“He has just received administration of the city of Carbognano,” returned Madonna Adriana. “A pretty little place, and prosperous too. Later perhaps he will embark on a military career. It could be the making of him. And all of it is due to my cousin Rodrigo. If not for him, I would have lost everything after my husband died—my brothers-in-law would have stripped Orsinio’s inheritance away, left us with nothing. So in return for all the protection and kindness I look after Rodrigo.” My mother-in-law smiled, taking her arm from around Joffre’s shoulders and reaching up to give my chin an affectionate little chuck. “Now, why don’t you go down to the stables, my dear? Rodrigo sent something over for you. I think perhaps you do miss him, just a little?”

Yes. Her sympathy so startled me that I almost gave myself away. Yes, I almost missed the Cardinal. I found him unsettling, unnerving, overcharming, and overbold—but rooms after he left them seemed flat, somehow.

Madonna Adriana had smiled at my silence. “Down to the stables, dear.” I found her kindness more disquieting than her early smugness. How was I supposed to be rude to her when she was kind?

“Ho there!” A young man’s voice sounded from the stable yard in frank admiration, bringing me out of my unsettling thoughts. “That’s a beauty!”

Go away, Juan, I thought. The Cardinal’s second son had been making a pest of himself lately, hanging about to ogle me and move his eyebrows in what he clearly thought were seductive expressions. But when I peeked around my new mare’s nose, I saw that the young man peering into the stable was admiring my horse, not me. I also saw that he wasn’t Juan.

“So you like my horse?” I stepped out from her other side into view. “Better than you like me, I think.”

My husband, Orsino Orsini, straightened from his assessment of my mare’s slim hocks, gaping at me. He wore riding leathers and boots spattered with white summer dust from the dry roads; his fair hair was mussed, his sleeves rolled up to show arms still bony from youth. He held his cap in one hand and the reins of his gelding in the other, the horse every bit as dusty and travel-weary as his master.

“You’ve come from Carbognano?” My voice came out calm and even, I was pleased to hear.

“Yes, well—yes.”

“I hear Carbognano’s pretty.” I stroked the mare’s gray velvet nose. “Not that I’ve seen it yet.”

He flushed. “Yes, it’s very pretty.”