"I'm not going home. I'm done; I refuse to live under Father's thumb anymore. I don't want to live a life like my mother did, or the life of a princess 'mongst the Venetians with that ugly tree knot," Corbella said. "For Peter's sake, you are a dunce. What are you going to do 'stead?" Meliorie asked. "Ah cousin, you don't do me enough credit. I managed to take enough money to last awhile, but who can tell? I imagined we would figure it out on the go." "We?" Meliorie and Corbella, two cousins from wealthy Genoese merchant families, are horrified by the prospect of being married off to...