* * *

The next evening, Adair was at Cosimo’s door. It wasn’t one of their prearranged sessions and so the mage wasn’t expecting him, but he received Adair warmly all the same.

“What is it, my boy? You seem agitated,” Cosimo said once he’d closed the doors to the study behind them.

“I’m afraid I will not be able to visit you for a while,” Adair said, and then laid out the situation for the old knight. To avoid Zeno’s wrath, Adair would need to resume his visits with Rossi, perhaps even go so far as to return to Scolari’s lecture hall again—whatever it would take to appease the doge. “The bishop is even holding a dinner in my honor in a few nights’ time. I swear this is all a grand scheme: the doge is plotting with the bishop to get me engaged to the goddaughter.”

“Is that all? So marry the girl,” Cosimo said, and laughed.

“I’m glad you can speak so lightly about my future,” Adair said glumly.

The mage clapped him on the back. “You’re far too serious for so young a man. I swear, you are like an old man stuffed into a young man’s body. Listen to someone approaching the end of his life: it would not be the worst thing in the world to take a wife. She will make your life interesting.”

Adair snorted. “You haven’t met Elena. I fear she would make my life too interesting.”

“All the better,” Cosimo responded. “Listen to an old man: life is short. There is no dishonor in enjoying it a little along the way.”

Bishop Rossi’s party turned out to be not an overly large affair, though Adair couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. On one hand, he wasn’t being forced to repeat the same banalities over and over as he made the acquaintance of the Venetians who had come to gawk at a heathen nobleman from the wilds of Hungary. On the other, there was no getting away from Elena, whom the bishop had assigned to act as his social guide. She stood by Adair’s side almost from the moment he walked through the door. She was especially pretty that night, with pearls set like stars in her dark hair, and a long strand of them circling her slender neck. Every time he looked at her, she had a simper on her face as though she were auditioning for the role of his wife. Don’t try so hard, he wanted to tell her. Even if he were looking for a spouse, it wouldn’t be the woman she was trying to be tonight. He longed for a girl with a little grit.

It didn’t take him long to figure out that the dinner party was merely an excuse to make him spend time with Elena. The bishop and the doge clearly thought that taking on a wife was the cure for his alleged problems. Granted, Elena was lovely and the longer he sat next to her, the more he appreciated her charms, even if they were primarily of the decorative variety. His mind began to wander as the meal progressed, and by the time the roasts were served, he wondered what her body looked like unclothed. He pictured them rutting in a bedchamber somewhere upstairs, cupping his hands over her small breasts as he took her from behind, her white derriere jiggling as he drove into her—and broke such thoughts off, red-faced, before he created an obvious problem for himself.

Too late. Luckily, his clothing hid the evidence of his distress to a degree, but he was going to have to excuse himself to take care of the matter before it became unbearable. He headed for the pissing station outside the great hall and ducked behind the privacy of a screen. Once he was sure there were no servants nearby who might stumble across him, he unlimbered his member and, eyes closed, began to stroke himself. He was businesslike, his intention to get off and get back to the dinner party as quickly as possible. He had just gotten off to a promising start when he felt a small hand alight on his manhood. He opened his eyes in shock.

It was Elena. She must’ve guessed what he was up to and followed him. She had put her hand most deliberately on his cock and Adair was so surprised that speech failed him. She used that moment of weakness to kiss him. Even though it was she who threw herself against him, her mouth pressing to his, she still managed to yield softly to him. She was as tender as he imagined she would be, a hot spot of need reaching for him and melting under him simultaneously. Her hands crept to his chest, her palms pressed against the front of his tunic.

Once the kiss was over and she’d settled back to her feet, she looked into his eyes saucily. “May I help you with that, my lord?” she asked. Her hands went to work before he could even reply. Her eyes were locked on his manhood the entire time. While she obviously took pleasure from what she was doing, it was just as obvious that this was not her first time. She brought him to climax expertly, catching his seed in a handkerchief at the end. While he watched in openmouthed surprise, she tucked the handkerchief down the front of her tunic, between her breasts, and then rinsed her hands in a nearby washing bowl.

In the fog of his brain, awash with pleasure and shock, Adair suddenly understood why Elena had been sent to live away from home: the girl was an incorrigible nymphomaniac. She’d probably disgraced herself, though she was probably not so foolish as to give up her hymen to anyone, not before her wedding. She had been packed off to faraway Venice because no one would have heard of her indiscretions, and there was even a possibility that she might snare a suitable husband. Undoubtedly the bishop was trying to reform Elena while she was living under his roof, and having about as much success as the doge was having with Adair. In some respects, she was no different than he.

“Elena, we must talk—but not here,” he said, leading her by the hand out into the hall. Although there was the possibility of being overheard as servants passed by with platters and pitchers to serve the partygoers in the great hall, it was less incriminating than being caught together by the piss pots. And he needed to set her straight and let her know that he had no intention of marrying her, despite her godfather and the doge’s obvious attempt to pair them off.

She looked at him now with a mixture of suspicion and resignation. “Oh—I’ve gone and done it, haven’t I? Been too eager? It’s just that I wanted to see it. Your prick. I knew it would be lovely, and it is. You won’t tell my godfather what I’ve done, will you? He’ll be so disappointed.”

Adair put his hands on her shoulders. “Elena, that was a very generous courtesy you did for me just now, and while I appreciate your attentions, I must tell you—you’re wasting your time with me. I have no intention of marrying. Not you, not anyone.”

She drew back as though Adair had told her he had the plague. “What do you mean? Are you thinking of taking vows?”

“Becoming a priest? Oh no . . . Although, you might think my intention not so dissimilar . . .” He stood as tall as he could, trying to make himself seem older and wiser. “I’m going to become a scholar and devote myself to study of the natural world.”

She sized him up cagily. “Yes, I heard you intend to become a physician.”

“That’s part of it, but I’m interested in more than the human body. I’m interested in all of it, everything you can touch and see. And more—I’m interested in the soul, too. The spirit.”

“That seems very admirable,” she said, but sounded tentative, as though she wasn’t sure why anyone would be interested in such a strenuous undertaking. “But why does that mean you cannot wed?”

“Because I’ll be traveling. I wish to meet the greatest thinkers alive. I can’t remain here, in some palazzo in Venice, and expect all the wonders of the world to come to me,” he explained.

She seemed to consider what he said seriously, rocking a little side to side. “And you wouldn’t take your wife with you on your travels?”

He looked down on her gravely. “It wouldn’t do. Besides, a woman doesn’t want to go traveling. She needs a home where she can raise her children. That’s what makes a woman happy.” He recalled overhearing his mother saying this to his father once, when the duke had been preparing to follow the king of Hungary into battle. It promised to be a prolonged siege and he wanted her to travel with him. She’d laughed at the notion and suggested he bring one of his favorite mistresses instead. It had saddened his father, because he had truly loved her.

“I suppose that is true,” she said, giving in. “In all honesty, I cannot see myself living out of trunks. I will let my godfather know of your feelings. But you should be aware—the doge has been in on this plan from the beginning. He would like to see you wed and settled.”

“I know.”

“He’s sent some of his men to round up your friend, do you know that, too? That’s why he asked my godfather to have this dinner party for you tonight—so you would be occupied elsewhere when they went to arrest him.”

His heart seized in terror. He gripped Elena by the shoulders. “Who? Who are they going to arrest?” he asked, but in his heart he already knew. Who else could it be but Cosimo?

Her eyes went wide. “I didn’t hear the name. But he said the doge had you followed, to see where you disappeared to at night, and that’s how they found out what you were up to.”

His last visit to Cosimo—that had to be when he’d been followed, after he’d foolishly allowed himself to believe that he’d deflected the doge’s suspicions. Zeno had probably dispatched a spy to shadow him from that moment forward. With a sinking heart, Adair dashed out of the hall, bellowing for his cloak and hat. As he ran from the bishop’s palazzo and down the empty alleys, he began to realize that he was too late. It would be useless for him to go to Cosimo’s house now: no doubt they’d arrested him already. He would be on his way to the dungeon. This was terrible and it was all his fault; he’d underestimated Zeno, thinking him an impotent old fool who didn’t care what was going on right under his own roof. He’d made a ridiculous mistake, the kind of mistake made by headstrong young men, and now Cosimo would pay with his life.