“Ah! Marina!” Kitty exclaimed, forcing herself upright. “There she is! I must rush to her at once!”
“Kitty—” Jane started to say, but Kitty was already off.
The gondola swayed as she stepped along the quay. Catching herself against the wooden railing, she raised her skirts with one hand and reached out for the nearest post with the other. The boatman, accustomed to the fleet-footed blindness of Venetian celebrants, merely winced as she settled on the dock.
The moment her slippers touched concrete, she breathed deeply, dreading to look back at Jane’s definite disapproval.
Marina noticed her and smiled. “Bellissima, here you are! I was afraid you’d been swept off by some awful boor.”
“Jane was scolding me.” Kitty laughed and hurried to her friend.
“Ahh, yes. Your English conscience.” Marina thrust her arm under Kitty’s and pulled hard toward the cobblestone streets. “Let us drown such sorrows in good wine! I’ve had the most marvelous evening.”
Kitty drew an eyebrow up. “How marvelous?”
Marina’s grin was radiant, her cheeks flushed from drink and laughter. “I drank three glasses of wine and kissed my husband under the Rialto Bridge. Twice.”
Kitty blinked. “Your husband is here?”
“Of course!” Marina cried, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “We dressed as matching harlequins. I insisted. He protested, but I said, ‘A man who marries a Venetian must expect a bit of theater.’ He gave in, naturally.”
Kitty smiled faintly as Marina led her between two great Venetian buildings to a little lantern-lit house tucked in shadow. Murmurs of conversation and the low hum of a cello curled into the night air. It was a cozy kind of merriment—intimate, not raucous.
Inside, the tavern glowed with soft amber light. Masked couples leaned in close at their tables, whispering and sipping wine from tiny, stemmed glasses. The scent of roasted chestnuts and clove hung in the air. A fire cracked in a hearth along the far wall.
Marina gestured confidently to a server and ordered two glasses of deep red wine before leading Kitty to a cushioned bench at the edge of the room.
“You must drink, my dear. This night is for passion, not piety.”
Kitty hesitated, watching the way the candlelight danced in the wine’s dark surface. “One glass,” she said softly.
“That is how it always starts,” Marina said with a wink, clinking her glass against Kitty’s before taking a bold sip. She looked over her shoulder and laughed. “Ah! There he is.”
Kitty turned—and there stood a tall man in a matching Harlequin mask, his arm casually slung around a bottle of wine and two more glasses—Giuseppe. His eyes crinkled warmly above his mask.
“Darling!” Marina called, holding out a hand. “Come. Kitty must see how deeply a man can love a difficult woman.”
Giuseppe chuckled as he approached, and when he leaned down, Marina caught his face in both her hands and kissed him squarely, shamelessly, on the mouth. The kiss went on just amoment too long for polite company. When they parted, Marina turned toward Kitty with a triumphant, theatrical sigh.
“Six years married,” she declared, waving her hand grandly. “And he still looks at me as though I hung the moon. I am the luckiest woman in Venice.”
Giuseppe lowered his head until his forehead rested gently against Marina’s, his hands warm on her waist. “You know I would follow you to the ends of the earth,” he murmured, his voice low but certain. “Mask or no mask, I would know you anywhere. Even in a hundred costumes, in a thousand lifetimes.”
Marina smiled, eyes glossy with wine and affection. “Do not say such things. I will begin to believe you.”
“I want you to believe me,” he said simply, brushing his knuckles across her cheek. “I am entirely yours.”
She reached up, curled her fingers into the fabric of his shirt. “And I, yours. Entirely.”
Then she kissed him again, fierce and full of feeling.
Kitty let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. There was no indecency in it—none of the fevered touches she’d seen in shadows at other masquerades. No brazen groping, no hunger disguised as affection. This was something else entirely. Public, yes. Bold, even. But not sordid. Just… honest.
Giuseppe settled beside her, their hands tangling naturally, fingers laced. She rested her head against his shoulder, smiling as she sipped.
“You see?” Marina said dreamily. “It is possible to be in love and not bored. To marry and still be delighted. Every day, I wake up grateful I did not settle. I married for passion, and I have never once regretted it.”
Kitty looked down at her wine. The sweetness of it seemed suddenly too much. Her chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with drink. That kind of love—carefree, affectionate, timeless—it wasn’t something she had believed existed. Not really. Certainly not in her world of restrained glances and carefully constructed reputations.
