The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [6]
That day, he was tired from buying his ship, and they sat down almost at once under a tree in the orchards not far from Ste Gudule, and stayed there until nearly dusk. To keep her from cold, he wrapped half his splendid cloak round her shoulders, and kept her hands warm in his. She watched him all the time that he talked, and admired his buttons, and when she wanted to stroke the fur of his collar he let her provided, he said, she would allow him reciprocal privileges.
It was as exciting as he made it sound: he held her close with one hand and reached under her hood with the other to pull forward her long, hard-brushed hair, one swathe on each side of her neck. Then he combed it all smooth with his fingers, arranging it over her chest and forward down to her lap. She had nice hair: longer than Tilde’s, although Tilde was older. She sat still and let him stroke it like that for a little. After a bit he said, “Caterinetta. You are a lovely woman. You are a woman, aren’t you?”
She had been overwhelmed, and surprised. “Of course I am!”
He looked very serious.
She must have smiled out of nervousness, for his face suddenly changed. He heaved a sigh and, bending his head, dropped a little kiss on her throat through the modesty gauze. “I’m glad. I’m glad, Caterinetta; for a Doria lord…you know a Doria lord could never show his love to a child. It would be against the family honour.”
Then it had come to her what he had meant. She dismissed it. She heard herself repeating, “Love?” Then she couldn’t say anything else, because he lifted his mouth from her chest and put his lips on her lips and pressed them heavily, with his arm tight round her shoulders.
It was stifling, but she knew what it was. It was the kind of kissing that Nicholas and her mother did. She wanted him to stay like that till she got used to it. Instead, her mouth opened, spoiling everything. She tried to shut it again, but the weight was too much. She felt her teeth were exposed. She might even bite him. She drew off and so did he, quickly. He let his hands go. He said, “Of course it’s too soon. It’s wrong and too soon. Let me take you home.”
She was too appalled even to cry. She said, “It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t. You can do it again.”
“Don’t you think I want to?” he said. “Princess, I want more than that. But after next week, you won’t see me. And by the time I come back, many years may have passed.”
She was seized by a cramp in her stomach. She said, “You’re sailing.”
He nodded. “To Italy first, then who knows where? My greatest adventure, I think. And I have to make it alone.”
“Take me with you,” she said.
She could see the shock on his face, and an exquisite longing. Then he said, “No. No, how could I? There’s no time for a betrothal, far less for a contract of marriage. Your aunt has no powers: I couldn’t send to your mother in time. I can’t take you, my loveliest girl, although I’d give a ransom to do it. I can’t even see you again. I mustn’t. I would go too far: I couldn’t help it. And then you would hate me.”
Madonna Caterina de Charetty negli Doria.
“You want to marry me?” Catherine said. She had to look down, for he was kneeling before her, his cap off, his warm, satiny head on her knee.
“I want you to be my lady wife. I want to show you the world. I want to spend Christmas at your side and show you to the princes of Florence,” said Messer Pagano Doria in a whisper. “But how can it be?”
They were off in a week.
Her aunt and uncle wished them Godspeed, thinking he was escorting her homewards to Bruges.