trouble the authorities. She’s done nothing wrong beyond giving another name. A girl’s trick. Not important. If we can get in and out again without bringing it to the attention of the authorities I’d much prefer it.”

“On the contrary,” Felipe overruled him. “She’s going to right a great wrong. She’s going to attend the Doge’s Palace and give a deposition. She’s going to free an innocent man.”

“Nothing to do with me,” Captain Shore said sternly. “Look, signor, we’ve worked together in the past. I’ve shipped some valuables for you and never questioned you on the source of them, or the license to export. I’ve shipped what you’ve loaded, accepted the description on the docket, and never opened a case to check it. Neither of us have been overly fussy about the paperwork.”

“We have always worked well together,” Felipe conceded.

“I’d rather not draw attention to myself.”

“No more would I,” Felipe agreed. “But it’s not as if we were smuggling—”

“Ssh! Sssh!” Captain Shore cast an anguished glance at the quayside where idle men could be loitering and listening. “Not I! Never out of this port! The closest I’ve ever got has been your business! Your own business! When you dispatch huge boxes, and tell me it’s the private property of an ambassador. When you wrap a ton of statues and tell me it’s the lady’s private furniture. Again! She has a lot of furniture, I must say. And all of it in crates as heavy as stone! And this is the second time I’ve shipped her poor widow’s mite to London. And do you know what she does with it there?”

Felipe shrugged. “Sits on it? Dines off it? Since it is her furniture?”

“You know very well what she does with it.”

“You have nothing to fear. I assure you. I am an agent of the state myself. I will change the registration of this lady—”

“Just a milliner, really,” Sarah added.

“I will go with her into the Doge’s Palace and she will make a deposition.”

“So why are you so right and tight and aboveboard all of a sudden?” Captain Shore growled.

“This lady has convinced me,” Felipe said, smiling down at Sarah. “I am persuaded.”

“Is this what you want?” Captain Shore asked Sarah with desperate honesty. “Because if it’s a Banbury game, say so now.” He was gambling that the elegant Italian would not understand the London slang words for “a lie.”

Felipe looked from one to the other. “Speak alone,” he said, waving them for’ard. “You need not speak in your barbaric language to elude me. Speak freely.”

Captain Shore took two paces with Sarah. “What’s going on?”

“He is who he says he is,” she said breathlessly. “A state spy. He put my uncle in prison, and he can get him out again.”

“Lord!” the older man said miserably. “But why would he?”

“He’s on my side now,” she claimed. “I’m going to change my name on the ship’s papers and go as myself, into the Doge’s Palace and set my uncle free.”

“Child,” the Captain said to her. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You go in there, you’ll never get out again, and your grandmother will mourn for the two of you dead, and your mother will never forgive me. You’ll breathe your last in the icy air under the piombi as so many good men and women have done before you.”

Captain Shore thought she was like her mother: brave and determined, her jaw set square, looking as her mother did when she received a bill she could not manage. “No, I won’t. For I’m going to free my uncle and get him home.”