“Othello!” came a woman’s voice from the stairs. “Who is it, darling?”

Desdemona rounded the balustrade and floated into the foyer, her gown flowing around her bare legs, her long hair down and playing about her shoulders and back. She was green-eyed and as fair as her sister Portia, but a bit more round of cheek, with a spark in her eyes that warned of a smile that might break out at any moment. She reminded me of my Cordelia, not so much in countenance as in bearing, strong yet gentle. Lovely.

“Thou squidgy tart!” said the puppet Jones, who had remained at my side, ever on the lookout for banality or the low-hanging fruit of comedy.

“Oh, it is the royal fool,” she said, clasping Othello’s arm. We had met at a ball at the doge’s palace and I had twice been a dinner guest of her father at Belmont. She knew me. I had made her laugh. “Sir, I was so sad to hear of your queen. My deepest condolences, and if I or my family can offer any comfort, you need only ask.” She turned her head and there was such sadness, such kindness in her pity for me, that I knew at once how the bold Othello, pirate and soldier—that hard, scarred, killing thing—had lost his heart. And beyond a doubt, I knew what had to be done.

“Othello, you must, with fearful vigor and utmost alacrity, marry this bitch.”

“What?” asked Desdemona.

“He has brought a priest,” Othello explained. “He is held hostage outside.”

“I was going to bring Othello to Belmont, spirit you away to the garden, have the priest do his dread deed before your family knew the better of it, but now, here, it must be done.”

“But my father—”

“What will your father do? You will be married, your union blessed by the church, to the man who saved Venice. Would your father, with all his power, dare challenge the church? The doge? You will have at once made your love your lord, and in the making, infuriated your father forever. Two birds, love. What say you, lady?”

The smile blossomed and she gripped Othello’s arm. He looked in her eyes and fell to one knee.

“I am unworthy,” he said. “But if you would so honor me—”

“Yes!” she said. “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh, my sweet Othello, yes!”

“Fucking French call that the little deaf,” said the puppet Jones.

“The little death, you Cockney knob,” I corrected. “And I don’t think that’s what all the yessing was about.”

“Sounded like she was having it off to me. Fine, let’s fetch the vicar from under the ninny, there’s bound to be sickening amounts of snogging in here soon.”

I grasped the door latch, then turned back to them. “Lady, where does your father think you are now?”

“He thinks I’ve gone to Florence, to buy shoes.”