Luna took a deep breath and blew out slowly. Then she shuffled back on the hard chair. There were creases in the drop of her dress! How did the other young ladies of Florence keep their skirts smooth? She stretched her small hands as wide as she could across the embroidery and decorative pearls. The hard balls bumped against her palm. Beneath the beautiful detail was a complicated structure of layering. But the overskirt looked like a constellation of delicate and perfectly round baby moons had landed in her lap. The pearl was her favourite jewel. The paleness of the stone belied the warmth it gave to her skin and this contrary coupling appealed to Luna’s nature. Other young ladies coveted the spectacle of the emerald or the dramatics of the ruby, but she was charmed by the simple beauty of these luminous little balls. She knew it took great skill to sew each pearl onto the fabric. She herself had not been gifted a seamstress’s dexterity, even though her step-mamma made her sew, as was the duty of every respectable daughter of Florence. Mamma Lucrezia gossiped that the dressmaker earned more in a year even than Signore Brunelleschi, such was the importance of looking fashionable. But whilst Luna admired the style of her dress, she couldn’t agree that the value of this material was greater than the designs of a mind such as Brunelleschi’s; his innovation for the dome of the city cathedral was a wonder.

She smiled, for she recognised the finish of embroidery as from the needle of Mistress Baldovinetti, one of her father’s most loyal menders. Luna had sat beside the old lady on many an afternoon in her father’s first cloth shop, mesmerised by the swift dip and tug of her needle. All that industry used to be so much a part of her life when her father had still been involved in the daily operations of his cloth-producing business. Now his business was one of Florence’s most successful and a manager oversaw the three Fusili shops. She was pleased for her father’s good fortune but she also missed the community of workers she’d known.