He turned to put Gerolama’s vases back in their niches, and when he turned back I saw his eyes were glass-cool and he was done with the subject. “Maestro Botticelli’s painting of you,” he said, all business. “You did promise him you would complete your sittings while you were here in Florence.”

I made a face, grateful for the change in conversation. “I suppose if I string the sittings out, I’ll earn another few weeks here. If I want them.”

Laura was still looking hurt, and Leonello tweaked her nose in apology for snapping at her. “You’ve been putting it off, Madonna Giulia. Sitting for your painting.”

“I don’t want to do it,” I said simply.

My bodyguard regarded me, head tilted. He hadn’t spoken of the day I’d posed naked and cold in the papal apartments surrounded by leering men, and I hadn’t either. I wondered if Leonello would say something cutting and careless about it—we called ourselves friends by now, but that had never stopped him in the past from carving me up with his viper’s tongue if he was in the mood, and he was certainly in the mood now after the way I’d probed him. But his voice wasn’t mocking at all when he spoke. “If it’s any consolation,” he said instead, “you carried it off rather splendidly.”

But oh, going to Mass that first Sunday after my portrait-sitting had been agony! I was used to being stared at as I took Communion at the Basilica San Pietro—mostly it was the women who stared, craning their necks to see if my sleeves were cut in the French fashion or the Neapolitan, or if my collar was lace or marten fur. That particular Sunday it had been the men staring, trading the latest rumors in a hot whisper about how I’d stripped naked before the entire College of Cardinals and posed on my hands and knees as the Mary Magdalene, or with my legs spread and an apple in my hand as Eve. What a great many whispers had flown through Rome in just a few short days. I’d closed my eyes, cheeks burning as I opened my mouth for the Holy Wafer, and I heard one of the altar boys whisper to the other, “Do you think she goes on her knees and opens her mouth like that for the Holy Father?”

How was I supposed to carry that off splendidly?

Leonello was still looking at me, thoughtful. “Will you refuse to finish Maestro Botticelli’s portrait then, Madonna Giulia?”