It is clear Rufus has no intention of eating yet. No sooner is Vitalio gone, than he is all over her. Amara finds herself unexpectedly afraid. This feels too familiar, too like the brothel. So much rests on him liking her, and she has no idea how a courtesan might be expected to behave. Should she acquiesce or will he want to chase her?

“Stop!” she says, pushing him off and sitting up. She rearranges her dress to cover herself. Her heart is pounding with anxiety. “Just a moment.”

Rufus is looking at her in surprise. He had not, after all, been violent. And what else is a man meant to do when he has hired a woman for the night?

She thinks of Thais, of the illusion of power she wielded. Rufus believes that is what life is really like. He has all the power, and she has none, but he does not know this. And she cannot let him realize.

She turns to him in anger. “You presume too much.”

They stare at one another in mutual astonishment. The words seemed to come from someone else. It is a part Amara is playing, yet somehow, she just found her own voice. She takes the jasmine flower from her hair, allowing the real anger she always carries inside to catch fire. “So you thought I was the admiral’s daughter,” she says. “And then, because I am not, you decide to treat me as a whore. I told you that this has not always been my life, that I value kindness and respect and you show me none.”

Amara is ready for him to argue, ready to leave him, to blaze out into the night in rage, but Rufus immediately surrenders.

“I’m sorry,” he says, brow creased with remorse. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Amara finds, having lit the spark, it is not so easy to extinguish it. “Is that what you think? That you can take without asking?” she demands.

“No! Not at all, I . . .”

“What about all these plays that mean so much to you? What about love?” Her voice is scathing. “I have enough clients,” she lies. “I thought you were different; I thought you wanted something else.” The anger is starting to take on a momentum beyond Rufus, and she knows she has to stop. She takes a breath, turning her face aside, as if to hide emotion. “I thought you might care for me.” She falls silent, waiting to see if he will accept the role she is offering.

He touches her arm, tentatively at first, then more confidently when she doesn’t move away. “Please,” he says, laying his hand over hers. “I’m very sorry. Let me make it up to you.”