Bartolomeo ignored him, frozen in the act of scrubbing his big hands on his apron as he stared at us, at Marco’s arm still slung around my hip. It was the first time he’d looked me in the eye since the night we—well, that night. I saw the same dark flush spread slowly up from the collar of his shirt until his freckles disappeared. “So,” he said in a strange flat voice. “You don’t care after all if a man can cook or not, do you? Or if he’s a fool. As long as he’s got curls and a smile. As long as he’s not a boy.”

I could feel myself blushing. “Bartolomeo—”

He took off his apron, balled it up, and flung it at my feet. “I quit.”

“You can’t!” I wrenched away from Marco’s arm at my waist. “Bartolomeo, we’re in the middle of a feast—”

“Bugger that. Someone else can fix the damned unicorn’s horn.” Bartolomeo looked at Marco contemptuously. “Hire him back, if you want another apprentice. Egg white and a small brush should do it, Marco. If you even remember how to cook, after all the wine and the cards.”

“See here, boy,” Marco began, glaring, and Bartolomeo hit him so fast I almost didn’t see it. He was as tall as Marco now, and even stronger with all the hauling of barrels and carcasses that was an apprentice’s lot. The muscles bunched under the freckled skin of his arm as his fist exploded into Marco’s jaw. Then my cousin was flat on his back on the flagstones, blood dripping from his lip, and I heard screaming and wondered if it was me. But it wasn’t me, it came from upstairs. Even Bartolomeo, hauling Marco up by the collar and preparing to wallop him again, paused to jerk his eyes upward in puzzlement at the shouting now drifting down from the gardens.

I groaned, stealing Bartolomeo’s favorite expression. “Santa Marta bung me with a spoon!”

He turned away from Marco, who was muttering and gingerly feeling at his lip, and toward me. “Carmelina—”

“None of that!” I jabbed a finger into Bartolomeo’s chest. “Help my cousin up and for God’s sake stop hitting him. We will discuss your position here later!”

His voice was low and steely. “If you think I’m going to watch you drape yourself all over that bungling ham-handed ass after you kicked me out of my own bed like a stray dog—”