“She’s yours too.” I saw Suora Ursula clumping toward me on her great bearlike paws. “I’m no cook anymore, Bartolomeo. Not here. And she belongs with a cook.”

One side of his mouth flicked down, wry. “I offer to marry you. I offer to commit desecration and adultery for you. I offer to make you pasta. And you offer me a dead severed hand?”

“You ass, it’s all I have! So take it or leave it!”

He took it. “I’ll give her back to you soon, I promise.” He reached through the bars and gripped my hand hard and fierce, strong fingers lacing through mine, his thumb skimming along my knuckles. “When I take you home. Nothing’s the same without you—even that old tomcat prowls around looking for you and moping—”

“That useless one-eared cat from the Palazzo Santa Maria?” I couldn’t help asking.

“I took him with me when I left.” Bartolomeo traced the livid mark left by Juan Borgia’s knife, and the scar burned all over again. “I’ve got a soft spot for him. We both mope and sulk without you—”

“Suora Serafina!” Suora Ursula had a roar that would have made any bear proud. “I have checked with our prioress, and she informs me you are not to receive any visitors at all. Apologies to your cousin”—eyes sweeping Bartolomeo with mistrust—“but he will have to leave at once.”

Bartolomeo didn’t let my hand go. Not till Suora Ursula yanked me away from the grille and began marching me out of the parlor like a heifer being led off to the kitchens for slaughter. “Rest assured you have earned a suitable penance for this,” she said in her vicious whisper. “And Suora Teresa as well, for allowing you into the parlor without first seeking permission!”

“Flay me bloody if you like, you hairy hag,” I said loud and clear, loud enough for Bartolomeo to hear where he stood up against the grille. And I slid out from under her claws and stalked out with as much of my old swagger as I could muster, because I didn’t think I’d ever see Bartolomeo again and he might as well see me leave his life as Carmelina. Not as scared Suora Serafina, who I was destined to remain for the rest of my days.

It wasn’t until Bartolomeo was out of sight that I burst into tears. Not for my red-haired and handsome young man—not for Santa Marta’s hand—not even for my own fate. Bartolomeo’s last words were still ringing in my ears: Even that old tomcat prowls around looking for you and moping . . . we both mope and sulk without you. Suddenly I was crying, and I didn’t know why. Everything that had happened within these walls, and I dissolved in tears over a useless, foul-tempered cat who should long ago have been made into a sausage.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN