I found myself considering this. Leo was in the same boat. Only son and obligated to be what was expected of him—to lead someone else’s life, not his own. And then I realized I was not so different. I could have stayed on in college, worked as a waitress to pay for my room and board and become an artist one day. Instead I had been the dutiful daughter, living my mother’s life, not mine.

“Now we’re both free, at least for a while,” I said.

“You’re right. It’s kinda surreal, isn’t it? These surroundings and sipping champagne with aristocrats with oodles of money?”

“It is,” I agreed.

Franz came over to join us. “It is a pleasant evening, is it not?” he asked.

“Are you used to this sort of thing?” I asked him, switching to Italian. “Henry and I were just saying it was like living in a fantasy.”

“For me, too. My father owns a bakery. He thought I was mad to want to study art. Why did I need art to become a baker one day? I told him I would teach him to make very artistic bread.”

We laughed, but as Franz moved off again, Henry touched my arm. “Be careful of that one,” he whispered. “I think he’s a German plant.”

“A Nazi spy?” I was shocked.

Henry nodded. “I just have a feeling. They all say they are Austrian, don’t they, and there is something about him that’s not quite right. I can’t put my finger on it, but . . .”

“So when do we see this acquisition of yours?” Bibi, the Spanish woman, demanded. “We are dying with anticipation.”

“Very well,” Contessa Fiorito replied. “Follow me, my darlings.”

And she led us through French doors into a tasteful room with a white marble floor, pale-blue silk sofas and low gilded tables. On an easel in the middle of the room was a large painting, concealed under a sheet.

“Vittorio, my precious, would you do the honours?” she said. “Since you were clever enough to find it for me, and what’s more, to get it to me.”

Vittorio gave her a little bow of appreciation, then crossed the room and whipped off the cover in one fluid movement. There was a gasp from those present. The painting was starkly modern—great shafts of colour, what looked like a bloody hand piercing one of the shafts, and ethereal faces peering through in the darker spaces between, their mouths open in silent protest. It was highly disturbing but, I had to admit, rather brilliant in its form and design.

“Spectacular, Gabriella,” Professor Corsetti said. “Don’t you think so, Arturo?”

“I do. And this was the painting you had to smuggle out of Germany?”