“They say the French will be invading soon,” Bartolomeo volunteered, crossing himself. He had an easy, devout sort of soul; the kind of boy who makes cheerful confession to his priest every week and never has anything terribly sinful to confess, either; the kind who accepts the Borgia Pope and all his worldly sins as something far lofty and above him, and puts an easy faith in God the Father instead. The kind of untroubled, unstained conscience I'd long since left behind me. “That’s what I hear from Lord Sforza’s men, anyway, and they have all the news about the French, straight from Milan.”

“Hmph.” I was far less concerned about the French than my new kitchens. Lord Sforza’s Palazzo Ducale was grand enough on the outside with its fountains and arcades and festooning coats of arms, but the kitchens were unspeakable. The apprentices were still banging into the low beams trying to find space for all the cauldrons and spits and ladles we had brought from Rome, and I had no idea how I was going to make milk-snow without a proper cold room to keep the cream from curdling. Still, Madonna Giulia had insisted on bringing us along, so we would all make do until we could get out of this backwater and back to Rome where the morals were depraved but I at least had space for my spoons.

My very first time as maestra di cucina—somehow I’d thought it would feel more momentous than this. Perhaps it would have in a kitchen with proper drainage. Still, these kitchens were mine to command until we returned to Rome; Adriana da Mila had not deemed it necessary to take two cooks to Pesaro, and Madonna Giulia had insisted it be me, so Marco had been left in Rome to mind the Palazzo Santa Maria while I accompanied the ladies to Pesaro. “Don’t see why they passed me over,” my cousin had humphed when he heard the news. “My tourtes are every bit as good as yours, little cousin!”

“You know I didn’t ask for it,” I pointed out. “Besides, now you’ll have a summer free to dice as much as you like, without my nagging.”

“There is that,” he admitted, and felt sufficiently mollified to come knocking at my chamber that night for a last romp before I departed. “I’ll miss you,” he murmured afterward as he rolled away from me, just before falling asleep.

“You’re just too lazy to find yourself another bedmate,” I said tartly. Not that he couldn’t find one, a man as handsome as Marco, but finding one who didn’t start angling for marriage was another matter. Marco couldn’t marry me, and we both knew that full well, so as a bedmate I was highly convenient.