“But if you set me up in a home like this, I could be a second wife for you,” she says. “As your freedwoman.” Amara sees a flash of alarm in Rufus’s eyes, but she has rolled the dice and has to play her hand. “I would exist only for you, never taking from your family. Not now, or in the future. I would need nothing other than to be allowed to love you.”

“Is that really what you want?”

“More than anything in the world,” she replies. Her lip is trembling from fear, not love, but Rufus cannot tell the difference.

“Perhaps it might be possible,” he says, turning from her. He looks distracted, rather than excited by the idea. “It would need some work. This isn’t a small thing, what you’re asking.”

“I know. But ours isn’t a small love,” Amara says. “And although I cannot bring myself to dishonor you by allowing you to have me as a wife, I could love you as a mistress without bringing shame to anyone.”

“It would be wonderful,” Rufus agrees, beginning to warm to the idea of a constant well of devotion. “And then, even when I marry, if my wife isn’t . . .” He stops, perhaps realizing that speculating on the desirability of his future wife isn’t very romantic. “Anyway, whatever she were like, I could always spend time with you, whenever we wanted.”

“Yes,” Amara says. “I would always be waiting for you.”

“Maybe Drusilla could teach you the harp?” Rufus replies, his face hopeful, like a child. “You two like each other, don’t you? And you’ve no idea how happy it makes me, seeing you lost in your music. I think you would look even lovelier playing the harp than you do with the lyre.”

Amara smiles, relieved he has so easily succumbed to the image of her as the mistress singing in her gilded cage. But his words set off an unwelcome echo, and without wanting to remember, Menander’s rival fantasy plays through her mind. She sees herself as he did, waiting for him in his father’s house. The shared life they will never have together in Attica.

She leans over and kisses Rufus gently on the lips then gazes up at him, not as Timarete, the woman he will never know, but as Amara, the woman she is now. “Whatever you want.”

“I’ll do it.” He sounds more determined. “There must be a way of managing it. And I wouldn’t have to pay for you all the time then, not after the initial outlay.” He stops, wincing with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, my darling, that sounded unforgivably crude. What I meant was, if it makes financial sense, even my father might see it’s a good idea.”

“You are the best man in the world,” Amara says, clasping her hands.