“You sound like Mother.” God rest her soul, she had always been scolding me for vanity—“You think the Holy Virgin worries how she looks, Giulia mia?” But from what I could see, the Holy Virgin didn’t need to worry how she looked because she was always beautiful, in every painting I’d ever seen of her; beautiful and serene in some becoming blue gown-and-veil combination that had probably been sewn by angels. We earthly girls had to put a bit more thought into our appearance if we wanted to look half so fine, so I just said an extra Paternoster every morning in repentance for the sin of vanity as I plucked my eyebrows.

“Never mind,” Sandro was saying. “Young Orsino will get up his courage soon enough after another dance or two.”

“So let’s encourage him.” I gave the dish of peaches a regretful look, sucking the sweet grappa off one fingertip, but really I’d already eaten heartily as a peasant tonight (oh, that roast peacock, and there was some kind of delicious pastry thing with sweet cheese and onions!). “Dance with me, Sandro.”

“Does a priest dance?” Sandro rolled his eyes up to the heavens with great piety. “You offend my clerical dignity, not to mention my vows.”

“Your vows weren’t too offended when you were flirting with Bianca Bonadeo earlier. During my vows, mind you.”

“Then a basse-danse at once.”

“The basse-danse is boring!” Orsino and I had already opened the floor with a basse-danse earlier in the evening. All that decorous gliding around palm to palm, and he hadn’t quite had the courage to look me in the eye. I preferred something livelier from the viols; a tune that got my blood running, and maybe gave me a chance to show a flash of ankle in the turns. “Let’s dance la volta.”

“You’re the bride, sorellina.” A word to the musicians, and a smattering of applause rose as my brother led me out to the floor. I gave a graceful half spin, flaring my airy rose-colored skirts to acknowledge the applause before the lively beat of the viols began, and I seized Sandro’s hand. A beat or two as we pirouetted through the first steps, and then Sandro put his hands to my waist and tossed me into the air in the first lift. I knew how to land so my skirts belled, throwing my head back and laughing, and I dipped my bare shoulders into the candlelight in the direction of my new husband. Look at me, Orsino, I begged silently. Look at me, dance with me, love me!

* * *

G erolama tried her best to get me good and scared before the bedding. “The duties of marriage are heavy,” she whispered as she helped Madonna Adriana and the other laughing women unlace my rose-colored dress. “Very heavy indeed.”