I still didn’t know if Rodrigo was doing it all wrong, or everyone else was. But my swarthy, heavyset lover of sixty-two years could appreciate a patch of skin over my hip until it was leaping off my body in the effort to follow his hand, and in the end I decided I’d rather have that than a handsome profile or a youthful countenance. A great many young girls have to marry old men, after all—I was lucky enough to get one with power, presence, charm, and the most useful penchant for both gift giving and lovemaking; a man whose passion for me remained undimmed after a year.

Yes, I’d call that lucky indeed.

“My Papal Bull,” I teased, my lips brushing his, and his burly chest rumbled laughter against my breasts. A blasphemy and a double entendre all in one; the kind of joke that he liked, and I slid myself down over him in a long candlelit shimmer of hair and apricot-scented skin. His eyes glittered dark in the shadows, still devouring me, until passion shuttered them and he groaned. “Mi perla,” he whispered, one hand tracing the dimple at the base of my spine, the other cupping my neck and then roping my hair about his palm to pull me down against him. Our mouths clashed, drank, clashed again. On my painted ceiling, Europa rode her bull. Down below, I rode mine.

“Rodrigo?” I said softly afterward. “Can I ask something of you?”

“You women, always picking at a man when his defenses are low!” Rodrigo’s eyes were still closed, his voice drowsy now, though I could hear the smile in his words. “What is it you want, mi perla? Diamonds? You can have as many as you like.”

“No.” I rested the point of my chin on his shoulder. “I want our daughter to have the Borgia name instead of Orsini.”

He was silent for a moment. “It’s against all law, Giulia.”

“You could change the law.” I smiled, kissing the side of his throat. “You’re the Holy Father, after all!”

“And Laura Orsini is a perfectly good name.” His eyes opened in the dark. “So let us leave it there, Giulia.”

“But everyone knows she’s your daughter, not Orsino’s. Why not make it official?” I could charm Rodrigo into anything; surely I could have my way in this. “‘Laura Borgia,’ just imagine—”

“No!”

I stared at him through the dark. Our limbs were still entwined so companionably, my pale skin pressed against his swarthy flesh beneath the sheet, my hair coiling over us both—but his voice had snapped out with the force of a lash. “Rodrigo, surely you can’t doubt that Laura—”

“Why should I believe she’s mine, Giulia? You were bedding down at the same time with that squinting sapling of a boy!”

I felt a sick swoop in my stomach. “I wasn’t—”