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and shawm. There was Pan, half goat and half man, playing his pipes. Pallas appeared with her helmet and spear. The dancing nymphs with their flowing blond tresses made Aemilia miss Angela all the more keenly.
    â€œI thought girls weren’t allowed on stage,” she whispered to Jasper.
    Her cousin laughed as though she were the biggest fool in Middlesex. “They’re not
girls.
They’re boys in wigs.”
    The illusion seemed so real. Slender and graceful with their red lips and soft hands and flowing skirts, the nymphs and naiads circled around Alexis, the fair shepherd boy, while the herdsmen praised his beauty.
    â€œThe ancients thought nothing amiss with buggery,” Jasper whispered with a wicked laugh, for he liked to shock her. “They wrote poems about it!”
    â€œWhat’s buggery?” Aemilia asked, pitching her voice to be heard.
    His face burning red, Jasper clapped his hand over her mouth while the men around them glared or even winked.
    Ignoring them, Aemilia gave her entire attention to the spectacle on stage. As she stared thunderstruck at Papa, he caught her eye and gazed back with both reproach for disobeying Mother and shock at her being dressed as a boy. Then his eyes softened, and she knew he would keep her secret and never betray her. As it transpired, he replaced the stolen penny from Mother’s housekeeping money before she even noticed it was missing.
    Â 
    T HREE WEEKS HAD GONE by since Angela’s wedding.
    â€œWe
must
go visit her,” Aemilia clamored to Mother. She had never been separated from her sister for so long.
    But that very morning, Mother opened their front door to see Francis Holland looking every inch the gentleman with his golden earring and perfumed handkerchief.
    â€œWhere’s Angela?” Aemilia demanded.
Why had he come without her?
    Her brother-in-law only brushed her away while Mother blustered past to fuss over him, opening their last flask of Canary wine in his honor.
    â€œHow is our Angela?” Mother only presumed to ask this after Master Holland was seated in their best chair with the carved armrests.
    â€œOh, she is fine,” he said. “But for one thing.”
    Aemilia and her mother froze.
    â€œMight I trouble you for one small favor, Mistress Bassano? Could you lend us a few sovereigns? I’m afraid I’m in need of it. Business matters,” he said ruefully. “Of course, I shall pay you back promptly. I ask for Angela’s sake.”
    Though Aemilia glared fixedly at his face, his entire attention was on Mother who turned bright pink.
    â€œOh, sir! My husband is out and we haven’t that much money in the house.”
    Rising from his chair, Master Holland loomed over Mother, who seemed to shrink inside his shadow. “Are you quite certain? I thought Master Bassano was in the habit of hiding away a few coins here and there. Is he not doing well these days, working in the theater, so I hear?”
    The idea of Master Holland prying behind panels in search of Papa’s hard-won savings made Aemilia seethe.
    â€œPapa gave you one hundred pounds,” she told him.
    Mother’s face darkened as she ordered her from the room, yet it was the glint of fury in Master Holland’s eyes that frightened Aemilia. Her heart thumped in panic, but she refused to leave until she’d had the last word.
    â€œTen thousand mischiefs in your guts!” she screamed in her brother-in-law’s face before she darted away.
    Â 
    H OURS LATER, WHEN P APA returned home, her parents quarreled. Huddled in the bed she’d once shared with her sister, Aemilia couldn’t have closed her ears to their shouting if she had tried.
    â€œYou promised him the virginals?” Papa’s voice rang out in disbelief. “You had no right. That’s for Aemilia.”
    â€œAemilia’s just a child. Angela’s a married woman. She and Master Holland need—”
    â€œHe’s