He held out his hand to her and she took it and followed him first to the outhouse—an outhouse, not a toilet, and there were squares of newspaper instead of proper paper, and she had to wait while he used it after her—and then back inside, where they washed their hands at the sink and he gathered up her rucksack and she tried not to drop dead of embarrassment right there on his aunt’s pristine kitchen floor.

He led them to a small room under the eaves. The shutters were closed against the last of the early evening sun, and the lantern Niccolò carried left most of the room in shadows, but she could see it was spotlessly clean, if rather austere. A low bed swallowed up much of the space, its frame homemade and its mattress, if sight alone were a decent judge, lumpier than the farm’s cobbled courtyard. Its sheets were clean and white, however, and its coverlet was embroidered with yellow daisies.

One bed. There was only one bed in the room.

There was a dreadful moment of silence before Niccolò cleared his throat and set the lamp on the table. “May I have one of the pillows?”

She handed it over without a word. He turned away, stretched out on the wooden floor, and settled his head on the pillow.

“You can’t sleep there,” she protested. “You might as well be lying on bare stones.”

“I’ve slept on stone, and this is far more comfortable. I’ll be fine. Now you get ready, and when you’re done just turn down the lamp.”

After half a minute or more, when she hadn’t so much as blinked, he cleared his throat again. “Nina. We have to be up before dawn. Go ahead and change, and as the Lord is my witness I will not turn around.”

He kept his promise. She changed in a rush, making a mess of her carefully packed bag, and once she was safely in her nightgown, she turned down the wick on the oil lamp until the flame guttered out. Of course the mattress had to make the loudest and most mortifying sort of rustling noises as she pulled aside the sheets and lay down, and she just knew that Zia Elisa was hearing everything and smiling to herself about the newlyweds.

Soon enough she was still, and the room was quiet, and she was alone in the dark, and then it was impossible not to cry, and with no way of finding her handkerchief in the pitch-dark room she could only sniff and blink and sniff again.

“I’m sorry”—sniff—“for keeping you awake,” she whispered.

“You don’t have to apologize. But your father will sleep better than he has in many months. He will miss you, of course, but his heart is lighter tonight. Can you remember that?”

“I think so.”