“Either way, it is none of your business,” I said crisply. Of course I’d wondered, when Orsino first arrived in Capodimonte, if he meant to demand his right to sleep in my bed. My family had stuck him firmly in the farthest possible chamber from mine, but he could have crept along the passage to my bed any night he liked. I thought of creeping along to his chamber myself, but I didn’t think he’d like that—far too bold and unmannerly for a proper wife. I set myself to wait for him instead, and I couldn’t help but remember another set of darkened stairs, another flickering taper, as Lucrezia sneaked her husband up into her chamber for the first time. Most women could bed openly with their husbands; Lucrezia and I had to visit ours in utter stealth . . .

But at least Lucrezia’s husband had summoned the nerve to sneak into his wife’s chamber. My husband hadn’t. No more than he seemed able to summon the nerve now, to tell his mother what she could do with her meddling.

“Orsino,” I said. “Look at me. Not at her, at me.”

His blue eyes flickered as they met mine.

“Do you want me to come with you to Carbognano?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Jesu, yes.”

“Dear boy,” Adriana began.

“Be a dear, Adriana, and shut up,” I told her without taking my eyes from Orsino. “This is a matter between husband and wife.”

She pursed her lips tight, looking back to her wine. I reached for Orsino’s hands, and I felt his pulse thrumming right through me. “I’ll go with you,” I said, and felt my own pulse speeding too. “We’ll ride to Carbognano tomorrow, and I’ll be your wife and keep your castello and bear you sons. But the question stands: When the Pope comes for me, what will you do?”

Another long silence. My husband bit his lip.

Say you’ll bar the gates before you’ll let him take me, Orsino, I found myself thinking. Say you’d rather be excommunicated before you gave up your wife, Orsino. Say anything.

I could face down my Pope—I knew that now. I could face him down, and I would. But not if my husband was not firmly allied behind me.

“If we sent him the child,” Orsino blurted out. “If he had his own flesh and blood back, maybe he’d allow you to—”

“What?” I dropped his hands. Whatever I’d hoped he would say, it was not that. “I am not going to give away my daughter!”

“Giulia—” Orsino’s eyes begged me. “I have to know. Is she his child? Or mine?”