“Venice is the city of courtesans,” I said. “There was one called La Turca, she was shining black all over, the most expensive whore in La Serenissima—well, I knew one of the girls she hired as a maid. I learned a thing or two.”

“Let’s hear it, then!” Giulia bestowed a kiss on the dimpled fist Laura had wound around a lock of her mother’s hair. “I love my baby, but I don’t want eight more. Out with it!”

I hesitated, wondering just what kind of sin it was to be giving the most notorious woman in Rome advice about limiting the number of bastards she bore to a pope. “Take a lime and halve it,” I said at last. “Then . . .” I mimed silently.

Noses wrinkled around our little circle. “Sounds uncomfortable,” Pantisilea decreed.

“Neapolitan limes,” I advised. “They’re smaller. More expensive, of course, but you buy the good limes to stuff into a chicken’s cavity, after all. No reason not to stuff your own with quality ingredients.” I shrugged again. “It’s not foolproof, La Turca’s maid said, but I suppose nothing is.”

“Except staying a virgin.” My mistress smiled, cracking the mask still further about her eyes. Giulia Farnese could not go two sentences without smiling. “And who wants to do that?”

“Not me,” about four maids said in unison, and everyone went off into gales of giggles.

Not me either, I thought. I’d not been virgin since I was seventeen and a handsome apprentice of my father’s managed to addle my wits in a storeroom behind a stack of crated oranges. It had all been rather sweaty and rushed, but a few times later I was starting to see the point of it all. Unfortunately that was when the apprentice boasted to the wrong friend, who in turn let it slip to my father, and then there was a great deal of shouting, and benches were thrown, not to mention oranges. When all was settled and done, my foolish lover found himself dismissed and packed off home, and I got a sound lashing as my father roared on about how difficult it would be to find me a husband who would take a soiled bride. I’d castigated myself a good deal at the time for my shameful lusts, but now I just castigated myself for not choosing a more discreet lover. A busy kitchen was the worst place on earth to keep secrets, and a little pleasant rolling about behind a crate of oranges had been no trade for a lost reputation.

“So—” Madonna Giulia fixed me with a pointed finger, dark eyes merry. “Who gets the benefit of your experience with halved limes, Carmelina? Do you have a sweetheart?”

“Do tell, do tell!” the cry went up.

“Certainly not.” I patted my stiff face. “Surely it’s time to wash this mask off?”

“Don’t be evasive!” Giulia uncurled her baby’s little fist and waved it at me. “Wait, I’ve got it. It’s Leonello, isn’t it?”