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But she did stride to him, unsheathe her dagger, and cut his bonds.
~
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Nascimbene’s chirurgeon consulted their pocket-watch. Their voice emerged in the same muffled echo as Fiore’s nightmares. “The hour is nigh.”
Fiore had waited out each of the agonizing minutes with his nerves taut and his mind whirling with suppositions. He’d expected Enzo to arrive at any and every moment. Every second that passed without him he spent in agonizing anxiety. He comforted himself, but barely, with the rationale that Nascimbene had not the power to kidnap or otherwise dispose of the prince’s brother. And Enzo himself would never abandon a duel—not after what happened with Orazio. Therefore he had to conclude that the prince had done something to prevent his arrival. Probably she wouldn’t kill her own brother. Probably. Perhaps Enzo would be waiting for him when he returned to Ca’ Scaevola. Wouldn’t that be nice?
The announcement of the hour by Nascimbene’s chirurgeon freed Fiore from his mind’s relentless revolving. He shoved off from the wall where he’d stood waiting beside Dr Malvestio and strode toward his opponent.
“Ready whenever you are,” Fiore declared.
Nascimbene’s eyes swept him up and down with a look he couldn’t read. His jaw clenched. He gave Fiore a cold nod.
They both stripped to the waist. Nascimbene bore no scars on what flesh Fiore could see. He wondered if the maestro realized he held responsibility for almost all of Fiore’s own. The mark on his cheek, the missing finger, the twin punctures bookending his navel and the thin, ragged line that traced their repair, and the one further down that remained beyond Nascimbene’s sight yet ever at the forefront of Fiore’s mind.
Fiore drew his sword. He kept its handle clutched like a bird in his fist and his off-hand up by his face. He dropt into a fencing stance. His eyes burned into Nascimbene’s.
Nascimbene’s well-oiled blade glinted in the morning sunlight. To Fiore’s astonishment, he raised it in salute. Fiore belatedly returned the gesture. Mere matter of form on Nascimbene’s part, no doubt. It oughtn’t unnerve him.
Dr Malvestio stood between them with a handkerchief clutched in his upraised hand. He and Nascimbene’s chirurgeon had tossed a coin between them for the privilege.
Nascimbene assumed a posture mirroring Fiore’s own—truly mirroring it, as Nascimbene held his sword in his right hand, and Fiore did so in his left. He presented not so thin a line as Enzo had. Fiore stood shorter than Enzo and Nascimbene alike—as he stood shorter than most gentleman. And while this left him with a shorter reach, it likewise meant he presented a smaller target. Being younger than Nascimbene by some thirty-odd years would make him faster and more agile. Or so he hoped.
The moment they’d taken their places, Dr Malvestio let the handkerchief fall and hastily withdrew from the field.
The duel had begun.
Fiore stood.
And he waited.
Nascimbene’s hard stare held for a few moments. Then it softened in confusion. A singular furrow appeared between his brows.
Fiore withheld a smile and continued to wait. He’d delayed his revenge for over a decade. He could hold back just a while longer.
And Nascimbene, just as Maestra Rovigatti had predicted, could not.
The feint came to Fiore’s left. It began in Nascimbene’s arm. His foot never moved, lest there remain any doubt the strike would prove false.
Fiore didn’t bother to even pretend he would parry it.
Nascimbene returned to his stance quickly—yet still far slower than Enzo ever had. His next feint came at Fiore’s right. Again, the arm moved first and the foot not at all.
And again, Fiore didn’t parry. His pulse thundered in his ears. He hardly felt his rapier’s weight on his arm.
Another feint to Fiore’s left. Except this time, when the arm led, the foot followed. Not a feint at all, but a true thrust. Nascimbene’s poor footwork and form had led Fiore astray.
Fiore realized it almost too late to parry altogether.
A twirl of his wrist. A flash of the blade. The point that would’ve skewered his heart instead scored a glancing blow across his chest, just below his left shoulder.
The force of the thrust and parry combined sent Nascimbene stumbling past him. Fiore spun and leapt backward—poor form, Maestra Rovigatti wouldn’t approve, but it got him away from the impresario, who’d yet to recover. He chanced a glance down at his wound, a mere scratch, just a few garnet beads of blood along a slender crimson cord. It didn’t even sting.
Nascimbene regained his footing and bolted upright, whirling to face Fiore again. He glanced between Fiore, the wound, the scarcely-pinked tip of his own sword, and back to Fiore. He made no move to attack again. A strange smile plucked at his lips. It looked almost triumphant. Premature, in Fiore’s opinion.
“First blood,” Fiore conceded. “But we said to the death, did we not?”
