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Giovanna stared up at him. “Afraid of me?”
Perhaps, Enzo thought, he’d been too honest. “He’s afraid you or Lucrezia will throw him out of the house altogether.” He did not add,And so am I.
“Then a visit from me is all the more vital,” Giovanna countered. “I must reassure him that I’ve no intention of throwing him out. And that if Lucrezia says otherwise she will have to answer to me.”
While surprised by this, Enzo could truthfully reply, “I’m glad to hear it. But—forgive me—why have you come, if not to cast him out?”
Giovanna blinked. “My only brother’s beloved has been grievously wounded. I came to lend whatever support I might.”
Enzo felt more than a touch of guilt for misjudging her. And yet. “How did you hear of it?”
“Lucrezia told me.”
“So she did send you,” Enzo concluded. Just as he’d suspected.
“She did notsendme,” Giovanna protested. “She merely informed me that your Fiore had been cruelly used and that you’d taken him into the house to look after him.”
Enzo thought he knew pretty well Lucrezia’s motives for telling Giovanna all she knew. Though if Lucrezia wanted a pair of loyal eyes and ears within the palazzo, she already had Carlotta and every other servant besides. Perhaps she thought he’d reveal more to his own flesh and blood. There wasn’t much more to reveal in any case. Still he misliked the business.
“May I not see him?” Giovanna asked, interrupting his bitter musings.
Enzo considered her. “I will inform him you’ve arrived.”
~
According to the shadows lengthening across the bedchamber floor, hardly a quarter of an hour could’ve possibly passed. Nonetheless Fiore had all but tied his fingers into knots in Vittorio’s ruff by the time Enzo returned.
“What does she want?” Fiore blurted the moment the door shut behind him.
“To see you,” Enzo replied.
This did nothing to allay Fiore’s concerns.
“You don’t have to see her if you don’t wish to,” Enzo added quickly. He sat on the edge of the bed beside Fiore. “I’ve told her already that you’re in a delicate stage of convalescence. There’s every chirurgical excuse for you not to see her. But she does wish for you to know that she’s here for a good reason rather than an unpleasant one.”
“Is she?” Fiore wondered aloud before he could think better of making his doubts known.
“Yes,” Enzo said. “She heard you were unwell and wishes to see you’re all right.”
Fiore wished his unwellness weren’t public knowledge. He didn’t know whether or not to trust the duke’s stated motives. Though Enzo probably knew his own sister better than most. Probably. “How much does she know?”
Enzo appeared reluctant to recount it—whether because it troubled him to think on Fiore’s suffering or because he didn’t wish to divulge, Fiore knew not. “She knows you were kidnapped. And that you were grievously wounded and returned by the skin of your teeth. Beyond that she knows nothing specific. No one does, save myself and the chirurgeons.”
And even Enzo didn’t know all he’d suffered, Fiore mused uneasily. He wondered if Enzo or his sister would like him half so well if they knew the whole. Aloud, he said, “Am I fit to be seen, d’you think?”
Enzo balked. “You don’t have to see her.”
“But if I wished to see her,” Fiore insisted. “Might I, then? Or would I just make an even worse impression?”
Enzo appeared at a loss.
“I want her to like me,” Fiore explained. “I don’t want to offend her by refusing. But,” he added, as Enzo opened his mouth, presumably to repeat his earlier claim, “I also don’t want to offend her by appearing… informal.”
Which was a kind euphemism for “corpse-like,” Fiore thought.
Enzo studied him for a long moment. “You really don’t have to see her. But if you wish to, you may. You needn’t fear offending her in either case. She is determined to like you.”
Fiore tried to feel relieved.
