The long awaited sequel to Leonardo's Swans by Karen Essex.

"The pope sweeps his eyes over her from head to toe, sighing. “Why have you done this to yourself, darling? You are thin, your hair has grown dim, and the light has gone out of your eyes. Thank God you are back now where I can take care of you. I will have the doctors mix elixirs to restore you, Lucrezia. Within a few days, you will be yourself again.”

The concern in her father’s voice is a balm to her indignation. A tiny bud of joy begins to open inside her as she feels the familiar relief of being in his care. What incurable weakness does she possess that he has this power over her? She has told herself a hundred times that she is a new woman, yet the words of recrimination she’d practiced on the route home to say to him slowly recede. The little speeches she invented when she couldn’t sleep at night, so diligently rehearsed, dissipate now as he strokes her hand and searches her face for what he wants to see. She knows exactly what it takes, and it is so easy to deliver that it would be unkind to withhold it. She lets her father’s eyes question her for just a little longer, and then she smiles."