and no less corpulent than the ones gathered about Francesca—her hair gleaming as if it had been spun out of coppery gold. Katerina didn’t envy her for suitors . . . and if rumor were to be believed, lovers. All she envied Lucrezia for was the ability to escape being trapped by a idiot with breath like old anchovies, too many chins, and his interminable tales of his not-really-so-clever little swindles in the Levant.
Kat was amused to see that—for once!—the crowd of men gathered about Lucrezia was not the largest in the palace. It was not small, of course, but it was definitely smaller than the little mob surrounding Francesca. Smaller, and—a lot less noisy. Lucrezia was slightly more beautiful than Francesca, Kat supposed. The beautiful lady of Casa Brunelli was also famous for her intelligence and witty repartee. But Kat had overheard that repartee, in times past, and had always found it fundamentally hard-edged. Nasty, in truth—a matter of scoring points in a contest. Whereas, judging from the relaxed and boisterous laughter coming from Francesca’s gathering, the men there were discovering Kat’s friend