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her brother-in-law’s words leave Papa so stricken?
    â€œI’ve heard dark rumors indeed,” said Holland, “of a secret cabal of Jews in the Liberty of Norton Folgate who convene by night in secret underground chambers.”
    Her heart quickened. So this was Papa’s secret, what he hid from her, although Mother and Angela knew. Her father and his brothers were Jews, like the patriarchs in the Old Testament.
    â€œWhat might our Queen do,” Holland went on, “if she knew there were such ungodly men in her midst?”
    Papa’s face hardened into stone. “Get out of my house.”
    Aemilia trembled as her father’s anger and helplessness ripped through her. If Holland betrayed him, Papa could be imprisoned or even slain. How had her brother-in-law, of all people, uncovered Papa’s secret? He could have only learned this from Angela. Aemilia gaped at her sister, who looked straight ahead with blank eyes.
    â€œAngelina,” Papa said, his face softening again. “This is your home. You are welcome here always. But not that man.”
    Holland stood his ground, revealing his teeth with an icy smile. “Fine words coming from a Jew dog who loves his gold more than his daughter. But then Angela’s not your daughter, is she? I wouldn’t have sullied myself with her if she was.”
    Aemilia watched her father’s temper rise like a storm, but Mother threw herself between the two men and shoved Master Holland out the door with such force that she knocked him backward over the threshold. He would have fallen had not Angela grabbed his arm and pulled him up again.
    Aemilia gazed at her sister through her tears. How could Angela betray Papa who adored her, and all for the sake of a husband who treated her as if she were a boot scrape?
    Papa and Angela exchanged one last look until Angela at last turned her back on him. Master Holland, appearing outraged for the humiliation he had suffered—bowled over by a woman!—hauled her off down the street.
    â€œI’ll flog him all the way back to Bristol,” Papa said.
    But Aemilia knew he was too tender to crush a fly.
    â€œ
Cara mia,
” he said, taking Mother’s face in his hands, “promise me you’ll never let him set foot inside this house again.”
    Mother’s eyes flooded with tears and she made no promise at all. She looked as though she were torn apart, as though Papa and Angela each claimed half of her. If driving Master Holland out of their lives meant losing Angela, Mother would keep opening the door to him whenever Papa was out.
    â€œShe’ll leave him.” He gripped the back of a chair as though he might collapse without it. “We can send her away. To Italy.”
    Mother shook her head. “She’s wed to him. She’s his now.”
    Â 
    A FTER HER PARENTS HAD sent her to bed, Aemilia crept to her chamber window and saw Papa wandering like a ghost in the moon-drenched garden. Slipping on her cloak, she stole down the stairs and out the back door. She found him sitting beneath his grape arbor, his head in his hands.
    â€œPapa,” she whispered, sidling up to him, pressing her shivering self into his warmth.
    When he spoke, he sounded so undone. “Go back to bed, Little Mischief, before you catch your death in this cold.”
    But she clung to him with all her stubborn love until he hugged her back, wrapping her inside his cloak.
    â€œIs that why you had to leave Italy?” she whispered in his ear. “Because you’re a Jew? Uncle Alvise, Giacomo, Antonio, and Giovanni, too?”
    Papa clamped his mouth shut. At first, she feared he would tell her nothing. Then he seemed to reconsider.
    â€œIt’s better you should hear it from me,” he said at last, “and not some hateful scoundrel like your brother-in-law.”
    Holding her close, speaking in a voice so soft she struggled to hear, he told her his story. The tapestry of a