Sins of the House of Borgia by Sarah Bower Read Free Book Online Page A

under his glove. While he was briefly preoccupied with extricating his spur from the hem of my camorra , I stole a look at his face. The handsomest man in Italy, the girls at Santa Clara used to say, though I do not know if any of them had actually seen him close to, yet because of his mask only his neatly trimmed, auburn beard was visible, and pale lips which had a certain muscular mobility about them. It struck me that he wore his mask, a winged confection of black velvet, gold braid and pearls, because in him, even beauty was dangerous. Did he, perhaps, fear to look at his own face?
    The blood seemed to rush from my head as I stood, and pool in my feet, weighing them down as I stumbled and swayed, with further profuse apologies, against the cardinal.
    “Please,” he said roguishly, “the pleasure is all mine.” He slipped an arm around my waist as the duke released his grip on my elbow. I thought of my father and his good intentions, and felt tears pricking my eyes.
    “Donata!” Angela. Oh, praise the Holy Name.
    “Donata?” repeated the cardinal.
    “Yes, your eminence.” Was that the right form of address? I hoped so.
    “Forgive me. My lord cardinal, cousin Cesare.” Arresting her flight towards me, Angela dropped into a deep curtsey. The cardinal offered his free hand and she kissed his ring then, though the duke raised her to her feet and brushed her cheek with his lips, she continued to gaze at the cardinal through her eyelashes, with a charming affectation of modesty.
    “Donna Angela,” reproached the cardinal, “I shall require you to take better care of my goddaughter in future.”
    “Perhaps your grace should give me guidance in the matter.”
    Horribly aware of my soiled and crumpled clothes, the wisps of hair matted to my forehead, my foul breath, I felt more inadequate and out of place than ever.
    “Take a cup with me when you have attended to Signorina Donata,” said the cardinal, “and we will make a lesson plan.”
    “Come, Ippolito,” said the duke, “we have done our good deed for today.” Though he said no more, I could feel the deeds he now contemplated hanging in the cold air of the corridor, and a curious thrill ran through me.
    Seeing me shiver, Angela put her arm around me. “Bed for you, young lady. You have partied quite enough for one night.”
    “Will Donna Lucrezia banish me?” I whined, both dreading and longing for her reply.
    She laughed. “Good lord no. At worst, you’ll get a ticking off from Donna Adriana; at best, Lucrezia will just be amused. Elisabetta Senese once mistook the Holy Father for a chair cushion and sat on him. He was delighted. He gave her a great store of silk floor cushions that used to be in Prince Djem’s apartments. Her room looks like a harem now.”
    “Who is Prince Djem?”
    “Oh, he died years ago. He was the Sultan’s brother, but the Sultan paid for him to stay here so he wouldn’t have to murder him. Apparently that’s how the Ottomans secure the succession. They murder their brothers. We all loved Djem, especially Cesare, but Djem loved Juan the best.” She paused. I felt a calculating glance upon me, though we were far from the new, well-lit parts of the palace now, back in the maze of narrow, rickety passages where Madonna Lucrezia’s ladies-in-waiting had their rooms. “And I do mean loved. Juan was as pretty as a girl. Here we are.”
    Angela led me into the room, feeling for the edge of the bed and pushing me down on to it while she groped in a little niche in the wall for the flint box she kept there at the foot of the wooden crucifix.
    Emboldened by the fact that I could not see her face, I asked, “What did happen to Don Juan?” Though I was still quite a little girl when he died, all Rome had been abuzz with the gossip when his mutilated corpse was pulled from the Tiber by a fisherman, and the name Valentino was never far from people’s lips. The brothers had argued over the favours of their sister-in-law, the