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And, just as he’d expected, Carlotta slipped through the door.
Fiore, who’d gone rigid in Enzo’s arms, relaxed at once. He slipped away with a smile to recline beside Enzo.
Carlotta appeared not in the least bit surprised or affronted to find her charge in bed with a courtesan. “Breakfast is on the card table, m’lord.”
Enzo thanked her. She gave a brisk nod and withdrew, leaving the door ajar behind her. Her bootheels clicked away across the antechamber floor. The outer door creaked open and thudded shut to announce her departure.
Fiore slipped out of the bed and reached back to draw Enzo out alongside him. Then he picked up Enzo’s wrapping-gown from where it lay over the back of the chair at his bedside. He shook it out—revealing yards upon yards of black silk embroidered with serpentine coils in black thread—and held it up for Enzo to slip into. Or rather, he tried. For he seemed to quickly realize the disparity in their heights would make the posture awkward even if Enzo were at his full acrobatic strength. He made another attempt, holding the garment up with his arms fully extended over his head and hiding himself altogether from view behind it. This lasted for but an instant before a muffled scoff resounded from the other side of the silk and, to Enzo’s amazement, Fiore leapt up to stand on the seat of the chair. He shook out the gown again and smiled to see it at the appropriate height at last.
The same smile crept over Enzo’s own face as he turned to slide his arms into the sleeves and shrug the gown over his shoulders—withholding a wince as said shrug pulled against his wound.
Fiore leapt down from the chair with the same acrobatic ease and slipped around to stand in front of Enzo.
“You look rather dashing,” Fiore said, idly smoothing the gown’s lapel between his fingertips. “Very artistic.”
Enzo smiled in mild surprise. “Artistic?”
“Oh, yes.” Fiore tugged the shoulder seam into its proper place on Enzo’s frame. “It’s highly fashionable to wear these out-of-doors as proof of one’s creative bent. Every painter has one. And most sculptors. If you go down to the Crooked Anchor early enough—or late enough—you’ll see quite a few. I’m surprised you didn’t glimpse any when last we visited.”
“My gaze was elsewhere.”
Fiore shot an astonished glance up at him. Then a smile—small and slight and sweet to behold—tugged at the corner of his perfect lips. It remained as he cast his eyes down at the wrapping-gown again and continued running his fingertips along the cuffs. Enzo’s own heart warmed to see the transformation from surprised to bashful to pleased across his handsome features.
“Do you have one?” Enzo asked before he could think better of it.
Fiore paused in his tactile admiration of the gown. His eyes remained downcast. Something flickered across his features for just a moment—long enough for Enzo to realize that of course Fiore didn’t own one, else Enzo would have seen it himself on more than one occasion by now, and how cruel of him to remind Fiore of what he didn’t have when he so obviously admired it—only to be replaced by a serene smile as Fiore tilted his head up to meet Enzo’s gaze.
“No,” Fiore replied, his voice smooth and sweet. “I’m not a real artist, after all.”
Enzo heartily disagreed. But before he could do so aloud, Fiore took him by the hand and led him out of the bedroom and into the antechamber.
There the breakfast tray awaited them on the card table, just as Carlotta had prophesied. A wisp of steam coiled up from the spout of the coffee pot set out beside two cups and a matching silver dome.
Vittorio had curled up under the card table to wait out his exile. His tail thumped against the floor as Enzo and Fiore entered. Out of habit, Enzo dropt a hand to scratch him behind his ears and winced again as the gesture twinged his wound.
Fiore’s hand graced his shoulder as if it belonged there.
The touch—soft, brief, equal parts comforting and comfortable—suffused Enzo’s whole body with warmth. He glanced up sharp.
And found Fiore simply smiling and sitting down as if he’d done nothing out of the ordinary at all.
Whilst Enzo continued staring, Fiore poured both cups. He set one in front of Enzo. Then he raised the dome to reveal a tray of a half-dozen brioche.
Giovanna’s cook had a tendency towards over-providing, in Enzo’s opinion. Still, this was a bit much even for her. And as he considered the coffee cups, one for him and one for Fiore, he reached a belated-by-anodyne conclusion; this was a meal for two men.
Instead of anything sensible, however, he heard himself say, “You haven’t broken your fast yet? You must be starving.”
Fiore laughed. “One meal missed is hardly starvation.”
Enzo paused. It held the off-hand cadence of a jest, and yet there seemed an undercurrent of something darker. As if Fiore knew full well what true starvation felt like.
But Fiore smiled on, to the point where Enzo thought it would be gauche to mention it, and so he said nothing.
Enzo satisfied himself with the sight of Fiore devouring his share of their breakfast. To see Fiore take nourishment sated his own hunger as much or moreso than actually eating. Yet as Enzo nibbled on his brioche, his mind returned to what Fiore had told him of his history at the conservatorio and the significant gap between that and theKingfisher. Perhaps Fiore’s knowledge of true hunger lay somewhere in there.
“How shall we amuse ourselves today?”
Enzo, startled out of his grim musings, glanced up to find Fiore smiling at him over the rim of his coffee cup.
