“How do you know about that?” he asked.
“Davis knows better than to hide burglaries from me.” My incomparable butler had been with me longer than Colin, and while he objected to some—many—of my unconventional habits, I never doubted his stalwart devotion. My husband raised his eyebrows again, and now it was my turn to sigh. “I can’t wrongly impugn Davis. He didn’t tell me. I knew you’d received a telegram. When you didn’t mention it, I read it for myself.”
“When? It was in my study—”
“On your desk, where I perched while watching you solve a particularly egregious chess problem. You were too focused to notice me pick it up.”
“I’m ashamed it was chess, not you, that distracted me so,” he said, pulling me even closer.
“I wouldn’t be so underhanded as to use my wiles to distract you,” I said. “That would be unfair.”
“No secret of the realm could remain safe.”
“I shall bear that in mind. Now, tell me everything.”
Along with a substantial fortune, Kat’s mother had left her daughter a palazzo in Florence not far from the Uffizi Gallery. Kat had planned to live there, but upon learning the identity of her father the previous year, decided to locate him first. Needless to say, Colin objected to the idea of his newly found offspring living abroad, alone and unprotected. He persuaded her to come to England with us and was confident her studies at Oxford would keep her from returning to the Continent. At least for now.
“If you read the telegram, you know as much as I,” he said. “The house has been broken into twice, but so far as anyone can tell, nothing was stolen either time.”
“Which suggests something other than an ordinary burglar.”
“It might be nothing more than an incompetent thief who is easily scared off. I’d feel better looking into it myself, and it gives us an excuse to explore Florence,” he said. “You ought to invite Cécile to accompany us. It’s been too long since we’ve seen her.”
I kept every muscle in my face as still as a statue. Cécile had not only spent New Year with us but had hosted us for a fortnight in Paris not two months ago. That Colin wanted her to join us told me in no uncertain terms that there was more to this break-in than he was letting on; he wanted me to have a friend to keep me occupied while he worked. I once again resorted to fluttering my eyelashes and then cooed over his suggestion, leaving him in no doubt that I was onto him. He said nothing, only leaned forward as if to kiss me, before changing course and sweeping me into his arms so that he could carry me upstairs to our room.
It was an excellent attempt at a distraction, one that worked almost flawlessly. He forgot, however, that despite his talent as a cricketer, I could play the long game better than he. After he’d drifted into a blissful sleep, I remained awake, already plotting my strategy for Florence.
Florence,
14802
Any discussion of Florence in those already fabled days must begin with the acknowledgment of it as the most glorious city in the world. Here, learned men debated Neoplatonism while the most sublime artists in history brought their work to ever-greater heights. There was no better time—or place—to be alive. Only a year or so ago, our leader, Lorenzo de’ Medici, il Magnifico, upon learning that King Ferrante of Naples was scheming to assassinate him, rushed straight to the citadel of his enemy to demand an explanation. Not only did he survive the encounter, he emerged with the king as an ally. This is the sort of character necessary to impress us Florentines.
These were days when anything seemed possible. We did not feel bound by the rules that governed the world’s more mundane places; we took for granted our exceptionalism. Our building materials came from our city, the sandstone of our houses quarried within the town’s medieval walls and held together with mortar formed with sand from the Arno. Those golden-brown façades hid the monstrous arrogance behind the quest for our cathedral’s magnificent dome, designed before anyone knew how it might be built. Yes, the Duomo glorified God, but one could not separate the achievement from the genius of the men behind it. We all marveled at Brunelleschi’s creation, never balking at his background as a goldsmith and clockmaker. We were not trapped by our pasts. At least our men weren’t.
For most girls, the city was less vibrant. They stayed inside, where they would not risk bringing dishonor to their families, waiting to be told who they would marry, warned against even being seen looking out the windows of the palazzi in which they dwelled. But I, Mina Portinari, had grown up with a freedom shared by few of my peers, thanks to my unconventional grandfather Teo Portinari, an extraordinarily learned man who, after serving the pope, embarked on a quest to help Cosimo de’ Medici and his heirs find books lost since the days of antiquity. When he returned to his native city, the upper echelons of society embraced him. While my friends learned how to run complicated households, my grandfather taught me to read Latin and Greek and took me to il Magnifico’s villa to visit his giraffe. I fed it an apple, delighted at the feeling of the beast’s impossibly long tongue against my hand. Nonno let me dine at his table with artists and great thinkers, my parents too busy with their own lives to take much notice. His guests called me charming and complimented my bright blond hair, competing to see who could bring forth my eager laughter. Until I grew old enough to stir in them other longings.
That was when my mother interfered. Which explains why I have no more intellectual evenings. Instead, I help her balance household accounts, manage servants and slaves, and am only allowed out of our palazzo to go to church or, accompanied by my
