The captain sees that he is beginning to lose their interest. Besides, he knows where the establishment they refer to is. In what seems now like another life, he once visited it himself. He throws them a couple of small coins – it always helps to make a friend in such a place – and is on his way.
She is more beautiful than he remembered. And, though it should appal him, seeing her done up like the other women, it excites him. The rouged lips and cheeks, the flimsy, revealing gown. He would be half-tempted to merely ask her to lead him to one of the rooms … But no. He stops these thoughts before they even begin. He has nobler aims than that.
She seems … not precisely delighted to see him, but no matter. He would not expect her to be in her proper humour. She has had an ordeal. Not, thankfully, the ordeal that he had feared. He has promises from the Madam that she has not yet been visited by any other man. The woman extracts an eye-watering price from him, too, before she allows him to take the girl: two solid gold genovini. It is only fair, she says, taking into account future lost earnings. He has made the novice haggler’s mistake, he knows, in letting her see how much he desires the purchase. But no matter. She is his again.
When he wakes the next morning he is convinced that he is still upon the ship, and is thrown into confusion by the unfamiliarity of his new surroundings. Then it comes to him. He has left the ship, his ship. Is he mad? What can he have been thinking? But then he remembers her, and everything falls into place.
Before, there had not been time to think. He had lost his head over her entirely. Now, though, he begins to plan. When he left the ship the night before he felt prepared to give up everything, if only he could find her. Now, he realizes that this may not be necessary. He may return to Genoa without recrimination. His lieutenants will not defame him, or give him away: his uncle is one of the most powerful men in the city. He will simply say that he was needfully detained by business. Before, he might have been prepared to marry her. But now he realizes that he would be a fool to throw away the opportunity afforded him by his engagement to tie his lot in with one of Genoa’s richest families. He will marry Beatrix, but he will not need to give up— He stops. He still has not found out her name. Well. No matter, there will be time for all that. He will not need to give her up, that is the important thing. Many great and revered men have acted as he will do.
Gently, he explains his plan to her. They will go first to his house near Portofino, and rest there for a couple of days. There she will become his mistress. He will send out for fine clothes and jewellery – the things that are due to the mistress of one of such high standing as himself. Then they will return to Genoa, where he will set her up with a fine house. There is a long silence, and he wonders if she has not understood him.
‘Well,’ he asks finally, softly, ‘what do you think of that?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘I would prefer not.’ There is another long silence. He asks her what she means.
‘I would prefer to leave, and be on my way. Thank you, though, for your kind offer.’
He is absolutely perplexed. He thinks of how they had found her: half-dead, with those bruises about her ankles. ‘But you would want for nothing. You would live like an empress. Do you understand? Do you understand who I am?’
Slowly, she nods. ‘I understand,’ she says, ‘that you are a kind man. That you helped me when I was in need.’
‘But where would you go?’
A silence.
‘Do you have family?’ He is already certain that she does not. She shakes her head.
‘Do you realize how vulnerable that makes you? Do you wish to find yourself back in the whorehouse?’
He sees her considering, turning it over in her mind. Struck by inspiration, he says, ‘I was hasty. You don’t have to make any … commitment to me in that regard yet. I won’t touch you, if you do not wish it. But let me ensure that you are safe, at least for the next few weeks.’
Finally, she seems to agree. They sail to Portofino, and there he outfits her, as promised, in gowns of the finest cloth. Still, she will not tell him her name. In frustration, he chooses one for her, one that he feels suits her. ‘I shall call you Luna,’ he says, ‘for your beauty.’ The captain is a learned man, proud of his grasp of the classics. He takes her silence as her acceptance of this new moniker. It suits her, and her beauty, far better than any other name would, he decides.