The group of men roared with laughter at this, even Signor Soderini. I laughed as well, more with relief than anything else. Just then Sandro’s eyes caught and held mine, for a moment longer than was seemly, and there was naught but sincerity in them. I shivered.
“Ah, there is my boy!” Lorenzo proclaimed proudly, interrupting the laughter. He bent down to scoop up a small boy who had toddled over and was grasping at the hem of his father’s tunic—Piero, who was two years old. Perhaps jealous of the attention being paid her younger brother, four-year-old Lucrezia followed, crying, “Papa!”
Lorenzo leaned down to ruffle her pale curls. “And my principessina,” he said affectionately.
Clarice appeared at her husband’s elbow. “They wished to say good night before they go to bed,” she said. “Come, children. Time to say your prayers and go to sleep.”
Lucrezia had left her father’s side and come to mine, wrapping her arms around my waist in a childish hug. “Someday, Signora Simonetta,” she said, looking up at me, her dark eyes serious, “I shall be a grown-up lady and wear beautiful dresses like you, and stay at parties all night!”
I laughed and leaned down to hug her, releasing Marco’s arm. “You certainly shall,” I said. “And you shall be the most beautiful lady at any party.”
Clarice had often brought Lucrezia to visit me in the four years since her birth, and as the girl had grown older, I had become something of a favorite with her. With a child yet to come for Marco and myself, I loved spending time with Lorenzo and Clarice’s children, even though—especially lately—it only served to underscore all that I had not achieved.
“Come, Lucrezia,” Clarice said again. “Until you are a grown lady, you must keep to your bedtime.”
“Can Signora Simonetta tuck me in?” Lucrezia asked.
I laughed again. “I certainly can if you wish it.”
I waited as Lucrezia bid her father good night, then I let her lead me to the nursery. Clarice tossed me a grateful look over her shoulder.
Clarice settled young Piero into his little bed as the children’s nursemaid helped Lucrezia change into a clean shift. The youngest Medici child, one-year-old Maria Maddalena, was already in bed and clapped with pleasure at seeing her siblings.
“Now, come, Madonna Lucrezia,” I said as the little girl climbed into her bed. She giggled at being addressed like a grown-up lady, even as she allowed me to draw the covers over her. “To sleep, and you shall have dreams about attending parties wearing beautiful gowns.”
“I will?” she asked.
“I am certain of it.”
Within seconds, it seemed, she had nodded off to sleep, and I rose and tiptoed from the nursery. Clarice had been watching from the door.
“Thank you,” she said. “You are so wonderful with her.”
“She is a joy, truly,” I said. “If only I…” I trailed off, unable to meet my friend’s eyes.
“Surely there is still hope,” Clarice said. “Why, you are only, what, twenty-one?”
I lowered my voice, though there was no one around to overhear. “In truth, I am beginning to lose hope,” I said. “Five years I have been married, and no sign of conception.”
“Perhaps the fault lies with him,” she suggested. “Some sin on his soul, perhaps.”
I shook my head. “I do not know if God works that way, despite what the priests say,” I said. “And you know as well as I do that the fault always lies with the woman. Even if it does not.”
Clarice pursed her lips; she had never abandoned her conservative Roman upbringing in favor of her husband’s liberal view of the world, though Lorenzo, too, was pious enough. “Well, whatever the case,” she said at last, deciding not to argue the point, “never lose hope, Simonetta. God may bless you in time.”
“I hope you are right,” I said, casting one last look back at the nursery door as we returned to the party. Then there was the thing I could never bring myself to confess to Clarice, with her nursery full of children and her husband keeping a mistress: I had begun to feel that Marco was upset with me for not providing him with children, with a son and heir. He had never said such to me, of course; but despite my words to my friend, he had come to my bed less frequently of late, and what other reason could there be but his dissatisfaction with me? Of course, I had been ill recently, but that excuse rang hollow within my heart. The night before had been the first time we had made love since my illness, and even as he moved within me he felt somehow removed, distant, as though he performed the act more for duty than for pleasure.
Yet Clarice, too, had known sorrow in childbearing. There had been a set of twins born the year after Lucrezia who had died mere hours after their birth, and just a few weeks past she had given birth to a daughter who had survived only days. This party was her first public appearance since her lying-in, and though I could still see traces of the sadness in her eyes, both her faith and her practical manner allowed her to go on.
Perhaps she was right. I could not give up hope just yet.
I pushed aside such melancholy thoughts as best I could. I was at a party given by my dearest friends, and whatever problems existed in my marriage—real or imagined—could be dealt with another time.
22
I had just found myself a fresh glass of wine and was going to join Clarice and some other women friends of hers when I heard an unmistakable voice behind me. “Madonna Simonetta.”
I turned to see Sandro sweeping me a bow. “Maestro Botticelli,” I said, forcing his Christian name back from the tip of my tongue, as I always did. As I still did, even after all this time. “I did not get a chance to properly greet you earlier. You are looking well.”
“And you are looking as beautiful as ever,” he said, “though you do not need me to tell you that. Yet I do think you are more beautiful now than when I painted your portrait.”
In spite of myself, I enjoyed the compliment, which would always mean more coming from him than from anyone else. “I am like a fine wine, perhaps,” I said. “I improve with age.”
“I would say so.”
When the conversation seemed to end there, I felt my annoyance grow. Why seek me out at all, if you merely wish to exchange trivial pleasantries and nothing more? I wanted to ask him, but of course I did not. “Well, if you will excuse me.”
“No,” he said quickly. “That is, I had hoped to have a word. Alone.”
His last word made my pulse spike even as he continued. “As alone as we can be in this crowded room, at least.”
“Perhaps we stand a better chance of not being overheard in a crowded room,” I said. “Although I wonder what you can possibly have to say that warrants so much secrecy.”
He drew me into a corner. “It is a delicate matter.”
“Indeed?” I asked. My heart was hammering foolishly at his nearness. “Then perhaps it is an inappropriate subject to discuss with a lady.”