Chapter 80: Marito, Try Again

Caterina reached him with her account book still tucked under one arm, her chin already up and ready for whatever argument she’d cooked up on the walk over.

"Well? I hope this is worth it, marito. I left a clerk who can’t count past twenty and a dockhand who nearly drowned us both in distillate less than an hour ago."

"Only the most important business in the Republic, mia cara."

He caught her hand before she could fold her arms and started walking.

Caterina lips parted open to object, but he talked over her before the first word got out.

"A husband sailing off to sea is owed a farewell from his wife. It’s practically law."

"Ah, is that so? Since when?"

"Naturally, right now, and I outrank every notary in this city this winter."

She let him pull her along regardless, one sleeve still pinned above her elbow, past stacked crates and a dockworker who suddenly found very curious reasons to look at somewhere else.

They passed a little chapel and one bell some fool had once hauled six streets on his own back, if the story around could be trusted, and came out into a covered walkway where the harbor’s racket finally gave up trying to follow them.

Neither had let go of the other’s hand somewhere along the way.

Neither seemed to think that was worth mention anymore.

Caterina stopped pretending she minded being led. She stopped near the far end of the walkway and turned to face him properly.

"Enough theater, Vitale. Say what you brought me here to say."

He didn’t waste the chance. "This voyage will take months, easily. Alexandria first, then whatever the Levant is willing to sell us."

She waited, looking about as impressed as a woman could be by what she’d already known.

Vito continued. "Once the trading’s finished, I’m continuing on to Venezia. We’ll stop at Candia again on the way, enough to see how badly Zaccaria’s managed things without me, then push on to the lagoon."

She tilted her head. "That much I’d already guessed, you’ve been talking about standing in the right room for months. Get to whatever you actually dragged me away for."

"I want you with me. In Venezia, when I get there."

She paused, curiosity replacing the expected surprise.

"Why?"

"Because I want you there."

"Wanting isn’t reasoning, Vitale."

He clicked his tongue.

"Fine. Because I can’t think of one good reason to sail into that city without you beside me."

Caterina watched him for a moment, and the banter dropped out of her face.

For a beat, what remained was sincere and unhurried.

"I’d half decided on Constantinople, you know. If nothing better came along."

"This isn’t better?"

Caterina shrugged. "My family’s branch is there. Household, investors, people who’d take a Contarini daughter seriously even if Venezia never managed to marry her off properly."

She said it flatly, without bitterness, like a fact she’d already made peace with.

"It isn’t nothing, Vitale. It’s a whole life, ready and waiting, if I wanted it."

"Then take this instead."

"This being half a sentence, from you."

He considered how to say the rest clearly. "I want this to last past one voyage, Caterina. Your name standing next to mine, for good. This trip, and every one after it."

Surprise appeared in her face caught, before she got hold of it again. "Marriage, Vitale. Say the word if you mean it. I won’t marry a man too much of a coward to name the thing properly."

"Ma va’, marriage, then. And then you wonder why romance is dead."

She reached up and caught his chin between two fingers, tilting his eyes down to face hers.

"There. Was that so difficult?"

"Painful, actually. I may need a doctor."

"Vitale, you just made a proposal between a crate of wax and a very impatient distillery order."

"This is the finest courtyard on Crete, mia cara. Give the stonework some credit."

His hand found her waist, and for a moment neither of them had any words.

Then Caterina, being Caterina, couldn’t leave it there. "And has your family agreed to any of this? The very house that never once thought you worth backing?"

Vito laughed. "When they hear about it, it’ll be too late for their opinions to matter."

"And mine."

Some of the edge went out of her voice. "No house in Venezia ever thought a Contarini from my branch worth the dowry. I want you to understand what that means before you say anything else you can’t take back, you’d be marrying a woman nobody else ever considered worth the trouble."

"Then we’ll disappoint both houses together. I find I don’t mind the company."

Caterina didn’t answer at once.

She watched him, her thumb gently brushing his chin.

Then she stopped deciding.

Both hands rose to his neck, and she stepped into him.

The softness of her body met his with a warmth that went straight through his clothes. Her chest pressed full against him, unhurried and unmistakable, and the feel of her there made his breath catch before he could hide it.

She was warm from the day, warm from the closeness, and smelled faintly of rosewater, though beneath it was the softer, sweeter scent that belonged only to her.

His hands found her waist almost of their own accord.

He drew her closer, until he could feel the rise and fall of her breathing against him. She stayed there without a word, her fingers resting at the nape of his neck, her body yielding against his as though she had no intention of letting either of them remember where the courtyard ended and the rest of the world began.

For once, neither of them had anything left to say.

Her lips found his ear instead of his.

"If you mean it, Vitale, then yes."

Her voice had dropped low, meant for him alone. "Only understand what you’re asking for. I am not some pretty vase for your shelf, and I will not become a docile wife who smiles at your guests and holds her tongue at your table. You’ll have my temper along with my name, every account I keep and every opinion I refuse to soften, for the rest of your life."

"Cazzo, mia cara."

He murmured it against her ear. "I wouldn’t want you any other way. Some meek wife would bore me within a week, and you’ve never once bored me."

Her answering laugh began as close to a snort before warming into softer chuckling, low enough that only he caught it.

"Good. I’d have hated marrying a man with nothing left to say for himself."

She murmured against his ear, too low and too pleased with itself for him to catch every word. Whatever it was left his ears burning before he’d figured out how to answer.

Then she kissed the corner of his lips, quick and certain, and stepped back.

"The clerk’s waiting," she said, turning toward the noise of the dock. "And so is the tide."

Vito stood in the empty courtyard a while longer, one hand at the corner of his mouth, listening to her footsteps fade toward the pier.

He hadn’t asked her anything. Not properly. No ring, no priest, not even a single word that would survive being written down in front of witnesses, the way such things were actually done.

She’d said yes to an implication and half a sentence, and that had been enough.

It wasn’t going to be enough for Venezia.

Vito let out a breath that turned into a laugh, dragged a hand through his hair, and started back toward the ships, already wondering exactly how a man was supposed to ask a second time when the first attempt hadn’t even counted.