And if I married again, well, my next husband wouldn’t expect to sleep by my side either. Because Sandro had been right; I would need a second husband someday if I meant to protect Laura’s inheritance. And I already had my eye on a proper candidate: Vittorio Capece of Bozzuto, who would not want sons from me, or my presence in his bed, or anything at all except my occasional promenade on his arm to keep the gossip away. An ideal second husband, and Leonello agreed with me when I shared the name. Vittorio could live in Rome or in Naples with his handsome young pages, and I could reside in Carbognano with my lion. I had it all perfectly planned.

“And what happens if I put a child in you?” Leonello had asked me that the very first night, grim-faced, holding himself back so fiercely. “That would break your plans into pieces, wouldn’t it? You could never pass a dwarf child off as Vittorio Capece’s.”

“I’m not very fertile,” I’d pointed out. “One daughter in all the years with Rodrigo, and he tried to get me with child—he always hoped I’d give him a son. And Orsino tried too, tried every night for months and months, and nothing happened then either. I think it might have been Laura’s birth. She came so hard, and the midwives say it can damage the womb.” That should have marked me a great failure, my inadequacy as a breeder of sons, but not for the life I had chosen now. “Besides, there are ways to be careful, if you’re worried. Let me tell you just what can be done with a lime . . .”

It was already part of my evening disrobing: a night shift, a little rosewater for the face, and a halved lime. Of course it was a sin, but I was racking up such a number of sins these days, a lime didn’t add much to the tally. Fornication; lust; the taking of a lover outside the laws of marriage. Not to mention the fact that this lover and I had cooked up a plan between us to steal a nun out of her convent. No, a lime wasn’t much compared to all that.

And I must say, the plan we had cooked up for Carmelina worked beautifully. My little lion and I really did make the most marvelous team. That poor prioress never stood a chance against us!