"So young?" That seemed so tragic. She had faced so much, so much of it difficult without her family. "Why did you leave home?" It wasn't for a marriage, he had made that clear. He could be a soldier, given his youth and build. "Were you only reunited with your family here?"

She smiled sadly, instinctively hiding her thoughts before a sweet expression. It was how she had kept Giovanni from knowing what she truly thought of him. The thought of her former husband was repugnant, a memory she would be happy to shed from her mind. "I was married for the sake of an alliance, one that my former husband had no intention in honoring." It was politics, but factions ran too deeply. "My father wanted to protect his papacy, so I was married to an old family, one that should grant him their army if he were in need of it."

Lucrezia frowned, still disgusted by Sforza's bigotry. "When my father needed aid, my former husband refused to come to his defense. He did not look kindly on my father's birth or in my family name."