Livia is chatting to one of the other tenants when Amara reaches the garden. The sky is a dull, heavy gray, and the stone path shines, still wet from the earlier rainfall. Amara picks her way along it carefully, not wanting to slip.

“Darling!” Livia exclaims, waving at her. “Flavia has been telling me about the most shocking theft at the painters. Her poor husband had half his pigment stolen. Imagine.”

“How dreadful,” Amara murmurs. She still struggles to remember the names of all Julia’s tenants, some of whom she suspects are not entirely delighted to rub shoulders with an unmarried, pregnant freedwoman.

“Just as he was about start a new commission,” Flavia says, hands fluttering in distress. “Now everything has been delayed.”

The breeze brings with it a damp mist. Amara glances at the canal, the surface of the water dimpled by drizzle. Livia notices too. “You should get under cover,” she says, taking Amara’s arm. “You don’t want to catch a chill in your condition.” The gesture does not exclude Flavia, but it does not invite her either.

“I had better get on,” Flavia says, nodding to them both. “Sorry to have kept you.”

Livia’s grip is firm as she steers Amara toward the colonnade. “You should be careful, coming out in the damp. Julia will fret when she gets back from the baths. Perhaps you should pop over there to warm up?”

“I barely got wet,” Amara protests. “And Britannica just made me a hot drink.” She waves the cup at Livia.

“Good. I’m glad somebody is looking after you.” Livia pulls Amara into one of the rooms off the garden, sitting her down on a stool by the brazier and pulling another up for herself. “His new bride is nothing to look at, you know,” she says in a low voice, and Amara knows immediately who Livia means. The respectable girl Rufus has married, barely more than a child, or so Julia told her.

“I hope they will be happy,” Amara says.

“I don’t. Or not him anyway.” Livia snorts. “I always thought he was the most disingenuous boy. You’d be much better suited to somebody older, darling, someone who knows how to appreciate a woman.”

“Maybe I don’t want a man at all,” Amara says. “You and Julia manage perfectly well.”

“Careful,” Livia says, but there is a trace of laughter in her voice. “Not everyone is so fortunate. All of us have to compromise. Everyone except Julia, that is.”

“Not you?”

“Without Julia, I would have no freedom at all. She is everything to me.” Livia looks uncharacteristically serious. “Women are rarely blessed with a choice, Amara, and I know how lucky I am. You would be wise to let Julia guide you, and to trust her.”

“Of course,” Amara says, dutifully bowing her head. She does not allow Livia to see the unease that flickers across her face.