But I hadn’t seen him since that day, when he put me on my new horse and kissed my hand and sent me back to the Palazzo Montegiordano. The Pope had died just a few days later, and my Cardinal had disappeared into the Vatican for the papal funeral rites, and then into the Conclave. All I’d had was one brief note: Don’t leave the palazzo until the funeral and the voting are both done, he’d written in curt haste. The streets are dangerous, and I won’t have you or the children harmed. I’ll send a bodyguard. Surely that meant he wouldn’t give me up, even if he became Pope? “I want you more than the Pope’s throne.” Those had been his own words.

What do you know about men? a cruel little voice said in my head. The last man you staked your future on was Orsino Orsini, and he sold you for advancement. Who’s to say Rodrigo will do any differently? A pope’s throne was the greatest prize in Christendom, after all. Surely worth one ordinary golden-haired girl, no matter what promises were made in the heat of passion.

Maybe I’d be left with nothing but Orsino after all. Orsino and his clumsy hands and squinting gaze and weak voice . . . Only now, everyone in Rome would know I’d given myself first to the man who became Pope.

“Is it true, sorellina?” Sandro had roared at me just yesterday afternoon. I’d had a vain hope that maybe he wouldn’t hear the gossip about his little sister when he returned to Rome, but that hope had died a quiet death in my breast the instant I saw Sandro storming into the garden of the Palazzo Montegiordano where I sat sunning my hair. “Cardinal Borgia? He forced you, didn’t he? You never would have given in to that old whoreson. If he forced you, I’ll have his head! I’ll plant it in a pot of basil like Isabella and Lorenzo—”

“Sandro, stop shouting. This is no time for your dramatics.” I’d taken a deep breath to calm the flutter in my stomach and launched into my well-prepared explanation, but my brother continued to pace and glower and interrupt me with curses: “I never thought you were fool enough to break your marriage vows! And with a man who’s had more mistresses than Zeus!”

“What marriage vows?” I’d said bitterly, and Orsino’s part in everything had come out then, and my brother’s anger had (mostly) shifted off my shoulders. “That Spanish whoremonger is lucky he’s locked in the Sistine Chapel right now,” my brother had said darkly as a parting shot. “Or I’d track him down and geld him like Abelard. And that goes double for your spineless little snip of a husband.”