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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Enzo knew not what Fiore made of the hunting lodge.
He’d never been particularly gifted with reading people outside of his own family. Fiore presented a particular challenge. His very career demanded he feign enthusiasm when he felt none. In consequence, Enzo doubted his own ability to pick up on the difference between polite cheer and genuine joy.
Even so, he dared to think he might have begun to catch on. He’d had a glimpse of genuine emotion when Fiore gazed upon the capriccio. And he thought he saw an echo of that as they wandered aimless through the lodge and its grounds. The hunting trophies, gardens, and stables all seemed to meet with Fiore’s approval. Still, Enzo noted how an uncharacteristically somber expression overtook Fiore’s fine features whenever he didn’t notice Enzo had glanced his way. A graver one appeared when the infection attempted to seize hold of Enzo’s lungs once more. Despite Fiore’s disguised distress, Enzo took comfort in the warm, slender weight of him tucked up under his arm.
Enzo didn’t permit his weakened state to prevent him from studying Fiore throughout their return to his chambers and afterward. The visit from Dr. Zoccarato did nothing to improve Fiore’s mood—though the chirurgeon’s departure brightened his aspect considerably. Enough so that he reached for Enzo’s lute and began to play. The soft strains seemed to echo Fiore’s return to a happier state, which lightened Enzo’s concerns likewise. He supposed it wouldn’t hurt to take his ease for a while. He let his eyes fall shut so he might focus on the beautiful sound—though the sight of Fiore cradling the lute in his arms and gently smiling over its strings proved no less beautiful.
When his eyes opened again to a silent room with shadows tilting in the opposite direction, he realized to his alarm that he’d taken entirely too much ease and fallen asleep altogether. His nerves eased as his gaze alighted on Fiore—lounging beside him atop the bedclothes, the lute set aside in favor of his zibaldone, his brow furrowed with the intensity of his sketching, his pencil scratching over the page—but the sight of his devoted lover did nothing to ease his growing guilt.
Enzo drew breath to apologize for drifting off during Fiore’s performance. But instead of words he produced a coughing fit. This at least caught Fiore’s notice, though with more distress than Enzo had wished to evoke. Fiore startled up and dropt his zibaldone to pour a glass of water and tilt it to Enzo’s lips. His embrace around Enzo’s shoulders and his palm working between his shoulder blades did as much or more to alleviate his discomfort as the water.
“Your pardon,” Enzo croaked out at last.
Fiore tsk’d and insisted Enzo required no pardon whatsoever. “Besides, you needed a rest. The chirurgeon said so.”
Enzo had a feeling Fiore had cited the chirurgeon’s prescription only for the sake of bolstering his own argument rather than out of any trust in the medical opinion. He appreciated it regardless. Likewise he appreciated Fiore’s hand in his own, Fiore’s fingers combing through his hair, Fiore folding a cool compress against his brow or bathing his face in rosewater or proffering a fresh handkerchief for Enzo to discreetly dispose of what his coughing fit wrought. A thousand small gestures for which Enzo thought he might never express sufficient gratitude, for whenever a creaky thanks escaped his blistered lips, Fiore simply smiled and shrugged and declared his work nothing.
Enzo knew not how to make Fiore understand—for while he hadn’t strictly-speakinginvitedFiore to the hunting lodge, to awaken and find him at his side overjoyed him all the same. Despite the chirurgeon and staff and his own family surrounding him, Enzo had felt wholly alone until Fiore arrived. The brilliance of his smile banished all gloom from the shadowy corners of the ancestral halls. The sweet sound of his voice sent Enzo’s heart soaring. His gentle touch eased all pains. And the gaze of those enormous dark eyes compelled him wherever they might lead.
A sharp contrast to his own grim appearance. How Fiore could smile to see him, Enzo knew not. But he felt glad of it all the same.
Likewise Fiore impressed him by choosing to remain by his side despite the ugliness of his wound and subsequent illness. Most without a medical background would shy from such gory details. Enzo supposed Giovanna would say he hardly had a choice—though Enzo hoped Fiore realized he didn’t need anyone’s permission to leave. Saying as much aloud got him only a raised eyebrow and a smiling assurance from Fiore that he felt content by his side. Which, if it was a mere polite lie, was one well-told regardless.
On an intellectual level, Enzo understood his recovery from his wound had thus far gone very well, and at present he enjoyed greater strength and chance of survival than most would in his circumstances. On all other possible levels, his frustration with his infirmity grew with every passing moment. Touring a mere fraction of the lodge and its grounds had utterly exhausted him. All he had desired in the hunt was to bring Fiore into the wilderness with him and show him everything he’d craved in the capriccio. And now here Fiore was, beside him, in the wilderness—trapped indoors with an invalid. The irony tormented him. He could only begin to imagine how bored Fiore must feel. What tenfold frustrations endured by one condemned to stagnate in the ancestral hall of his convalescent lover.
And yet, while Enzo yearned to grow strong again for Fiore’s sake, Fiore didn’t seem to mind him weak. Though Enzo noted how Fiore worried his perfect lip between his teeth as he glanced over the bandages swathing his chest.
“Ought we to call the chirurgeon back?” Fiore asked, much to Enzo’s astonishment.
How great Fiore’s fears for him must have grown if he would suffer a chirurgeon’s return. Enzo knew not whether he felt more gladness for his own sake or pain for Fiore’s. “Not just yet.”
All tension vanished from Fiore’s frame like a bow unstrung. With a smile he replied, “Then it falls upon me to amuse you.”
Enzo felt quite the reverse. He was the host, after all. It was his responsibility to see to the cares and wants of his guest—if he could get Fiore to admit to any. “What were you drawing?”
Fiore plucked up his zibaldone and handed it over to Enzo for his perusal.
Enzo beheld a sketch of Vittorio as he now lay sprawled across the foot of the bed. Fiore’s rendering, however, showed more truth than the mere reality of the image. It showed the enormity of the hound’s form filling the whole of the page, the cross-hatches depicting not just the grain of the fur but somehow also the sheer weight and strength of the muscles rippling beneath—a mighty creature in perfect repose that nonetheless left no doubt as to his power should he choose to wield it.
“He’s an excellent model,” Fiore mused aloud. “Very patient. And fantastic at holding a pose.”
Enzo glanced up to find Fiore stretched across the bed to scratch the hound behind his floppy ears. Vittorio thumped his tail against the bedclothes.
“Remarkable,” Enzo declared. He wished he knew a better word, one that fitted Fiore’s wondrous ability to conjure images out of the aether.
Fiore scoffed. “Hardly. Though I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“What for?”
“I ought to have asked permission. He’s your hound, after all.”
This did nothing to dispel Enzo’s bewilderment. Nor did it change his answer. “You may draw whatever you like.”
Fiore smiled in a way which said quite plainly that he didn’t believe him. Whilst Enzo wracked his brains to think of what he might say to prove he’d meant every word, Fiore caught his lip between his teeth again and looked very much like he might ask for permission to draw something in particular. Those teeth upon that lip held Enzo suspended upon a precipice; anything Fiore asked for, Enzo would grant him at once.
