“That’s lovely, Marco.” I cut him off before the lie could get any more elaborate; the apprentices were already nudging each other and stifling snickers. “Madonna Adriana wants to see both of us.”

“Better give me an apron, then.” Marco’s dark eyes twinkled. “An artistic splatter of flour, do you think?”

“Never mind the apron,” I said, but my cousin in a good mood was infectious. When he’d been the star apprentice of my father’s kitchens and I’d been twelve, I’d fallen madly in love with him—and who wouldn’t? Tall, muscled, dimpled, and handsome; that was Marco Santini. Of course, shortly after that I’d discovered that he had no sense and no ambition either, and nothing between the ears but dice games and bullfighting bets, and I’d fallen right back out of love again. Still, my reproving smack to his shoulder was a good deal gentler than the ones I gave the scullions. “Bartolomeo, see my blackberry tourtes get into the oven—” And my cousin and I trooped upstairs to see the mistress of the house.

“I won four ducats on a single round of primiera,” Marco said in a jubilant whisper. “Four! I had a fluxus hand, see, and no one else had anything higher than a numerus—”

“You said you wouldn’t go gaming during the week anymore!” I scolded. “On free afternoons only—”

“I felt Lady Fortune sitting on my shoulder, little cousin. Who says no to that?” He kissed his fingertips, and then he looked around to make sure we were alone on the stairwell, and leaned down and smacked my mouth with a kiss too. “Maybe I can pay you a visit tonight?”

“Maybe.” I scowled, but gave a half smile. My cousin was a fool, and I certainly wasn’t in love with him anymore—but he was handsome. And just occasionally, when his mood flew high from a win and he felt the urge for a bedmate, well, better his little cousin who would at least never pressure him for marriage the way any of the maidservants would have done.

Not that anyone in the household could ever know that Marco occasionally shared my bed. I wasn’t afraid of getting caught with a swollen belly—I’d surrendered my virtue at seventeen to another apprentice of my father’s, and he’d addled my wits for a week or two, but not so badly I hadn’t taken care to safeguard myself with a few discreet tricks involving a halved lime and a tincture of pennyroyal. No, strict chastity wasn’t really practiced by the palazzo’s maids, no matter what stringent standards Madonna Adriana tried to impose on her servants.