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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“There’s a woman in the canal,” Enzo remarked the following afternoon.
Fiore sat with him in the Ca’ Scaevola library. They’d just finished a novel about a vengeful duelist who rescued her beloved from becoming a sacrifice to a sea monster—a story which Enzo had hesitated to read, given its parallels to Fiore’s freshly-escaped predicament, but Fiore had insisted and, indeed, found it rather more cathartic than otherwise. Enzo had arisen to replace the book on its shelf by the window, where he’d glanced out at the canal below and relayed what he saw.
Fiore balked. “A woman in the canal?”
“Forgive me,” Enzo added with haste. “I mean—she is in a sandolo.”
Fiore had assumed as much.
“Here, come look.” Enzo gently supported Fiore in approaching the window. “Her boat has stopped.”
Fiore could see as much now, leaning half on Enzo’s arm and half on the windowsill. There, in the canal beneath Ca’ Scaevola, drifted a sandolo bearing two passengers. One, with the oar in hand, Fiore didn’t recognize. The other stood upright in the middle of the vessel and shaded her eyes with her hand as she gazed up at the palazzo. Though this gesture hid much of her face from view, Fiore nonetheless recognized her round cap, cropped hair, and smock. But even if she’d changed her garb, he’d have known her bearing anywhere.
“Artemisia?” he wondered aloud.
“Your sculptor friend?” said Enzo.
Fiore nodded absently. He waved down at her, though the anodyne made him feel as though his arm-bones had filled with lead.
A jolt seemed to run through her figure. She waved back. The sandolo rocked beneath her, but her upright posture never wavered.
Fiore wondered why she’d come and how long she’d waited there. Surely if she had business with him she could’ve simply knocked on the palazzo door. He drew breath to shout down to her—but even just his inhale sparked enough pain to give him second thoughts. He turned to Enzo instead, who had hung back from the window all the while, tucked against the wall beside it. Fiore couldn’t fathom why, until he realized that Enzo lacked his bauta mask, and indeed Fiore hadn’t seen him don it since he’d awoken within Ca’ Scaevola’s walls. Even within his own home, Enzo didn’t wish the outside world to perceive his bare face.
“Can we ask her how long she’s been down there?” Fiore asked him.
“We may ask her anything you like,” Enzo replied. “Shall we invite her in?”
The notion hadn’t occurred to Fiore. While an artisan might enter a palazzo on matters of business, it was unheard of for social calls. He’d hardly expected the privilege of inviting his friends to join him within the hallowed halls of Ca’ Scaevola.
Despite his astonishment, he managed a nod, which sufficed to set Enzo to rapid work. Within minutes a passing servant was hailed, a messenger dispatched, something in the portico drew Artemisia’s notice and subsequently her vessel, and another servant arrived in the library with a tray of coffee and zaletti and still another quick on their heels to announce Maestra Artemisia Zuccato.
Artemisia entered. Enzo bowed to her. Fiore, tucked into the corner of a settee, hoped she would find his wave sufficient.
“Forgive me if I don’t stand,” he said, pasting a smile over his fears of her taking offense. “I’m a convalescent, you see.”
“Yes, so I’ve heard,” she replied.
Fiore wished he’d thought to ask for a comb and mirror in the hectic meantime. Even without the mirror he could recall the bruises beneath his eyes and the still-healing scar on his cheek, but there was nothing to be done for them. Other than that, he felt perfectly fit to be seen. Enzo had helped him wash and shave that very morning. And while Enzo’s wrapping-gown thrown over his nightshirt might not pass ballroom muster, he knew he’d be the envy of the Crooked Anchor if he only had the strength to go out. Artemisia had seen him plenty handsome in far less.
Yet her gaze now lingered on his wounded cheek and the bandages on his hand.
“How did you find me?” Fiore asked, hoping to change the subject. He tried to keep his voice bright.
Artemisia flicked her gaze almost imperceptibly toward Enzo before she answered. “Corelli said a servant in Scaevola livery had arrived to collect your effects.”
Belatedly, Fiore realized this was the first time Artemisia had met Enzo without his mask. While Fiore had described his face to her, no doubt his words had not done justice to the strikingly handsome features. “And you went to theKingfisherbecause you missed me as a model. Forgive me—I ought to have written to tell you what’d become of me.”
Artemisia shrugged. “One makes allowances for convalescents.”
“Won’t you sit down?” Enzo said with his shy and handsome smile.
Only then did Fiore realize Artemisia had remained standing since her entrance.
Artemisia unaccountably hesitated before she did so. Enzo poured her coffee. Again she hesitated before she accepted it. Fiore supposed she was unused to having a duke perform small services for her. Even so, she’d dealt frequently enough with the aristocracy in her work. There was no call for her to seem as nervous as she did—though Fiore doubted anyone besides himself would recognize her behavior as nervous rather than arch. Perhaps the sheer enormity of Enzo’s specific rank balked her.
