The little Countess of Pesaro picked at a painted rose on her skirt. Her voice was very low, but I heard well enough as I took my deck of cards from my pouch and pretended to be absorbed in a complicated shuffle. It might not be polite to eavesdrop, but I was very good at it. “Hours I spent preparing this dress, and did anybody look at me?” Lucrezia demanded, and Adriana sighed. “No, they all looked at her. They always look at her. I’m taller than she is, and my eyes are blue which is much better than dark, and maybe my hair isn’t as long but at least I don’t get plump from eating too many biscotti—but she’s still the one they look at. Even though I’m the Pope’s daughter, and I’m the Countess of Pesaro, and this is my home.”

“Of course it is,” Madonna Adriana soothed. “And Giulia is your friend.”

“I know.” Lucrezia fiddled restlessly with a lock of her fair hair. “I’d never be here with my lord Sforza if not for her. But I wouldn’t mind people looking at me now and then. Especially in my home.” A resentful note entered her voice. “I’ll write my father and tell him Caterina Gonzaga won our beauty contest. I’ll tell him she’s far taller and fairer than Giulia, too.”

“And then maybe he’ll take her for a mistress instead,” Adriana said. “Do you really want to share his attention with that prancing Lombard instead of our Giulia, who is such delightful company over pranzo? Who lends you her jewelry whenever you ask? Who taught you how to manage the train on your wedding dress?”

The Countess of Pesaro sighed again, and Madonna Adriana put an arm about her shoulders. “To bed, my love,” she said, and they rustled off without another word, leaving the men to the serious business of speculating on the French invasion. Speculating sounds so much more serious than gossiping drunkenly. Giulia’s goat looked up at me, swallowing the tassel it had just eaten off a chair cushion, and gave another baaa.

“Don’t you bleat at me,” I told it. “I am not feeling guilty.”

But maybe I was. Perhaps I had been rather hard on my poor giggly little mistress—who, quite truthfully, had never been cruel or dismissive or even thoughtless toward me in her life. Not even very giggly anymore; she’d turned quite quiet and introspective this summer in her worries over the Pope.

Twisted little men do indeed have twisted little souls.

Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Where my treasure is, there is my heart.

—EXCERPT OF A LETTER FROM GIULIA FARNESE TO RODRIGO BORGIA

Carmelina