“Oh, the faithful daughter-in-law!” Lucrezia cried out. “As if you’ve made Adriana’s son such a marvelous wife!”

“I admit I’m no one to lecture you on wifely behavior,” I said crisply. “But that’s a lecture you need as well, because Lord Sforza deserves better, too. Your brother threatened him at the masquerade, and you said nothing. You didn’t even go with him when he fled back to Pesaro the next day. Fled in utter terror with his tail between his legs!”

“I was the one who warned him he should go,” Lucrezia protested. “I said it would be wise to put a little distance between himself and Cesare. You know my brother when he decides he dislikes someone.”

“Then you should have gone with Lord Sforza. Sided with your husband, Lucrezia, and not your snake of a brother.”

Lucrezia started to rise, but I jabbed two fingers into her breastbone and sank her back into the water. No woman is really at an advantage sitting naked in a tub full of water with wet hair straggling into her eyes, and Lucrezia at a disadvantage was exactly how I wanted her.

“You were always a good, sweet girl, Lucrezia.” I shook my head. “What’s changed you? I don’t think we can blame it all on the Tart of Aragon.”

“You will not call her—”

“She is a tart, and you’re well on your way to becoming one. Traipsing around Rome with those Neapolitan harlots she calls ladies-in-waiting, painting your eyes and flirting with Juan’s bravos—Lucrezia, do you know what they say of you, outside Rome?” Fra Savonarola’s rantings, that foul pamphlet that had made my fingertips burn. Leonello’s cool voice: They believe such things because they are true.

“I don’t see how you have any right to call me a poor wife!” Lucrezia lashed out. “My father’s whore—”

“And do you want to be a whore?” I demanded. “I don’t recommend it, even if the jewels are marvelous. It’s not a path I’d ever want for my own daughter.”

“Well, I don’t have a daughter, do I?” Lucrezia’s little face was bitter. “Just a husband nobody wants anymore—Father says I’m to use any excuse I like to keep from sharing a bed with my Lord Sforza; a baby will inconvenience everything now—”

“What do you mean, inconvenience? Inconvenience whom?”

Lucrezia hesitated, pushing at the wet bundle of her hair. “The Holy Father wishes to annul my marriage to Lord Sforza.”

My mouth dropped. “You cannot be serious!”

Lucrezia tossed her head. “He doesn’t tell you everything, you know.”

“Annul your marriage? The legality alone—”

“Cesare says I deserve better than a Sforza lordling. He says a duke is none too good for me, and our father thinks the same.”