I was tempted to point out that Marco had done a very good job of sitting about on his thumbs and doing nothing here. “I’m sure it’s just a temporary change—”

He rounded on me in the same stairwell where he’d kissed me on the way up. “Someone told that tight-fisted bitch Adriana da Mila I was gone this afternoon! One hour off for a game of cards, just one, and she thinks I’m shirking!”

“One hour?” I tried to keep my voice gentle. I owed my cousin a great deal, after all. “What about the pallone match two days ago, and the bear baiting last week? The dice games and the zara games and the primiera games?” All of which I’d covered for him . . .

“You’re the one who told her! Don’t even deny it!” Marco’s voice rose, and I saw a pair of maidservants at the head of the stairs take a peek at us over their heaping laundry baskets. “Everything I’ve done for you—I took you in, and now this?”

“I didn’t tell her anything. But really, Marco,” I couldn’t help adding, “what did you expect? The whole household knows you don’t bother putting in a full day’s work anymore!” I flapped the curious maids away with a wave of my hand, and lowered my voice. “How many times did I warn you to be more cautious? Probably one of the stewards dropped a word in her ear!”

The kitchens had been running on my orders for months. Sheer, blind foolishness to think that someone as thrifty and sharp-eyed as Adriana da Mila wouldn’t eventually take notice.

Of course, sheer blind foolishness was another gift of my cousin’s.

“This is all your doing,” he said bitterly. “This is the thanks I get for taking you in—”

I had to sit on my temper at that. Marco had taken me in, given me a place in the palazzo when I fled Venice and turned up on his doorstep begging for help. But his generosity hadn’t exactly gone unpaid, had it? My hands had worked in his kitchens for four years now, freeing him up for all those long afternoons of dice, and I’d covered for him every time!

But that wasn’t the way to coax Marco into a better mood.

“Come now.” I tried a cajoling smile. “Madonna Adriana only gave me your position because she can pay me less! She’s stingier than a vendor hawking secondhand clothes, you know that. And you’re getting a better position, really—”

“That’s not the point! You still stole my position here!” He jabbed a furious finger at me. “I gave you a home, little cousin, I gave you a place in the world when no one else would have you, and you steal my position as maestro di cucina!”