Velvet & Dagger Chaoter 8: The Widow’a Gambit

By steamystoriesbysarahstormverified

Velvet & Dagger Chapter 8: The Widow’s Gambit Venice, 1527. The palace is a cage. Alvise watches. Servants weigh every glance. Isabella will not wait to be ruined. Her nurse names the likely snake: Niccolò Barbaro, the pretty patrician who once wanted her. Proof will not save her. Spectacle might. She offers the Republic piety and gold—an altarpiece, a public pledge, high mass in black. She invites the snake to watch. Mirrors and smoke to drown the garden. South of the Adda, Lorenzo drills men who will ride north instead of to war. Rated R. Mature historical romance.