“Oh, do you?” A smirk danced at the corners of her full mouth now, and she fussed with the lace around her collar, fluffing it into just the right shape. “As I hear it, the first complaint came from someone who chanced to see the two of them in carnal embrace behind the church itself. Someone you would never suspect, I’ll wager.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, and I tightened my grip on her shoulders. I saw a flash of panic in her eyes before the arrogance returned. “Make yourself plain,” I said. “I’ve no time for this, and you know I am out of temper.”

“A Capulet,” Veronica said. “A Capulet girl was the one who complained of their unnatural embrace to the bishop himself. Or so it’s said.”

“Which Capulet girl?” I did not believe her. I did not want to believe her, truth be told, and I saw the vinegar-bitter flash of victory in her eyes.

“The one Romeo is always bleating about,” Veronica said. “The plain one bound for the convent. Rosaline. And so, we are revenged upon her, too.”

I let her go and stepped back as if she’d caught fire. I wanted to believe she was lying; I did not want to believe that Rosaline, of all people, had been the one to do such a cruel and heartless thing. But she is devout, I thought. She plans for a life in the Church. She does not know Mercutio. All she would see is something ugly and venal and perverse, conducted in the dark. Small wonder she would be offended.

But it felt wrong to me. Very wrong.

“You’re lying,” I said. “You soul-rotted little villain, you lie. You’re the one who bent the bishop’s ear and blamed the Capulets for it.”

Her lips curled into a perfect bow of satisfaction. My clever, evil little sister, so good at twisting her words. “Your companion was a liability to the house of Montague with his behavior,” she said. “Bound to be caught eventually. Now he hates the Capulet wench for betraying him, when before he might have seen our quarrel with them as some game of chess, bloodless and adventuresome. I did you a favor, brother, binding him closer to us. I did him a favor. Don’t think Grandmother wouldn’t approve. It was her own idea.”

It had the breathtaking cruelty of something the old witch would order . . . betray Mercutio’s secret love, use the Capulets as scapegoat to bind the bitter, wounded boy closer to the Montagues. Politics at its most brutal.

“La Signora might have given the order,” I said in a voice just above a whisper, a voice I could hardly hear over the mad thudding of my pulse and the red rush of blood in my ears. “But she used you as her puppet, sister.”

Veronica lifted her hands in a gesture of utter indifference. “I am a woman. I must get used to being used.”