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“We’ve found the alchemist who provided cantarella to Nascimbene.”
“Most welcome tidings indeed,” Enzo admitted after a moment of stunned silence. Certainly far better than anything he’d expected from her. “What’s to be done with him?”
“He has been dealt with.”
A phrase Enzo had grown familiar with, given his sister’s position. Still he found he couldn’t rest easy with vagaries. “May I know how?”
“He has sampled his own wares.”
Enzo stared at her. Cantarella when decanted properly granted a swift if painful death. The quality of the poison given to Nascimbene, however…
Lucrezia raised her brows. “We can’t have someone dealing in something so dangerous without any oversight.”
Enzo quite agreed. And as he pondered the end the poison-seller must have met, he found he had no real regret for his suffering but wished only that Nascimbene could’ve shared in it as well. “It will gladden Fiore to hear of it.”
Lucrezia nodded and turned to go. Three swift strides brought her to the door. There she paused, however, with her fingertips on the knob. After a moment’s hesitation she turned to Enzo again.
“When your Fiore is well enough to travel,” Lucrezia began.
A greater relief than Enzo had expected washed over him. It did his spirits a deal of good to hear someone speak of Fiore’s recovery as a certainty rather than an unlikely chance.
“It may behoove you both,” Lucrezia continued, “to retire to the countryside for the season.”
Enzo knew precisely what she meant. Nevertheless, he heartily agreed.
~
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
In the prince’s wake, Fiore slept.
When next he opened his eyes, he found Enzo pressing a kiss to his forehead.
“Is that all?” Fiore asked when he withdrew.
A rosy tint bloomed over Enzo’s sharp cheeks. “The lips are very sensitive to temperature.”
“So you only wish to see if my fever’s returned,” Fiore concluded.
Enzo nodded.
“If you’re going to do that,” Fiore told him, “then you have to kiss me properly afterwards.”
Enzo did so with a fond smile.
Afterward, Fiore suffered through the return of Dr. Venier, whereupon he learnt he had, in fact, torn open his freshly-healed abdomen in his fight with Nascimbene, hence the bandage ‘round his middle. Fortunately it was a small tear in the outer layer of muscle rather than anything broader or deeper, but it required chirurgical intervention nonetheless. Dr. Venier declared both his temperature and pulse satisfactory. His second attempt at rising went far better than his first, and while he could by no means have taken a turn around the room without Enzo’s assistance, by twining their arms together and leaning the whole of his weight upon him he made it to the window and back again without incident. There Enzo nestled him amidst pillows and tucked him into the bedclothes. The true comfort, however, lay in Enzo’s fingers laced with his own. There Dr. Venier left them and promised not to return before evening unless they asked for her.
And then, at last, Fiore heard the full truth of the duel.
Lucrezia had kidnapped Enzo and kept him locked away in the princely palazzo until Giovanna released him. Nascimbene had coated his blade in cantarella so that he need but nick his opponent to ensure his victory—or so he’d thought. The alchemist who’d provided the poison was as dead as the impresario himself. No one else involved had committed any crime. Nascimbene’s second presumably returned to the stage and his chirurgeon to his practice. Teatro Novissimo remained open; whatever successor Nascimbene had appointed hadn’t yet run it into the ground, though it’d been but a few days. Fiore supposed he’d have longer to wait to see how that worked out. The show must go on and so forth.
Yet Enzo did not seem altogether satisfied with the results of the duel.
“It’s all my fault,” he concluded, to Fiore’s bewilderment. “I should’ve trusted you.”
“How d’you mean?”
“If I hadn’t crept out while you were still sleeping, none of this would’ve happened.”
