‘Well,’ said Caterina, grinning as she approached. ‘You certainly haven’t lost any inches with the years.’

‘You have the advantage of me, Contessa,’ smiled Ezio. ‘You are fully clothed.’

‘I expect we could arrange something to change that. But I am waiting.’

‘Waiting for what?’

‘For you to say that you don’t really need to see for yourself. For you to say that you are sure, even without seeing my naked body, that Nature has been as kind to me, if not kinder, as she has been to you.’ Her grin broadened at Ezio’s confusion. ‘But I remember you were never as good at paying compliments as you were at ridding the world of Templars.’

‘Come here!’

He drew her to him, pulling at the girdle of her skirt as her fingers flew first to the blade, detaching it, and then to the laces of her bodice. Seconds later he had lifted her into the bath with him, their lips glued to one another’s and their naked limbs entwined.

They did not linger long in the bath, but soon got out, drying each other on the rough linen towels the servant had left. Caterina had brought a phial of scented massage oil with her and drew it from a pocket in her dress.

‘Now, lie on the bed,’ she said. ‘I want to make sure you are good and ready for me.’

‘Surely you can see that I am.’

‘Indulge me. Indulge yourself.’

Ezio smiled. This was better than sleep. Sleep could wait.

Sleep, Ezio found, was obliged to wait three hours, at which point Caterina curled up in his arms. She fell asleep before him and he watched her for a while. Nature had indeed been kind to her. Her slender yet curvaceous body, with its narrow hips, broad shoulders and small but perfect breasts, was still that of a twenty-year-old, and her cloud of fine light red hair that tickled his chest as she laid her head on it carried the same scent that had driven him wild all those years ago. Once or twice in the depths of the night, he woke to find he had rolled away from her, and when he took her in his arms again, she nestled up to him without waking, giving a tiny sigh of joy and closing her hand around his forearm. Ezio wondered later if this hadn’t been the best night of love in his life.