"I doubt that." he replied with feeling. Cecilia de Medici had not changed so very much after all. But he stiffened just a little as she poured a second glass of wine for herself, not more than a few minutes after the first, which had been waiting for her when she arrived. He had only sipped his. That had been the reason why he could not, after her husband Bernardo died in one of Italy’s staggering tally of road accidents, come back to her. It was her fatal weakness, and if her face and body did not show the ravages as yet, it would not be so very long before they did. Not that that had worried him; it had been the effect on her emotions, the terrible black depression that settled on her when she was drunk, then remained with her for days stretching into weeks, further fueled by the endless drinking.