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Enzo need not hear the sentence finished. He knew Fiore feared rediscovery by the conservatorio.
“But,” Fiore continued, a smile plucking at his mouth just as he plucked at the strings, “a forgotten lute in a hunting lodge in the wilderness is fair game. With your permission,” he added.
Enzo granted it with a nod. “You may have it for your own, if you wish.”
Fiore raised his brows. “I accept—on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“You look after it for me here.”
“Done,” Enzo declared with a laugh that turned into a repressed cough.
Fiore set the lute aside again and laid the back of his hand against Enzo’s brow.
“I’m not feverish,” Enzo told him.
Fiore withdrew his hand, which Enzo regretted, until those same fingers trailed down from his brow to caress his cheek. “Probably ought to let the chirurgeon have a look at you anyway.”
Enzo’s agreement stilled on his tongue. While the suggestion itself was sound enough, to hear it from Fiore’s lips puzzled him. He who dreaded their life-saving presence hardly seemed the one to call for their return.
And yet as he searched Fiore’s dark and beautiful eyes, Enzo beheld a shadow of concern behind their smiling gaze. It seemed Fiore’s fear of chirurgeons had been surpassed by his fears for Enzo’s health.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Enzo said at last, apologetically.
Fiore shrugged. “Why should I mind?”
If Fiore wished to pretend, then Enzo saw no reason to confront him over it. He reached over to the nightstand and rang the silver hand-bell to summon Dr Zoccarato. Fiore remained by him, lounging on his side propped up by the piled pillows and smoothing away stray locks of hair from Enzo’s brow.
But when the antechamber door’s creak and thud echoed through to them, Fiore slipped away and wandered off to the window, taking the lute with him. No sooner had he settled onto the window seat than the bedchamber door opened to reveal the chirurgeon.
While Dr Zoccarato listened to his heart and took his temperature, Enzo watched Fiore. Fiore had wandered over to the window and assumed a rather convincing pose of a musician preoccupied with his instrument, though Enzo noted he didn’t continue to play. Tension lingered in his posture even as he lounged against the marble frame. The surreptitious glances Fiore cast back at him were not the annoyed looks of an impatient concubine but rather, he realized, the watchful gaze of a lover ready to leap to his beloved’s defense should anything go awry. What weapon Fiore had to hand, Enzo knew not. As an alley cat required nothing save its own claws to rend its opponent, so too did Fiore look ready to tear asunder with his bare hands any who would dare lay a finger on Enzo—chirurgeon included.
When it came time to change the wound-dressing, Dr Zoccarato sent Vittorio from the bedchamber. Or rather, he attempted to. Vittorio looked to Enzo to confirm it. Only at his nod did the hound slip off the bed and slink out of the room.
Enzo glanced back to Fiore and found a fire in his eyes that swore under no circumstances would he suffer being sent away. The moment their gazes met, Fiore smiled. This did nothing to lessen the blaze.
The smile cracked as Dr Zoccarato brought out the silver scissors.
Fiore glanced back and forth between the gleaming blades and Enzo’s face. His countenance enquired louder than actual speech; ought he to approach?
Enzo stayed him with a slight gesture of the hand and endeavored to reassure him with a smile. He’d endured the change of dressings more than a dozen times over before Fiore had ever arrived. To merely have Fiore in the same room as him sufficed to balm his heart. He needn’t force Fiore to suffer the fear that would ensue if he must move but an inch closer to the chirurgeon.
Still, Enzo couldn’t quite suppress every wince or grunt as Dr Zoccarato peeled away the soiled bandages and wrapped him in fresh linen, and with each of these Fiore tensed like a cat ready to leap into a fray. He relaxed his posture only when Dr Zoccarato finished sewing the new dressings in place and withdrew altogether.
“Walk as far and as frequently as you feel able,” Dr Zoccarato instructed him as he packed up his bag. “Breathe deep, and don’t hesitate to cough.”
Enzo, who’d heard the same instruction on every visit since he’d come out of his fevered fog, and who recalled well from university the proper treatment for pneumonia, nevertheless thanked Dr Zoccarato and bid him good morning.
Dr Zoccarato bowed and, with a final wary glance in Fiore’s direction, departed.
The instant the door shut on the chirurgeon, Fiore leapt up from the window-seat and flew back to Enzo’s side all smiles. He set the lute aside and devoted both hands to cradling Enzo’s jaw as he kissed him.
Which might have turned into something more, if a light rapping on the door hadn’t interrupted them.
Fiore, half-atop Enzo, froze in place. He gave the door a wary look as keen as any hawk.
Enzo didn’t blame him—who knew when a chirurgeon might return—but he recognized the particular pattern of the knock. “Enter.”
