Free The Second Duchess by Elizabeth Loupas Page B

intimate bodily functions, as I was in a particular position to know, having had an emperor for both a father and a brother. Fortunately, my own rank was not quite that high.
    Even so, it was a delicate matter to escape my attendants. First, I sent Domenica to the garden with the puppies, telling her they appeared to be in need of some time outdoors. Then I pretended to realize I had an appetite for my favorite angelica comfits, and sent Sybille to fetch them. Lastly, I feigned a sudden headache and sent Paolina running for lavender oil and an infusion of valerian.
    And lo, there I stood, alone. It gave me an eerie feeling, as if I were being watched by hidden eyes. Gossip, of course, honeycombed Italian palaces—all palaces, for that matter—with hidden passageways peopled with secretaries and spies, eyes pressed to peepholes. But surely the duke would not have set his lackeys to watch me on an afternoon when I was occupied with something as innocuous as having my portrait painted at his own command?
    It did not matter. One of them—or all of them—would report the conversation with Frà Pandolf, and the duke would be angry anyway. I would be subjected to another humiliating reproof and probably more threats as well, whether I went in search of the portrait or not. So why not satisfy my curiosity, once and for all?
    It’s at the top of the stairs past the bronze statue of Neptune, in the old gallery the duke has partitioned for his library. The statue of Neptune I remembered, as it was a piece by Claus of Innsbruck, a celebrated countryman of mine. I gathered up my jeweled scarlet skirts and hurried through to the next room, took a turn, passed through another room. Yes, there was Neptune with his half-tamed sea-horse. I ran up the stairs, and just a few steps farther on a portion of the wall was indeed covered by a hanging. It was in an alcove with two gilded chairs placed in front of it, all so cleverly arranged no one would ever guess a painting was concealed there.
    No time, no time to stop and think about it, and probably just as well. I reached out and drew the curtain.
    And there she was. The duke’s last duchess.
    She was beautiful. She was a hundred, a thousand times more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. Frà Pandolf’s unmistakable style had caught her so vividly, it was as if she were standing there between one breath and the next, ready to step down from the wall.
    Beautiful. And young, with charmingly childlike freckles like a dusting of cinnamon over her nose and forehead. Her eyes were golden, alive with adolescent willfulness, high spirits, and the careless selfishness of childhood; her hair was gleaming russet, braided and bound up with jewels. Her cheeks were luminous with a flush of pleasure that died out delicately along the line of her throat. In the curve of her lips I read secrets and sensuality. She held a spray of cherry blossoms, white as snow, with the palest of pink at their hearts.
    I tried to imagine her sick and mad. I tried to imagine her dead. After what Maria Granmammelli had told me, I could not keep myself from wondering—was she poisoned? Poisoned twice, perhaps, first to make her appear mad, and then, when she was safely hidden away, a medicinal posset or sleeping draught to kill her? How horrible, to sink trustingly into sleep and be sucked down into death, unready and unshriven.
    I was so caught up in my thoughts, I did not hear so much as the sound of a step behind me. I had no idea he was there until he reached out and drew the curtain closed.
    My heart stopped. My hands went cold. I jerked around guiltily before I could stop myself.
    “What is this, Madonna?” the duke said. There was anger such as I had never heard before in his voice. “Your woman tells me you have a headache, yet I do not find you where she left you, waiting for her potion.”
    Paolina, I thought. It was Paolina I sent for the headache potion. She, then, is the duke’s spy. That is one way