“Only as heavy as the man,” I giggled, and she limited herself to martyred glances after that. I felt giddy, high-sailing as a full moon in the sky, flushes coming so hot to my cheeks that I pressed my hands to my face to cool it.

“You’re far too excited, child,” Madonna Adriana clucked at me as she unlaced my sleeves. “Try not to expect too much.”

Expect too much? I was about to be a woman at last! I’d heard dark whispers of how much it hurt, of course, but I didn’t believe a word. Mares didn’t shriek pain when they were ridden, and I didn’t think I would either.

Oooof, what a relief to get out of that tightly laced dress. I really had eaten too much, but those little marzipan tourtes that had circulated at the end of the night on brightly colored majolica plates really had been too delicious to resist. Besides, I always eat when I’m happy. Orsino had summoned the courage by then to offer me the dish himself. “You’re beautiful, my lady,” he’d said shyly.

“Your lady wife,” I’d corrected, and saw with delight that he had blue eyes.

“Into bed with you now.” Gerolama had tied my shift up tight around my neck again, and she held the weight of my hair out of the way as I dived between the sheets. Silk sheets, not linen—I was hard-pressed not to gape again at the sheer openhanded richness of everything around me. Was Madonna Adriana’s household as sumptuous as this? I wriggled my toes against the soft silk and dearly hoped so. I’d been raised in simpler surroundings—the trees and lakes of Capodimonte instead of the basilicas and loggias of Rome; provincial simplicity instead of urban luxury. I longed for urban luxury.

“Such hair you have,” one of the other women admired as Gerolama piled my hair into the bed beside me. “So long!”