Chapter 1
One
“You are lonely.”
“I am not.” Kitty replied, but she continued staring directly ahead, at the lantern-lit waters, not having the courage to look back at Jane’s watchful eyes.
It was a lie. A practiced one. One she’d told herself so often it had nearly become truth.
The gondola swayed gently beneath them, gliding along the Grand Canal. Venice was carnival-crazy around them, masked revelers laughing and spilling their exhilaration into the water. The scent of roses and candle wax and the salt of the lagoon hung heavily in the air.
None of it, however, seemed to stir Jane. Her gaze remained locked on Kitty, who refused to meet her eyes, afraid of how much of the truth Jane might uncover.
“You have no real friends,” Jane maintained. “Not of your own age, at any rate. No young women to whisper to, no suitors to flirt with—”
“I have you,” Kitty put in, adjusting the golden mask that rested on her nose. “And Father. That is enough company.”
The mention of her father made her heart both smile and ache. Smile, because he was the best ally she could ever ask for. Ache, because the thought of leaving him behind to continue living her own life sent a wave of longing, guilt, and emptiness crashing over her.
“I was your governess once, Kitty—now I dare to call myself your friend. Yet I am older than you, and though my affection is steadfast, I cannot rival the companionship of high society the daughter of a viscount deserves. And as for replacing the felicity of married life… that, my dear, is quite beyond my power.” Jane sighed, tightening the silk shawl on her shoulders.
“Your father and I are simply not enough.”
Most people assumed Jane was her real mother—and in some ways, perhaps she was the closest thing Kitty had as one. She had also been a wonderful companion to her father, the kind of steady presence he so often needed.
“You are five-and-twenty, Kitty. While you spent your best years tending to your father’s feelings, the world moved on without you.”
Kitty flinched, although she masked it behind a careless laugh. “You make it sound as if I have been hiding in a cave.”
She stopped laughing, but a smile lingered.
“I have been all around, Jane. I’ve seen more than most. I have traveled through Germany, France, Greece, Austria, Spain…
indeed, nearly every corner of the continent and beyond.
No, I do not possess a husband—nor, given my circumstances, am I ever likely to.
Yet I have beheld wonders most of England’s ton could scarcely conjure in their wildest fantasies. ”
She had seen so much in these six years—palaces, pyramids, painted ceilings, crowded marketplaces. She had seen more than most, yes. But at what cost? The loneliness, though she despised acknowledging it, would steal upon her like an uninvited guest.
“No, not a cave,” Jane replied gently, “but you have been an exile in a different way. Constantly moving, never remaining in one location.”
An exile.
The word hit harder than Kitty expected. Yes, she had been everywhere—but belonged nowhere. Kitty turned to her with an amused smile. “If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that you were in a frantic hurry to get rid of me.”
Jane let out a sigh. “You must think of your future. Your father will not always be with you.”
Kitty swallowed. “If I marry and leave him, he will be alone. I do not want that.”
“And if you do not get married?” Jane asked softly, her hand reaching for Kitty’s. “What then?”
Kitty had no answer. She had not allowed herself to indulge in such fantasies for years. And yet, at five-and-twenty…
“It would be difficult now,” she said. “I have no acquaintances. No friends. No prospects.” She shrugged, tucking a loose chestnut strand behind her ear.
Her gaze strayed out toward the vacant, sunbaked afternoon sky, shying from Jane’s sympathetic gaze.
“And I am not the young debutante society wishes to see.” The last words spilled out of her in a whisper, lost almost in the lapping water.
It was the first time she had admitted it aloud—the fear that she might have missed her chance entirely.
How could she confess that she actually craved for marriage and having her own family?
And not just any marriage—but one like her parents had shared.
The kind of love that left her father unable to remain in the home—or even the country—where her mother had lived and breathed.
But how could she ever have this kind of bond if they never stayed in a place long enough to be courted… To be chosen…
Jane cupped her cheek, the softness a rare one piercing the hardness of her sharp features, tilting Kitty’s face towards her own. “You need to begin living for yourself, Kitty. Before you wake up one morning and find you’ve let it all slip past you.”
A tightening burst into bloom within Kitty’s chest. Too much. Too much truth, too much fret, too much future she’d struggled to block from her thoughts for years.
She yanked her face about, eyes scrambling over the congratulators for escape.
And then—salvation.
A familiar woman emerged from the mist, shrouded in dark green silk, dark curls falling across a smooth shoulder. The turn of her head, the slouch of her stance, the playful strike of her fan—Signora Marina.
“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 a moment 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.
And yet here it was, right in front of her. Not a fantasy, not a dream. Real.
She could imagine Jane scoffing at the scene. “A woman clinging to her husband in public—how unrefined.” But Kitty didn’t care. She was tired of refinement. Tired of pretending her heart didn’t want more than polite conversation and gloved hands at a waltz.
Watching Marina lean into her husband’s embrace, laughing at something only he could hear, Kitty felt something shift inside her.
Not jealousy—no, it was something deeper than that. A hollow kind of longing. A homesickness for a place she’d never been. A life she’d never lived.
She had not allowed herself to indulge in such fantasies for years. But memories of home pressed in upon her—London’s fresh air, the warmth of her mother’s sitting room, the rustle of silk dresses at a proper English ball. She had once dreamed of all those things.
And, all at once, she knew.
She had to go back to London.
Not because Jane was right. Not because of duty or pressure or some half-hearted idea of propriety. But because she had to find what Marina had. She had to at least try.
Somewhere out there, perhaps in a crowded ballroom or a sun-drenched garden or a dusty bookshop, was a man who would love her so fiercely he wouldn’t care what society thought of her.
Kitty raised her glass and drained it in one swallow.
“To love,” she murmured.
Marina blinked at her. “Did you say something?”
Kitty smiled faintly. “Yes. I think... I think it’s time I went home.”