A servant delivered a dish of leeks baked with onions to the table and Papa piled a piece of bread with the mixture. Mamma Lucrezia pushed the pheasant over to the girls, though Luna only stared at the platter. Her appetite had vanished.

‘Eat, eat! We cannot have you become scrawny as a chicken!’ Mamma Lucrezia chided Maria.

Luna took a sip of wine. She reached under the table and squeezed Maria’s hand. It was cold and so she squeezed again in sympathy. Her brother was bored with his food and was grumbling loudly. Luna waved her handkerchief at him and was rewarded with a laugh as he tried to grab it. Her step-mamma shoved a handful of white flesh into his mouth, nodding with satisfaction at Luna. In the four short years of Filippo’s life, the girls’ had been turned upside down. Luna and Maria were moved to the smaller bedroom on the top floor beside the kitchen so that Filippo could occupy the larger room with enough space for his mother to sleep with him, and Papa had already commissioned a marble statue in his son’s likeness to be placed in the forecourt of their house for all to see. A line of grease smeared down Pippo’s chin as he chewed on the meat with an expression of concentrated pleasure. Luna prayed they could stay like this forever, messy and happy around the family table. Papa set down his wine glass and pushed back his chair with a satisfied grunt.

‘It seems very early to begin seeking a husband for Maria,’ Luna commented. Papa did not speak so she continued. ‘Cannot it wait till she is at least old enough to fully understand what a marriage contract means?’

‘What a suggestion!’ Mamma Lucrezia said, looking to her husband. ‘You do tease us, Leonarda.’

Luna fixed her eyes on her father. ‘You are not like other fathers, Papa. You indulge me with a benevolence that most daughters never know. Can your kindness not extend to Maria also?’

‘Don’t be naive,’ said Mamma Lucrezia.

‘I know Maria must marry,’ Luna answered with a pointed nod to her step-mamma, ‘but she is very sensitive and still so young. Once it is known that you are accepting marriage offers, it will change the way our friends and society see her. She will be pored over by men as if their mouths are watering over a ripening fig. We girls are not without feelings.’