“Santa Marta save me,” I muttered. “I’ll give him peasant food. Barley porridge and boiled goat, that’s peasant food!”

“Send him that, and you will be out of a job. I assure you that whatever notions he might have about eating like a simple peasant, the Duke of Gandia does not want porridge and goat.”

“I know that!” The Duke of Gandia’s ways were more than familiar to any female servants in the palazzo; he’d come sniffing around all our skirts at one time or another, including mine. He’d been half drunk, and I’d run him off with a cleaver. There are advantages to working in a kitchen.

“I’m sure you know best, Signorina Cuoca.” Leonello sketched a bow, making sure to flourish his four-fingered hand at me. His eyes were hard and cool, meeting mine with that stare that still twisted in my gut like a fishhook. I know what you are, Suora Serafina.

But at least he had not told anyone else—more than a year and a half had passed, and no one had ever come with a rope for my wrists and a writ for my sins. Maybe that demon dwarf really was afraid I’d poison him. Or maybe he’d forgiven me, now that his wounds had healed.

Somehow I doubted that.

“One more thing,” Leonello added over his shoulder. “Madonna Adriana wants to see you in her sala. You and Maestro Marco Santini.”

Adriana da Mila, cousin to the Pope and duenna of the papal seraglio here. She was also Madonna Giulia’s mother-in-law, and I still didn’t understand exactly how that worked because most women would object to seeing their son’s wife flit off to become the mistress of another man, much less His Holiness the Pope, but Adriana da Mila seemed entirely placid about the whole arrangement. Then again, the only thing that seemed to make Madonna Adriana lose any sleep was the prospect of losing money, and there was no doubt her son had been well compensated for his sacrifice.

Losing money . . . was she going to ask sharp questions about Marco’s absences again? The mistress of the household would not be pleased to know just how much of Marco’s twenty-five ducats a year went to the dicing tables in riverside taverns while I supervised the kitchens.

“Madonna Adriana will have to wait.” I tied on an apron, already marshaling possible excuses as to why the maestro di cucina wasn’t to be found when it was time to prepare the noonday meal. “My cousin has gone out.”