They went under the colonnades and into the courtyard, which was brightly lit with flambeaux, and then went up the steps, where they found their hosts waiting to receive them.

It was to be a small party, and so there was not the ceremony that prevailed at larger gatherings. The atmosphere was more informal—a gathering of friends—and Giuseppe and Sophia’s welcome reflected that informality. They greeted Darcy warmly and expressed themselves delighted to meet Elizabeth.

As they drew the Darcys into the room, Elizabeth was reminded of Charles and Caroline Bingley, for Caroline had been her brother’s hostess at Netherfield, just as Sophia was Giuseppe’s hostess here. But there the similarity ended. Sophia was not the cold and superior woman Caroline was; Sophia was warm and passionate, moving her hands expressively as she talked. Her brother was quieter, and Elizabeth remembered Darcy’s words and thought she could discern an air of melancholy about him.

To look at, the brother and sister were very much alike. They had black hair and black eyes with smooth, translucent skin. Their clothes were old fashioned, as were the clothes of their other guests. Not for them the Grecian styles which had swept England and France in the last five years. Instead they wore sumptuous clothes in jewel-coloured fabrics, the women’s dresses sitting on their waists.

Elizabeth was introduced to the other guests, a dozen in all, and saw that they all shared the Italian dark hair and dark eyes, with smooth, translucent skin. Elizabeth found it hard to guess at their ages. Their faces were unlined, but their eyes were full of experience.

They made much of Elizabeth and made her feel at home. They demanded details of the Darcys’ wedding tour and teased Darcy, telling Elizabeth that it was obvious she was good for him.

‘I have never seen him looking so happy,’ said Sophia, who, as the hostess, took the lead in the conversation.

‘Who would not be happy, married to a woman as beautiful as Elizabeth?’ asked Giuseppe gallantly.

‘And what do you think of Venice?’ asked Alfonse, who was there with his wife, Maria. ‘Is she not the most wondrous city you have ever seen?’

Elizabeth was only too happy to share her appreciation of Venice and the dinner guests nodded sagely at each compliment to their home.

They asked if she had been to the great cathedrals and if she had walked in the squares and when she said that yes, she and Darcy had seen a great deal and all of it miraculous in its beauty, Sophia smiled and replied, ‘You have said just the right thing to please my brother. He loves our great city.’

‘I can see why,’ said Elizabeth.

‘Alas, Venice is not as great as she once was,’ said Giuseppe, ‘before Napoleon put his boot on her beautiful neck.’

‘You must forgive my brother. He feels things very much,’ said Sophia.

‘Who would not?’ he cried. ‘Elizabeth will understand, she is English. She lives on an island and so she can enter into some of our feelings. It was a terrible moment for us when Napoleon’s soldiers marched into Venice.’

At the mention of Napoleon, the atmosphere in the room subtly altered, becoming awash with fierce melancholy. Elizabeth imagined Napoleon’s troops marching through the streets of Hertfordshire and she shuddered, but for her it was only in her imagination, a second’s vision, no more. For those around her, the invasion of their homeland was real.

‘Ah, yes, I knew you would understand,’ said Giuseppe, seeing the shudder. ‘The English and the Venetians, we have much in common. We are both great island nations, we are daring and bold, we are explorers and adventurers, we have a great love for our country, and we have a great pride in all our achievements. We sail the seas in search of new lands and new goods to trade… but I am forgetting,’ he said, with a comical smile, ‘the English, they look down on trade. Darcy is horrified at the very word!’

Contrary to his statement, Darcy was smiling, aware that he was being teased. But underneath the teasing lay something more real. Elizabeth realised that Giuseppe was exploring her beliefs, and she was aware that, although Darcy’s friends had told her how good she was for Darcy, they were still assessing her and wondering if she was good enough for their friend: not good enough in terms of social standing or wealth, but in terms of making him happy.

‘What will Elizabeth make of us, whose fortunes came from great mercantile adventures?’ Giuseppe continued.

Elizabeth smiled.

‘I am sorry to disappoint you, but I do not look down on trade. One of my uncles is in business in London, and even if that were not so, I would not hold it in contempt, for it is trade that supplied Darcy’s friend, Bingley, with the money to rent Netherfield, and without it I would never have met my husband.’

There was general laughter, and Darcy looked at Elizabeth with admiration and approval.

‘Excellente! Well said! Then we have a great deal in common, as was to be expected, for we both love trade and hate Napoleon,’ said Alfonse with a laugh.

‘Napoleon!’ said Giuseppe, and he became sorrowful again. ‘That upstart! What gave him the right to march into our city, destroying in days what it took us centuries to build, robbing us of our greatest treasures? What gave him the right to drive something wonderful from the world?’

The mood was becoming melancholic and the men were becoming morose. The women were uncomfortable, turning their fans in their hands or arranging their skirts to hide their disquiet.

Sophia proved her worth as a hostess by immediately lightening the mood and hitting upon the one thing that could rescue them all from their melancholy: a celebration.

‘Let Napoleon have his edicts,’ she said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand, ‘let him give Venice to Austria. Let them all conspire to control us. They will not break our spirits. Let them say what they will, we will have a ball, a great masked ball in honour of Elizabeth and in honour of the splendours of Venice. Let us show Elizabeth how we Venetians used to live.’

The idea caught hold at once.

‘But yes, let us show Elizabeth some of Venice’s former splendour. A masked ball for Elizabeth!’

The mood had altered. The melancholy had disappeared, to be replaced with pleasure and excitement. Everyone had their own suggestions to make and the details of the ball began to take shape.

‘Let it be a costume ball,’ said Maria.

‘Yes! A costume ball! And let it reflect one of our greatest centuries, let us wear the clothes of a bygone era. We will dress in the clothes of the thirteenth century,’ said Alfonse.

‘No, the fifteenth,’ said Maria.

‘The sixteenth,’ said Giuseppe, ‘the time of the great artists, of Titian and Tintoretto.’

‘Very well,’ said Sophia, ‘the sixteenth century.’

‘I have no suitable clothes,’ said Elizabeth with regret, for the ball sounded exciting.

‘You shall take from me, I have plenty, and masks, too, with which to surprise the gentlemen,’ said Sophia.

‘But of course,’ said Lorenzo. ‘That is all part of the excitement, trying to guess what face lies behind the mask.’

‘We will let the others make the arrangements whilst we do something more interesting: I will help you to choose your clothes. Come, Elizabeth,’ said Sophia. ‘We will enjoy ourselves!’

She led Elizabeth upstairs, through corridors lined with great works of art, and took her into a grand apartment with high ceilings and huge mirrors all around. She rang for her maid and soon the room was ablaze with light as candles blossomed into life.

‘Here!’ said Sophia, throwing open a huge pair of doors and walking through into an antechamber full of clothes. They were of all styles and colours, some new and some very old. ‘These are the ones we will wear at the ball, from here,’ said Sophia, showing Elizabeth a collection of gowns at the back of the anteroom. ‘These are from the days of Venice’s glory.’

As Elizabeth looked at the clothes, she saw that they were very old, the glorious fabrics faded with age, but exquisite in their beauty.

‘Do you never dispose of gowns in your family?’ asked Elizabeth, amazed at how many there were.

‘In my family,’ said Sophia pensively. ‘No. They remind us of other times, other balls, other lives, other loves. And that is what we live for, is it not, to love? You, who are so newly married, know that it is true. See, this dress, it is the one I wore when I met Marco Polo.’

‘When you met Marco Polo?’ asked Elizabeth in amusement. ‘That would make you 500 years old!’

Sophia’s hands stilled on the fabric of the dress. She said, ‘You are laughing. Then Darcy has not told you?’

‘Told me what?’ asked Elizabeth.

Sophia became so still that she looked like a portrait, extremely beautiful but somehow unreal. Then, just as Elizabeth was beginning to be unnerved, she gave a slight shrug of her shoulders and said, ‘It is not important, only that he has not told you my English, it is not very good. You will forgive me if the things I say do not always make sense?’

‘Of course,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Your English is, in any case, far better than my Italian.’

They laughed and then Sophia turned back to the clothes and said, ‘Now, which dress is for you?’

Elizabeth looked through the glorious gowns made of rich fabrics in blues, yellows, and scarlets. She took out a dress of deep blue velvet, which was criss-crossed with a latticework pattern in gold, matched by the slashes in the sleeves which allowed the gold silk of the undersleeve to be seen. She held it up, the candlelight winking on the gold thread woven into the latticework.