Words for Wednesday :: Birch Manor - In Italy again

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Wednesday we were given these Words, supplied byWiseWebWoman and to be found at River's blog:
Garrote
Kisses
Neck
Philanthropist
Pragmatism
     and/or:
Balconies
Decadence
Entertainment
Genius
Public

     I said that I found them too grown-uppish for Unicorn Farm, and they are, but I still have dangling story lines from later on.
   What about a return to Italy and the mystery of the Lorenzoes?

The rather incoherent Chapters can be found on this blog:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Or in their entirety - and a bit corrected - on my dedicated Unicorn Farm/Birch Manor -blog

This piece is supposed to go between chapters 2 and 3.

On their way out from the library, Susan stopped in the front hall at the guest book. It too was old, and chained to the table in a mock up or the old books inside the library proper. Susan flipped through the pages, back to the very beginning of the book. It was old, maybe chained for a reason after all, of course it did not go all the way back to 1571, but the first posts in the book were over two centuries old.
One of the entries were strange, the names entwined and surrounded by a garrote. Susan could read only Medici, and called Knud over to aid her. He did no better, and a young assistant came running up to them. "This is a strange tale," he told them. "It's called the story of the stolen kisses, and in that tale one man loses his neck, and another his true love. It's a tale of true love, a disillusioned philanthropist and pragmatism leading to the ruin of them all."
In his fervour to speak to them and tell his tale, he toppled the inkwell and green ink cascaded down over Susan's backpack and the floor, luckily missing the old book totally.
He pulled out a handkerchief, and excusing profusely, and tried in vain to mop up the ink, only spreading it even more, and rubbing it into Susan's backpack. Knud curtly told him off and he and Susan hurried towards their lodgings in an old, decrepit palazzo nearby.
They hurried, taking a shortcut where the low hanging balconies were a danger for  the tall Knud, and where the traces of decadence from past centuries normally were of great entertainment for them. Not so tonight.
"Genius," Susan spat out, "telling stories that sounds like something from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's pen and ruining my bag. Are they really mad all of the people at that library?"
"It's strange," Knud agreed, "it's public knowledge that the Medicis were a wicked bunch back in the days, so why all this cloak and dagger mysteries?"