“Good morning, maestro,” she replied, pulling her hands free. “So this is an artist’s studio. How can it be so cluttered, and you here barely a week?” Rosamund laughed as she looked around.

“I know exactly where everything is,” he assured her. “Carlo, biscotti and vino at once!” Then, grasping a single hand, he led her to a large high-backed chair. “Sit down, Madonna! I shall begin my sketch now.”

Rosamund retrieved her hand a second time. “But I have not said I should pose for you, maestro. Tell me, has the baroness been here yet?”

He laughed. “Are you jealous, Madonna?” he taunted her.

“Nay, maestro, for I have no need. I was merely curious,” Rosamund said.

“You will break my heart, Madonna! I sense it. I am very intuitive,” he cried dramatically.

Now it was Rosamund who laughed. “I do believe that you are a complete fraud, maestro,” she teased him.

“Have you come to torture me, Madonna?” he asked her.

“I have come to see your studio and to see if I should enjoy posing for you,” she told him.

“And what have you decided?” he queried her. “Ah, here is Carlo again. Put the tray down and get out,” he instructed his servant in their native tongue. “How can I proceed with my seduction if you are lingering about?”

“Sм, maestro,” Carlo answered his master with a toothy grin, and he departed the studio.

“What did you say to him?” Rosamund inquired. “I am just learning your tongue.”

“I told him to leave us so I could make love to you,” Paolo Loredano said boldly, and drawing Rosamund up from her chair, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her passionately even while his hand was plunging into her bodice to fondle her breast.

“Maestro!” she shrieked, yanking his hand from her gown. “You are far too bold, and if you think to have a commission from the Earl of Glenkirk, you must behave!”

“I must have you!” he groaned, lunging at her again.

Rosamund dodged his advance and slapped his face as hard as she could. “How dare you behave in such a dishonorable manner, maestro!”

“Your lips are like the sweetest honey, and your skin is silken to my touch. How can you deny me? How can you deny yourself? I am considered an incomparable lover, Madonna. And your earl is hardly a young man.” He rubbed his cheek.

“Nay, he is not a young man, but neither is he an old one. And as for his skills in bed sport, he is vigorous, tender, and passionate,” Rosamund said. “Now, pour us some of that lovely San Lorenzan wine, maestro. I will forgive your breach of good manners, and you will promise me it will not happen again.”

“I cannot,” he said, handing her a goblet of wine. “But I will hold my passions in check for now, Madonna.” He offered her a biscuit.

“Are all artists mad?” she asked him, nibbling at the biscuit and sipping her wine.

“Only the great ones,” he assured her with a grin.

“I like the landscape you are doing of the harbor,” she said, getting up and going over to the large canvas upon which he was working. “You have caught it exactly, and I can almost smell the sea looking at it.” She eyed him warily as he set down his goblet.

“I have something to show you, Madonna,” he told her, and he drew forth from a table several sketches and handed them to her.

She took them and began to peruse them, her eyes widening with surprise and shock. She stared at him questioningly.

Paolo Loredano grinned audaciously at her, and taking her by the hand, led her out onto his terrace. “I have,” he said, “a most excellent view from here. I saw you bathing the afternoon that I arrived in Arcobaleno. I have sketched you several times since, Madonna. You have a beautiful body, which is why I would portray you as the goddess of love. Your breasts, in particular, are very fine.”

“I thought you found the baroness’ bosom most excellent,” Rosamund answered him. She was shocked by the charcoal sketches of her nudity that he had so accurately captured. She felt it a terrible invasion of her privacy.

“The baroness’ bosom is quite excellent for a woman of her years, but yours!” He kissed his fingertips enthusiastically. “Magnifico!” he said.

“My lord Leslie will not be pleased, maestro,” Rosamund responded.

In reply, he handed her another small sheaf of sketches. They were of Patrick and also of the two of them together.

Rosamund gasped audibly. “You are much too bold, maestro. You had no right to trespass upon those moments privy to only us. My lord will not be happy by what you have done, I fear.”

“But he will manage somehow to overcome his aversion to my behavior, for he must treat with me, as I represent Venice.”

“I do not understand you, maestro,” Rosamund said, but she did. Patrick had been correct. This artist spoke for the doge. Still, she put on a face of confusion.

He reached out and ran a single finger down her cheek to her jaw. “Mayhap you do not. I know if I were your lover I should discuss naught with you but the ways in which we might please each other. But I do not like seeing you distressed, Madonna.” The artist handed her the group of sketches. “Keep them as a memento of your visit to San Lorenzo, or destroy them if they embarrass you.”

“I could not destroy your work, maestro. It would be a sacrilege, for your art is wonderful. I shall, however, keep them well hidden from my impressionable daughters,” she told him.

“You have bambini?” he exclaimed. “Aye, your body has that lushness, yet it has not been spoiled by your birthings. How many?”

“Three,” Rosamund answered him.

“Are they Lord Leslie’s?” he questioned her.

“They are the children of my late husband,” Rosamund answered him, smiling. “Do you have children, maestro?”

“At least fifteen that I know of,” he said casually. “Sometimes the ladies are not certain, or they are angry at me and do not want me to know, or in some cases they do not want their husbands to know. I have ten sons, but none of them shows a talent for painting, to my sorrow. I have one daughter, however, who could one day be famous, were it not for her sex. A woman in Venice may become a shopkeeper, a courtesan, a nun, or a wife, but never an artist.”

“How unfortunate, particularly if your daughter is talented, and you obviously think she is,” Rosamund responded.

There was a discreet knock upon the door to the studio, and it opened to reveal the artist’s servant, Carlo. “Maestro,” he said. “The lord Leslie is here now to see you.”

“Send him in!” the artist said.

“You will want to speak with Lord Leslie alone,” Rosamund said quietly, gathering up the sheaf of sketches. “I will leave you.”

“So you do know,” he said with an amused smile.

“I know nothing, maestro. You must remember that I am English and Patrick Leslie is a Scot. It is better this way.” She moved gracefully past him, smiling as her lover entered the room. “I will await you outside, my lord,” she told him, and was gone.

Patrick closed the door behind him. “Good day to you, Paolo Loredano,” he said in his deep voice. “Do we have anything to discuss between us?”

“Sit down, my lord, and have some wine,” the artist said, pouring a goblet for the earl and then joining him as he sat down in the opposite chair. “You have already ascertained that I am here on behalf of my cousin, the doge. We need play no silly games, you and I. What is it that Scotland wants of Venice?”

“So, you are not the fool you pretend to be,” Patrick noted.

Paolo Loredano laughed. “Nay, I am not. But the pose gains me far more than if I did not play the fool, my lord.”

The Earl of Glenkirk nodded. “His Holiness, the pope, has put my master, King James, in a difficult position,” Patrick began.

“Pope Julius has always favored your master,” Loredano said.

“Aye, he has, but now he needs something that my master cannot give him,” the earl continued. “Scotland and England have ever been the most contentious of neighbors, as everyone knows. King James married an English princess in order to ensure peace between the two kingdoms. Peace has helped Scotland grow prosperous, and prosperity is good for the people who share in it. Jamie Stewart is a good king. He is intelligent, and he governs well. His people truly love him. He is devout and loyal to the Holy Mother Church. But most of all, James Stewart is the most honorable and loyal of men. While his father-in-law ruled England all was good between us. Now, however, his brother-in-law, the eighth Henry, sits on the throne. He is young and reckless. He is jealous of his brother-in-law, and he wants above all things to be known as the greatest ruler in all of Europe. He believes that King James, so long favored by the pope, stands in his way.

“Last year Pope Julius the second sided with France against Venice. Now, at King Henry’s instigation, he would stand with Venice and others against France. And he has demanded that my master do so, too.”

“He is very clever, this English king,” the artist noted softly.

“He is ruthless,” the Earl of Glenkirk said. “England knows that Scotland has an old alliance with France. My king cannot break that alliance without just cause, and there is no cause. At England’s insistence, the pope demands Scotland join his Holy League against France. We cannot.”

“And Venice?” the artist asked.

“My master seeks to weaken the alliance so that the pope has greater concerns than Scotland. I was sent to speak with the representative of Venice and of the Holy Roman Emperor. Frankly,” Patrick said, “I see little hope in this plan, but King James is desperate to avoid the war that is sure to ensue between Scotland and England should we refuse to betray our alliance with France and join the league. King Henry will use our refusal as an excuse to attack Scotland. He will declare us traitors to Christendom. There is no profit in war, as I am certain you understand, Maestro Loredano. Venice is a great commercial empire. Should you not be looking to the east and the Ottoman to protect yourselves? If you allow your troops to join with the league’s, do you not enfeeble Venice’s power?”

Paolo Loredano chuckled. “You present a good case for your king, my lord, and your argument is a fine one. However, the doge is determined to keep on Pope Julius’ good side in this matter.”

“Could you not remain neutral?” the earl asked. “Could you not plead your own city’s danger from the Ottoman and promise not to interfere on either party’s behalf?”

“That,” Paolo Loredano said, “would be the best course, I agree, but the doge will not do it. He thinks if the Ottomans attack us, the league will come to our aid. I, frankly, cannot imagine the English king, or Spain, or the emperor sending troops to deliver us, but I am not the doge. He is old, and sometimes when I see him I think he does not even know who I am. I have no real influence on him. I am his messenger sent here to listen and to report back to him. But I tell you, your mission, as you well know, is a useless one. I am sorry, my lord.”

Patrick nodded. “King James expected as much, but he must try for his own country’s sake. Will you, however, send a messenger to Venice with what we have spoken on today?”

“Of course,” the artist replied. “I have a fine, well-trained coop of pigeons for just that purpose. I must remain the winter, not an unpleasant task, so as not to incur any suspicion. Will you be staying, as well?”

“Aye. I always found the winters here salubrious. Now, do you really want to paint Rosamund? If you do, I shall commission the painting from you.”

Loredano sighed. “She is very fair and most in love with you, my lord.”

“In other words,” the earl chuckled, “you attempted to seduce her, and she rebuffed you.”

“She did,” he admitted, “but strangely, I was not offended, as I might have been with another woman. She slapped me and scolded me, but there were no tears or recriminations. And then we continued on as if I had not approached her so boldly at all.”

“She is a practical country woman,” the earl said quietly.

“And you do not wish to challenge me to the duel?” the artist asked.

“If Rosamund is no longer offended, then neither am I, Maestro Loredano. Besides, you are too young for me to engage in battle,” he concluded with a smile.

The artist laughed. “There are, I am beginning to see, certain advantages to old age. You may speak freely and do as you choose to do. And have a lovely young mistress. I have always been afraid of growing older, my lord. Now I think I am not.”

Patrick rose from his seated position, as did his companion. He towered over the Venetian by at least four inches. “I shall,” he said, “accept your conclusions as a compliment, Maestro Loredano. You may come to the ambassador’s villa tomorrow to begin your portrait of Rosamund Bolton.” He bowed slightly, but politely. “I bid you good day.”