“Really,” I told her. “And if you really want to look older and a little wicked for Lord Sforza, I think we can manage that. Let’s see . . .” I rummaged among the cloth samples. “Dark green silk . . . too sallow on you. Yellow velvet, no, too close a color to your hair. Pink figured brocade, definitely not. Too girlish . . .” I had an entire team of robe makers on hand now who did nothing but dress me, and enough cloth samples and embroidery patterns on hand for a hundred gowns. The respectable women of Rome didn’t want to be seen talking with me, or even walking on the same side of the street as me, but they certainly took an interest in everything I wore. And if I was going to set the fashions I might as well do it right, so I put a great deal of thought these days into the design of each new dress—not like the days when I just threw on anything that was pretty. I could certainly put all that new expertise to Lucrezia’s benefit. “We want a new image for you,” I announced. “Something to show you’ve grown up. You’re still too young for black, but perhaps a midnight blue . . .” I tossed a fine lightweight French silk over her shoulders. “Yes, that’s it.”

“Cut to here?” Lucrezia tugged down her neckline.

“Let’s say here.” I moved her bodice back up. “But with black French lace at the edge; that will make it quite wicked. I do hope the French won’t invade; then we wouldn’t be able to get any more of this lace . . .”

“God forbid you ladies be left without lace,” Leonello said behind his book, but we paid him no mind. I sat Lucrezia down and spent an hour pampering her after the robe makers left, plucking her brows into perfect arches and showing her how a little discreet powder would help cover the red spots that sometimes appeared on her skin. “I think if you wear pale green to Joffre’s wedding, I shall wear sea green. Nobody can compete with a pair of stunning blondes dressed to match!”

“I don’t really want Sancha to be ugly,” Lucrezia confessed, restored to her usual sunny good humor. “Joffre deserves a pretty wife.”

“Of course he does,” I agreed. “But she won’t be prettier than you; it is simply not possible. Now, make a sort of fish expression—suck your cheeks in, that’s it—and I’ll show you how to rouge your face so your cheekbones look higher. Just a dab, mind you, we don’t want His Holiness noticing. He’ll excommunicate me for painting his daughter up like a courtesan. No use telling a man that nice fair skin like ours needs a little color. Men don’t know anything about these things, much less men of the cloth . . .”