The candles had nearly burned themselves into puddles by the time the doors to the bedchamber finally closed.

Florence still celebrated somewhere beyond the palace walls. Faint music drifted through the windows overlooking the city, softened by distance and midnight air. A wedding feast. A triumph. Another alliance stitched neatly into the fabric of powerful men.

Cosimo de’ Medici stood motionless beside the bed, staring at the floor rather than at his bride.

His father had spoken of this marriage as though discussing trade routes. The de’ Bardi gir.l would stabilize relations between families. It would secure influence. Secure heirs. Secure Florence itself, perhaps. Men always said such things with reverence, as though duty transformed misery into holiness.

He loosened the collar at his throat with visible restraint. Not nervousness. Irritation.

The silence between them stretched awkwardly.

She sat carefully perched atop embroidered sheets in all the ceremonial finery neither of them wanted anymore. Heavy pearls. Veil loosened. Hands folded too tightly in her lap. Cosimo did not look at her for long; he found himself unable to bear the discomfort in her posture. She was frightened enough without being studied like a political transaction.

At last, he crossed the room and poured wine into two cups. His own he emptied immediately.

“I suppose,” he said quietly, voice roughened by exhaustion rather than wine, “our fathers would be disappointed if we spent the night speaking politely from opposite ends of the room.”

A small response came from her then, hesitant enough that it only deepened the ache already lodged beneath his ribs.

Bianca would have laughed softly at a remark like that.

The thought arrived unwanted and immediate.

Cosimo closed his eyes briefly.

God, Bianca.

Even now her name moved through him like grief dressed as memory.

He removed his outer robe with methodical movements, folding it over a chair rather than discarding it carelessly. Every motion felt deliberate, restrained, as though he were forcing himself through ritual rather than desire. When he finally approached the bed, there remained something apologetic in his expression despite the composure he fought to maintain.

“You need not fear me,” he murmured, though the words sounded hollow to his own ears. “I will not make this more unpleasant than it already is.”

Another quiet reply. Brave. Trying to ease the tension for his sake now, impossibly enough.

That nearly made him stop altogether.

But duty was a machine that never stopped moving simply because a man’s heart wished it to.

When he kissed her, it was gentle but absent. Obligation disguised as tenderness. He could feel how little either of them belonged inside this moment. Every touch carried awkwardness to it, the stiffness of strangers commanded toward intimacy before trust had been allowed to exist.

Cosimo focused on efficiency more than passion. The bedding itself felt mechanical, something to survive rather than savor. His jaw remained tense even as he bent over her, candlelight casting long shadows across the severe lines of his face.

He kept his eyes closed for much of it.

Not from pleasure.

From cowardice, perhaps.

Because in darkness, for fleeting selfish moments, he could pretend the woman beneath him loved him already. Pretend Florence had not stolen Bianca away and replaced her with silk sheets and political convenience. Pretend this ache in his chest was not mourning.

His breathing roughened briefly. He finished quickly, like a man trying to outrun humiliation.

Afterward, silence returned heavier than before.

Cosimo remained still beside her for several moments, staring upward toward the ceiling beams. The weight of shame settled slowly into his bones. Not because he had failed in duty — that part, at least, was complete — but because he had brought another innocent person into the ruin of his own unhappiness.

Finally, he turned his head slightly toward her in the dim candlelight.

“I am sorry,” he said.