Medici Heist by Caitlin Schneiderhan

Author:Caitlin Schneiderhan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

• 24 •

ROSA

By the time Rosa arrived in the Medici gardens, she’d wrangled her temper into check, but she hadn’t managed to banish it entirely. She could still smell the sandalwood incense clinging to her clothes and feel Dominic Fontana’s injured glare as she emerged onto the manicured grassy lawn.

The garden had not been as lovingly recreated on her blueprints as the Palazzo’s interior, which meant that the white marble statues that lined the gravel walkways were an aesthetic surprise. She soaked them in as she passed, willing their cool lines to soothe her. By the time she reached the table at the garden’s far end, she had almost regained her equilibrium. Almost.

Michelangelo had been settled at Cardinal de’ Medici’s right hand. But Rosa’s attention only glanced over the two men before being inexorably drawn to the third person at the table, a man who gazed out over the garden with a proprietary air that betrayed his identity even before she got a good look at his face.

He was striking in the sense that he was memorable rather than handsome. His eyes—large, deep-set, and dark—looked her over from head to toe as she approached. His mouth was generous, splitting his face widely beneath a strong nose.

Pope Leo X smiled, beneficent and serene. Rosa dropped into a deep curtsy as the angry lightning inside her chest roared back to life.

It will feel like you are traveling back in time. Wasn’t that what she’d told Michelangelo in the carriage? Because it wasn’t just places that were known by the memories they contained. It was people, too.

“My child?”

Rosa straightened hastily, brushing at her skirts with both hands and hoping that the angry flush on her cheeks would be mistaken for embarrassment. “Forgive me, Your Holiness,” she murmured, keeping her gaze on the ground. “I find myself a bit overwhelmed.”

“That’s quite alright,” the Pope said. His voice was smooth and warm, slipping over her skin like honey. She shivered.

“My niece, Your Holiness,” Michelangelo said, looking very much as though he’d like to evaporate into the air. “Rosa de’ Lombardi.”

“You are just as charming as my cousin said you were,” the Pope said, holding a hand out to Rosa. She dimpled, bobbing forward to press a quick kiss to the golden ring that hugged one thick finger. “Perhaps even more so.”

“Your Holiness is too kind,” Rosa said.

“Impossible,” the Pope said. “Now sit, sit. The wine is getting cold!”

Rosa made a big show of hurrying to her seat. Despite the Pope’s protestations, there was every indication that the three men had already tucked in, the small plates in front of them bearing crusts and crumbs from the trays of pastries and pies in the center of the table. Rosa let herself be served, mulled wine flowing into her cup in a dark river, delicate cakes and savory meats piling on top of one another, forming a mountain of decadence.

“Thank you again for your patience, signorina,” Cardinal de’ Medici said. Unlike his cousin or Michelangelo, his own plate sat untouched.

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