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Enzo didn’t understand where this line of enquiry had stemmed from. “Such as?”
Fiore’s gaze had dropt to where he fiddled with the gown. “Harboring a broken courtesan in the family home, perhaps.”
Enzo spent several heartbeats staring at him. Fiore never looked up.
When Enzo found his voice at last, it emerged hard and cold. “If they have any objection to your presence here, they will have to answer to me.”
“Not the reverse?”
Enzo wished Fiore would look at him, wished his self-worth and fear didn’t force his gaze downcast, wished he could make him understand his own value. “If they endeavor to remove you, I shall fight them tooth and nail. But,” he added, as Fiore tensed, “it will not come to that. Lucrezia has no objection to us.”
Fiore’s hunched shoulders, all too visible amidst the voluminous folds of the gown’s sleeves, relaxed a fraction.
The remainder of the afternoon passed quietly. Fiore slept through a great deal of it. And peacefully, as well, much to Enzo’s relief. Fiore well deserved a decent rest after all he’d suffered of late. He awoke upon Carlotta’s return with his effects. The door creaked as she entered, and this small sound alerted Fiore as Enzo received the folded bundle from her and shut the door on her departure.
Plain linen shirts and stockings alongside a single pair of chestnut woolen breeches mingled with the finery Fiore had worn to the ball. Likewise, fondness mingled with dread in Enzo’s heart as he regarded them; for, while he’d loved the look of Fiore in finery and loved still more the joy evident in Fiore’s face and form as he wore it, it was at that very ball where Enzo foolishly led Fiore into the very peril he now fought to survive. He glanced to Fiore to see what he thought of it now.
Fiore, however, had fixed his dark gaze not upon the raiments in Enzo’s arms but on the zibaldone balanced atop them.
Enzo took the hint. He set the clothes aside and plucked up the zibaldone to give to Fiore. Fiore reached out to accept it from him.
But Fiore’s grip—no doubt weakened by his ordeal—had not the strength. The zibaldone tumbled from his fingertips to the floor. A curse fell from his lips alongside it in a pained hiss of frustration.
Enzo dropt to his knees to retrieve the zibaldone at once. It’d landed on the spine, at least. He tried to take heart that the pages hadn’t crumpled in the impact. That did, however, mean it’d fallen open.
And while under normal circumstances Enzo would never have been so ill-mannered as to glance into the secrets of another man’s zibaldone—least of all Fiore’s—his eye couldn’t fail to catch the sight of his own name scrawled across the page.
Several times over.
And crossed out.
Enzo—I’ve decided to accept your offer.
Enzo—I’ve chosen you after all.
Enzo—If your offer still stands, then
Before his better sense could catch up, Enzo’s mind flew on in rapid arithmetic. Fiore had left his zibaldone behind in his quarters when he’d gone to meet his captors on theKingfisher’s deck. Therefore these lines must have been penned not just prior to his rescue but prior to his kidnapping.
A silence had descended in the wake of the tumbling book’s thud. Now it began to ring in Enzo’s ears. Too late he looked up from the page.
And found Fiore staring at him in undisguised horror.
Rather than an apology or even a reassuring word, Enzo heard his own hushed voice ask, “You chose me?”
Fiore met his eyes with a steady, albeit evidently frantic, gaze. “Yes.”
“All this while?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I tried.” A hard swallow emphasized the jewel in Fiore’s slender throat. “I was too afraid.”
Enzo well remembered the tempestuous events of the masked ball. He nodded sagely. “Of Nascimbene.”
“No,” Fiore said quickly, much to Enzo’s surprise. He hesitated before adding, “I was afraid of losing you.”
