“No pinching my bum or sneaking a kiss where anyone can see us,” I’d said sternly that first time, putting my nose right up against Marco’s on the pillow. “I’ll get nothing but snickers and sly jokes from the scullions if they think I’m giving it to the maestro di cucina. And if the maids find out, they’ll think you’re only keeping me on for a whore, and then won’t I have a time getting any work out of them.”

“Sworn to secrecy,” my cousin grinned. There would be no such condemnation for him, of course, if he were to be caught bedding me—an unlimited supply of pretty maidservants was one of the great privileges of a maestro di cucina’s position. But that was the way of the world, and there was no sense wailing about it, so at that point I’d just yanked my shift over my head and enjoyed myself. It counted for sin, I suppose. Certainly the priests would all say so. But Marco had done me a favor in taking me in, not to mention fudging the kitchen accounts for Madonna Adriana so it looked like Bartolomeo’s apprentice fees had been paid. It seemed wiser to keep him happy when he wanted a bedmate. Not to mention the fact that he was clean and sweet-smelling between the sheets, and more than pleasant to look on without his clothes.

That, I suppose, was the sinful part. Though when you’ve robbed a church, fornication seems like fairly small change as far as sins go.

One of the maids crowed, pouncing on my small involuntary smile. “It is Maestro Santini you’re bedding, Carmelina, admit it! I don’t blame you; he’s near as handsome as Cesare Borgia—”

“I’ve had him,” Pantisilea volunteered.

“Maestro Santini, or Cesare Borgia?” I asked. Anything to divert the subject away from me and my possible bedmates.

“Both. And I can tell you, Marco Santini’s handsome, but the Archbishop . . .” Sighs all around from the maids. We were all mad for the young Archbishop of Valencia—I had to admit, even my sensible knees had buckled when he aimed that one passing grin at me, up on the loggia when I’d gone to shout at Leonello. I felt a moment’s envy of Pantisilea, but Madonna Giulia was shaking her head.

“I don’t see what all of you see in Cesare,” she scolded us. “Really, all your heads turned by a handsome face! He’s cold as a corpse, you know. After I saw how he reacted to that nasty business—”

“What nasty business?” I couldn’t help asking.

“That poor girl in the Borgo who was found killed?” Madonna Giulia grimaced. “The one found staked down, with a blade through each hand.”

We all shivered and crossed ourselves.