Betta allowed her eyes to drift as she waited for the Duke to acknowledge their presence. Tiles on the floor and ceiling of the studiolo were glazed terracotta painted in vivid reds and blues. Shelves lining the walls housed thick, leather-bound books which jostled for space with pieces of sculpture. A painting of woman with naked breasts stared across the room with an inviting expression on her beautiful face.
Pieces of metal were scattered over the octagonal table where the Duke sat, a thick layer of oil and soot tarnishing the inlaid surface. A long cylinder of bronze half as long as her body lay spread out like a gutted animal, the narrow opening along the shaft exposing the workings within.
Betta felt a chill race up her spine as the Duke’s attention finally shifted to her, beginning a thorough perusal that began at the high collar of the brown traveling dress and continuing down past the waist that motherhood had not thickened. Study boots peeked out from beneath the dusty hem.
“Closer.”
Betta released the hand still holding hers, allowing the young woman at her side to remain in the shadows near the door. Lifting her chin, she walked forward; the hands holding up the hem of her skirts itched, looking for the comfort of a blade. Evidently reassured by what he saw, the Duke of Ferrara leaned back in his chair and inclined his head in her direction. Though he did not glance at the other occupant of the room, Betta knew that she had been studied with the same sharp attention, her unsought appearance to be dealt with in turn.
“Your journey was made in good time,” he said, tapping his fingers on the table, the soot leaving a mark.
“The roads favored us for speedy travel, your grace,” Betta murmured.
“A good thing. My well-beloved wife will not remain of this world for much longer. The child was born.”
As he did not seem to wish for her to speak, Betta did not reply.
“Tiny scrap of a thing. Named her for my sister, and it pleased God to call her home after she had been baptized, and I thank him for his kindness. The doctors thought it would help her to heal, having the babe. We tried to convince her to take herbs, hastening the birth, but my lady would not hear of it. Said the babe would come in its own time, and her life or death with it.”
The words were ones that Betta had heard before. She dug her nails into her palm, trying to stem the flood of emotion.
“And yet, in the midst of her illness, my duchess asks that you be brought to her. A servant, my lady wife says, one that was with her from her earliest days.”
“Yes, your grace.”
The duke picked up a piece of the bronze machinery, turning it over in his hands. “Have you visited before?”
Rolling tension formed a thick knot in her stomach. “Yes, your grace.”
The duke’s lips twitched as he studied her from beneath thick brows. “When Valentino died. When she…” The corners of his mouth turned down.
When she tried to throw herself from the tower. Betta remembered, the shadow of that night enveloping her mind- blackest despair, a fight, and a kiss that had brought the duchess back from the edge. “Yes, your grace. I stayed near a month that time.”
Thick fingers drummed on the table. “She sent for you then as she sends for you now, though never since. Why, I shouldn’t wonder.” His eyes shifted from her to the figure by the door. “My duchess is a silent one. Doesn’t talk about the past. But she said that you have been with her from the beginning. In the Palazzo of Santa Maria in Portico, back when it was ruled over by those the Borgia pope loved.”
“Before that, even.” Betta murmured. Memory painted a picture of Lucrezia flying along the halls, her skirts catching the light and reflecting it in a thousand jeweled sparkles in the days when they had been happy and young.
The duke began tapping the metal on his table; his eyes drifted to Lucia, standing quietly with her hands folded in the sleeves of her robe. “The Borgia pope. Already they try to paint him as the antichrist, but that is not how I remember him. A sensualist, to be sure, but an organizational genius. Brilliant in a way that I could never be. Like Valentino.” The duke smiled. “He and I were friends. He would have conquered all had the Pope not died when he did. Heady days, those were, like living in a whirlwind. And my sweet and gentle wife at the center of it. The things they said about her then...shocking. Gave my father an apoplexy when his holiness fixed on the idea of wedding her to our noble house.” His gaze turns to Lucia. “But I have no need to tell you these things. You were there. You know the secrets that my wife holds in the dark corners of her heart not illuminated by saintly good works.”
Betta kept her face smooth. The secrets of the Borgia. Images flashed through her mind- the light streaming through the arched loggia, lighting the jewels on the girl’s gown, the passion and the desperation.
And the memories that were her’s alone- intense eyes and a cleft chin behind a fall of dark red hair, the joy in her sister’s face when she entered the bodega as a married woman. And later, the chamber a wash of scarlet blood dripping onto the tiles, the serene face of the Madonna as the dusty traveler knelt before her and prayed, sacrificing the thing he loved so that the woman would live, and finally, the piercing sweetness of a baby’s cry.
Yes, she knew the darkest secrets of the Borgia family. All of them.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
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