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Angelo shot a look of mute appeal at Lorenzo di Bianchi, who sat to his left and assaulted eggs and bacon as if they had offered him insult. Lorenzo’s jaw looked ready to split. He caught Angelo’s eye and twitched his fork in a wretched signal that needed no translation.

How much longer must this go on?

Angelo gave the barest shake of his head. Heaven alone could say.

Lord Blackwood’s breakfast room was a handsome place. Pale green walls. Landscapes in gilt frames. A long mahogany table that would seat twelve. Mullioned windows looking over a garden rimed with frost. On ordinary mornings it was Angelo’s favorite chamber in the house. Light struck the silver coffee service and made it shine. The sideboard carried a proper English spread. Kippers, eggs, bacon, blood pudding, toast, strong coffee, and tea too weak to argue with.

This morning, as on every morning since the wedding, the same room felt like a rack. The coffee had gone lukewarm in Angelo’s cup. He drank it anyway. Bitter. Better than sitting idle with his hands empty while love was served up with the toast.

“The marmalade, if you would be so kind,” Angelo said, courtesy stretched thin, and reached across.

Neither Marco nor Molly appeared to hear. They had moved on to wallpaper for the bedchamber walls. Paper. Marco, who had once spoken of Machiavelli and Dante with equal ease, now weighed damask against flowers as if a kingdom depended on the choice.

“The rose has its claims,” he said, grave as a judge, “yet I think the ivory would flatter your complexion, cara mia.”

“Do you truly think so?” Molly leaned in, chin on her hand. “I had not thought how the walls might set me off.”

Angelo considered a pinch, just to test whether Marco was playing a joke on the rest of them.

“Everything in this house should set you off,” Marco declared, as if the point were beyond dispute. “You are its finest ornament.”

Lorenzo made a noise that might have been a swallowed gag. He turned it into a cough, seized his coffee, and drained the cup in one go.

A wild laugh pressed up under Angelo’s ribs. He held it down. This was his brother. He was glad for Marco. Truly glad. Marco had spent years grieving a girl who had died too young. He was a good brother. He deserved this. He deserved a wife who looked at him as if he had hung the moon for her amusement.

But santo cielo, did they have to conduct the whole performance in company?

At the head of the table, their uncle, the Baron of Blackwood, a man with more creases than a crushed cravat, let out a wheezing laugh that broke into a cough. He thumped his chest with a gnarled hand. Watery eyes twinkled.

“Ah, youth,” he rasped when he had breath again. “I remember those first weeks with my late wife, heaven keep her. We could not stop making eyes at each other for a fortnight. The servants were properly scandalized.” He took a noisy sip of tea. “Enjoy it while it lasts, my boy. Soon enough you will quarrel over who forgot the fire and whose turn it is to write to dull relations.”

“Uncle,” Marco said, patience admirable, though his hand never left Molly’s, “I cannot picture quarreling with my wife.”

“Those will become famous words,” the baron wheezed, plainly amused.

Angelo grabbed the opening the way a drowning man grabs a line. “Marco,” he said, louder than manners asked, “I had thought we might go to Hatchards this morning. Lady Trafford says they keep a fine shelf on the arti farmaceutiche. The apothecary arts. I am keen to set English methods beside what I learned in Florence.”

He tried not to sound hungry for the answer. Weeks had passed since he and Marco had spent any stretch of hours together. Before the wedding they had been a pair, finding their way through new kin and this odd English world.

Now Marco had Molly, and Angelo had …

Loneliness, he thought. And the privilege of watching his brother’s contentment at every meal.

Marco turned from his wife at last. Regret crossed his face, honest and brief. “Ah, fratello, I am sorry. I promised Molly the modiste. We have errands this morning.”

“And later?” Angelo kept the tone light. Idle. Not pleading. Certainly not pleading.

“This afternoon we go to Kew. Molly has not seen the gardens.”

Neither had he. No one had thought to include him.

“And tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow …” Marco glanced at his wife. Something passed between them that made Angelo feel he had walked in on a talk held without words. “Tomorrow we have plans.”

“I see.” Angelo put brightness into his voice by force. “Of course. You are newly wed. You ought to be together.”

The disappointment must have shown, because Molly let go of Marco’s hand and turned to Angelo with real warmth. “Forgive us, Angelo. We have been wrapped up in our own affairs. Next week, once we have found our feet, the three of us might⁠—”