Lucrezia was still chattering on about poetry, which had the usual effect of making Leonello, at my back, put his thumbs in his ears, when an undulation of purple satin swished up. “My dear Lucrezia,” Sancha of Aragon purred, looking at Sandro through half-closed lids. “And Cardinal Farnese, of course. You look nothing like your sister, do you know that? Fortunately. Golden hair is all very well, but I do prefer dark suitors.” She reached up to twine a strand of his hair about her finger, and Sandro looked faintly startled . “Lucrezia, I won’t allow you to keep this luscious fellow all to yourself!” Sancha went on. “Cardinal Farnese, perhaps you will take a turn about the gardens with me?”

“I fear I must steal him,” I said firmly, and led my brother away. “Sandro, come see these roses over here, don’t they look just like those little yellow ramblers our mother used to grow in Capodimonte . . . ?”

As soon as I had my brother out of earshot, I plucked one of those little yellow roses off its bush and pointed it at him thorns first. “The Tart of Aragon is fair game, Sandro, but don’t flirt with Lucrezia. I know you’ve never been happy with the idea of the Holy Father and me, but don’t think to even the score by seducing his daughter!”

“What do you take me for, sorellina?” Sandro gave a great show of mock outrage. “Besides, please note who was flirting with whom.” He peered over my shoulder at Sancha and Lucrezia, giggling softly with their heads together. My brother had been away these past months, on business for the College of Cardinals, and as usual he had managed to find time to dally in the country with his little mistress. He hadn’t seen much of either Lucrezia or the Tart of Aragon this summer, not the way I had. “Are they always like that?”

“Sancha’s always been a cat in heat.” I plucked another pair of roses, making a little nosegay. “I do wish Lucrezia wouldn’t imitate her so much.”

“Better than having them at each other’s throats, surely.” Sandro tugged me companionably against his side, leading me through the clipped hedges away from the crowd gathering rapidly round Lucrezia and Sancha like bees round their queens. “You thought the fur was going to fly when they first clapped eyes on each other!”

There had been a certain period of scrutiny between the Pope’s daughter and daughter-in-law when they first met this spring. A certain covert amount of measuring dark hair against blond, a fuller bosom against a slimmer waist, a collection of Roman gowns against a chest full of Neapolitan dresses. Now they had nothing but giggles and gossip for each other, and that disquieted me sometimes as I saw Lucrezia drinking every salacious whisper from her new sister-in-law.