She ignored me, massaging at her temples as though her head ached. “Do you know what I hate?” she asked me rhetorically as she began stripping the pins out of her coiled plaits. “My ridiculous hair. I’ve come to hate having floor-length hair. It sounds very romantic, but it takes hours to wash and even more hours to dress, and it’s impossible to sleep on because it gets tangled around everything unless you bundle it into a net, and you can’t do that because then you’re sleeping in a hairnet and how romantic is that. I’d have cut my hair years ago, but Rodrigo loved showing me off in it, and then Orsino loved showing me off in it, because it was what I was known for: ‘Giulia La Bella with her floor-length hair.’ Perhaps now that I’m just a simple widow of Carbognano, I’ll chop it all off.”

“Go away,” I said again, but she ignored me utterly, unraveling the last plait and shaking her hair down. It piled around her as she settled on the floor, cross-legged like a sewing maid, and drew my feet into her lap. “What are you doing?” I demanded.

“Your legs will be hurting you by now, after all that capering.” Her fingers were already finding the aches that stabbed my calf muscles like knives. “Why did you let them humiliate you like that, Leonello?”

I closed my eyes again. “Because I deserve it.”

“Do you?”

“You know what I do for Cesare Borgia.”

“Did you know my husband was to be murdered?”

“No.” Opening my eyes. “Cesare must have given that job to Michelotto. You need a tall man if you’re going to pull off that trick with the ceiling, after all. Someone who won’t need to drag a chair over to reach the archway.”

“That’s something, at least.”

“Would you have forgiven me?” My knotted legs were loosening under her hands. “If I had been the one to smash Orsino’s head in?”

“No.” She paused to open a crock of some sweet-smelling balm, cool and astringent, and smooth it into my skin. “But I would have tried.”

“If it’s any consolation, I’d have warned you.” I fumbled the words because I meant them—despite all my bitter self-loathing, I wanted her to believe me when I said there were still some things I would not do. “If I’d known Michelotto was coming for your Orsino, I’d have sent word.” She looked at me, and I gave a shrug. “Even a little monster like me doesn’t want a monster like Michelotto roaming about the same house with Laura.”

“Still looking out for us, I see.” There was the faintest softening of her mouth. “How many times have you saved me by now, Leonello?”

“Two?” I counted. “Savonarola’s Angels. The French.”