Read Online The Serpent and the Pearl (A Novel of the Borgias) by Kate Quinn - Free Book Online Page B

husband—he’s a spineless little coward, but he’s still a better prospect than most of those withered gray specimens who manage to wed girls like you. You’ll have enjoyed the pleasant sensation of being courted for yourself rather than your dowry, which all women should experience at least once in their lives.” A glance at the braided hair beneath my veil. “Before their bloom fades, that is.”
    I threw my head back and gave him a slow arrogant smile.
    His mouth curved, and he clapped a hand to his heart as though my smile had pierced it like an arrow. “And,” he concluded cheerfully, “you’ll have a casket full of sparkly things—gifts from me. I’m rather good at presents, as any of my former mistresses can tell you.”
    “I don’t want your gifts.”
    “Then throw them away,” he said carelessly, and took possession of my hand again. “All I want is to give them to you. It’s called being besotted, my dear. You should try it sometime.”
    He turned my hand over and brushed his lips across the inside of my wrist. Or would have, if I hadn’t yanked my hand away. “Don’t touch me,” I warned. Ever since I was twelve and first starting to bud from girl to woman, I’d been pinched and squeezed and eyed by men. Page boys and manservants and bravos swaggering in the street; the tutors who were supposed to teach me dancing and Dante; strange men who made a point of brushing too close when I made my way through a crowded church after Mass; the priests who heard my confession. Every man thought he could get away with a stroke and a pat, and an unmarried girl doesn’t have much choice about it all except to sidle away as fast as possible before she’s accused of leading him on. But I was a married woman now, and I didn’t have to pretend I didn’t feel the gropes and the pinches anymore. “Don’t touch me,” I warned again, a little shakily.
Who tells a cardinal no?
a small voice whispered in my head.
    “Never fear,” he chuckled, not at all offended, and made another of his elegant bows. “I won’t touch you till you ask me to.”
    “I assure you that will never happen.”
    “We’ll meet again soon,” he promised, ignoring my protest, and strode off with the vigorous steps of a much younger man. He left me so quickly, he’d disappeared up the steps into the loggia out of earshot before I realized he’d left something in my hand.
    I opened my fingers and couldn’t help a gasp. A rope of pearls sat in my palm, elegantly coiled, with a single pear-drop pearl larger than any I’d ever seen in my life.
    No necklace, dear
, Madonna Adriana had twinkled as she helped dress me.
You’ll soon see why.
    That old hag. My procuress of a mother-in-law had
known
. She’d sent her own son out of the way to the country and then dressed his new wife to go whoring.
    I clenched a fist around the necklace and stormed back to my chamber. I wished Madonna Adriana had still been there, with her creamy satisfied smile—I’d have flung that pretty pearl in her face. As it was, there was only my new maid Pantisilea, going through my boxes and chests.
    “Are you
spying
on me?” I shouted.
    “Madonna Adriana’s orders.” My maid looked apologetic. “Did you meet the Cardinal, Madonna Giulia? Is he handsome? I haven’t seen him up close—”
    “Get out!” I shouted. “Get out and stay out!”
    Her eyes fastened on the necklace looped through my fingers. “Oooh, that’s
pretty
! I like a bit of jewelry myself; it shows a man has serious intentions—”
    “Out!”
    “I’m going, Madonna Giulia, I’m going.”
    She gave me a curtsy and a comradely giggle as she scampered out, which I resolutely refused to return in kind. “Your name is
ridiculous
!” I yelled after her instead, slamming the door. Pantisilea, indeed. That nosy piece of string was no Amazon warrior queen; she wasn’t even a maid—she was a common spy. A spy of my very own, to keep my mother-in-law informed of all my actions,