Chapter Seventeen
AMSTERDAM, 1622
Clara lay in darkness, having finally disciplined her thoughts away from Adela’s plight, for there was nothing to be done until morning. Nico stirred beside her, murmuring in his sleep. Was it pitiful to be so grateful he had chosen to share her bed and take comfort from his presence? She had first suggested he might do so, occasionally, months before as another way to protect him from speculation. They had decided it would do no harm for servants to gossip about plain little Mistress Peeters and the possibility of an illicit liaison with her handsome assistant, though one far less proscribed than his true one. With their new arrangement, she had rediscovered the comfort of their companionship. Of soft words spoken in darkness and the sound of another’s
