Cecilia could laugh about it now, she supposed, now that her mother was far distant from the palace. And Cecilia did laugh a little, quietly to herself. There was little else to do as she sat waiting for Ludovico il Moro, running her palms across the slippery silk dress. He should have been here long before now, but she imagined that he had other things to do than come visit her in her new bedchamber.
Ludovico surely was occupied, consulting with his military and political advisers. From her bedchamber window, Cecilia had seen diplomatic liveries cross the courtyard, flying the colors of Ferrara and Mantua. As Regent of Milan, Ludovico faced constant threats from Venice, Cecilia’s brother had told her, and from the French king’s army. Even from his own nephew. Ludovico had already sent his nephew’s closest advisers to the gallows, the dressmaid Lucrezia had told Cecilia as she brushed out her hair in the candlelight. When you were that powerful, the girl told her, anyone might be your friend one moment, and then your enemy the next.
So Cecilia waited. She had already gone over every inch of the bedchamber several times. There were so many books. A cabinet held stacks of folios stitched together with linen threads, long cords of vellum, and leather bindings. Some of the volumes were covered with stiff pasteboards and hinged spines. She had spent hours poring over the brown ink on parchment. She even found a lady’s book of secrets, a sort of recipe book with beauty concoctions like the one she had endured under Lucrezia’s insistence to remove every last hair on her body. She had looked and looked again at the painted images on the wall, paintings that brought to life the stories in many of those books—ancient tales of love, betrayal, battle, death, redemption. She had picked up each glass vial and gilded box on the table, watched the morning fog roll across the gardens outside the window, and tried on every dress of silk and velvet hanging in the wardrobe. She had let herself disappear into the piles of woolen and silk bedding and curtains draped around the high bed. From the open window, the aroma of rice cooking in diced onions and butter wafted into the room.
“My daughter is going to the convent. It is already decided!” Her mother’s words filled her head again, unbidden. “Otherwise, she goes back to the country with me. That is the choice.”
“And what will happen to her there?” Fazio had said. “If I had been home with you, maybe things would have been different, but as it stands, thanks to my brothers, she no longer has a dowry to marry her to a decent family. She will be nothing more than a country peasant. A spinster. Here she will be given riches and status. It is not forever, Mother.”
“And what convent will want her after she has lost her virtue?” her mother had challenged, her hands on her hips. “No man has touched her! You know it as well as I do.”
“I know it sounds strange,” Fazio had said, pacing before the window, “but being His Lordship’s inamorata will afford Cecilia a higher status than she has now. Even the nuns will respect it.”
Cecilia had watched as her mother’s round face reddened. “I refuse to leave my daughter here, with that . . . that little pompous ox.” She gestured as if to measure Ludovico il Moro’s stature with her hand. “He is too sure of himself, is he not? He will use her and throw her away. And then what will we have to show for it?”
Cecilia had begun to feel red anger swell inside of her own chest. How dare they act as if she was not in the room? How dare they act as if she was still a silly child with no thoughts of her own? She could, and would, make her own decisions.
“I am staying here,” Cecilia had said quietly.
“You will be a whore!” That was when her mother had thrown the plate, shattering it against the tiles.
“No, Mother,” Cecilia had said, as calmly as possible. “I will be a lady. I will be the head of this castle. You will see.” For a moment, she had seen an expression like pity on her brother’s face, but she couldn’t fathom why.
Her brother had told her that, after her vocal performance, Ludovico Sforza had been determined to bring Cecilia into his household. That there was something about Cecilia that he could hardly put into words. There was no deterring him on the matter.
Fazio had laid out Cecilia’s choices in clear terms. There were only two ways to stop His Lordship’s orders, he had told her. Cecilia could decide to preserve her maidenhood and return home with their mother, a choice that Cecilia could hardly bear. She could join the sisters at Monastero Maggiore, an even less desirable outcome in Cecilia’s eyes, even though her mother and her brother begged her to consider it again. But if she decided to stay in His Lordship’s care, Fazio told her, then there was no reversing the decision. And, he added, she would have to live with the consequences. At that point, there was little her family could do to help her and anyway, it was out of their hands.
But to Cecilia, only one thing mattered. Ludovico Sforza, Lord of Milan, wanted her and he could give her everything she ever wanted. In one second, he could transform her from a penniless country girl into a duchessa. At least she imagined so.
“I am staying,” Cecilia had whispered.
That was it. The turning point. And now here she stood, clad in silk in this beautiful bedchamber. There was no doubt in her mind that she was right where she was supposed to be. They would see.
At last, the door creaked open and Cecilia stood. She was ready, but the moment His Lordship entered the room, she felt her resolve waver. As much as she was resolute in her decision, she suddenly felt nervous being with him alone in this room. After all, he was a stranger. She could not show the turbulence that roiled through her veins.
Slowly, he walked toward her. She watched his eyes flicker in the lantern light. “It was a good decision to stay,” he said. “I can assure you that you will be adequately rewarded.”
“I was honored by your offer,” Cecilia said, casting her eyes to the floor.
His Lordship approached close enough so that she could smell the dank scent of his hair and beard. He took another calculated step toward her, closer than any man who was not her father or brothers had ever come. Then he set his eyes on her. They were as black as coals, so dark that she could not make out the pupils. She felt her stomach flutter as if it were full of moths. Their faces stood at the same level.
“You are a lovely woman,” he whispered in his deep voice, thick with its Tuscan tongue, tinged with the strange Milanese accent. She felt his hot breath near her neck and she fought against the tingle that ran up her back.
Cecilia cleared her throat. “I am also learned,” she said, taking a step back. There was still a quake up her spine, making her feel unsteady and unsure, but she did not want him to perceive the power he held over her. “Maybe you have heard.”
She thought she detected a teasing smile cross his face, but it was difficult to tell in the shadows, under the thick beard. The idea that he might be mocking her infuriated her, and she took another step back.
“Tell me more,” he said. She felt his fingertips grasp her hand, then move lightly up the silk sleeve of her dress. His eyes burned hot and focused.
“So much to tell.” She hoped he could not hear her voice waver. She wished that she had had even a little of the diplomatic training of her brother; only now did she realize that she did not know what to reveal and what to withhold. She was only sure that it was important to know the difference. “I can read and write in Latin. My father made sure that I had a good tutor. The best one in Siena. I can calculate numbers. I write verses. I can sing—you already know that. And I play the lute and the lyre. I play other stringed instruments, too, well, a little bit . . .” Was she already talking too much? Lucrezia had warned her.