Instead of pulling her arm away, Amara presses herself against him, her expression beseeching. Rufus has never been able to resist an appeal to romantic drama. “Please,” she begs. “Please, my love. I didn’t want to upset you. I had to free Victoria; she would have died in the brothel, Britannica too. I had to save them, I really had to. And Victoria is such a talented musician! I thought you would enjoy her singing. I meant nothing bad by it. I promise you.”

To her shock, Rufus is completely unmoved. “All this disorder you’ve brought to the house,” he says, his voice hard. “It’s like you’re determined to drag the brothel back here with you.”

Amara gazes up at him, this man whose love underpins the foundations of her life, and feels afraid. He looks like a stranger. In desperation she seizes his hand, holding it against her heart, wanting to bring back the man she knows. “How can you say that! How can you think it of me! Rufus, please.”

“What were you doing going back to the brothel? Why couldn’t you leave it alone?” He snatches his hand back like a petulant child. “I hate to think of you there, cheapening yourself. And getting Philos to help.” Rufus disentangles himself from another attempted embrace, an impatient gesture that reminds her of his father. “Thanks to you, I’ll have to have him flogged. And I absolutely loathe disciplining the slaves. But if I don’t, they lose all respect. You’ve humiliated me in my own household.”

The blood pounding in Amara’s ears is like the roar of the sea. In her mind’s eye she can see Philos, imagines the blows falling on his shoulders, flaying the clothes from his back, or worse, the skin. All because of her. “But it wasn’t his fault!” she bursts out, unable to contain the anguish. “It wasn’t his fault. I tricked him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told him that I had your permission to buy them,” she falters, wringing her hands, unable to meet the disgust in Rufus’s eyes. “Philos had no idea you didn’t know. That’s why he helped me. I told him it was on your orders.”

“You mean you lied,” Rufus says, taking her chin between his finger and thumb, making her look up at him. “You’re a liar. You lied.”

“I lied,” Amara repeats, unable now to contradict him.

Rufus releases her. “I thought I’d never met a girl like you,” he says, scooping the harp back into his arms and cradling it. “I couldn’t believe how lucky I was. Even though I knew where you’d come from, I told myself it didn’t matter. You were so sweet. So fearful and innocent. Just as you must have been in your father’s house. The doctor’s daughter. It was like the brothel never touched you.”