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Fiore gave a cheerful wave, which caught Enzo’s eye at last and turned the latter’s casual stroll into an eager trot towards him.
“Not waiting long, I hope?” Enzo asked when he reached Fiore’s side, breathless.
“Not at all,” Fiore replied with an easy smile. It was only a little lie, after all. He wound his arm through the one Enzo proffered him and together they sauntered up the marble steps.
Even with Enzo’s escort, Fiore still half-expected to be turned away at the door. But the attendant who arrived in the entryway at the ringing of the bell merely swept his glance over them both and, after Enzo confirmed his identity with a nod, escorted them back through the shop to an exquisite parlor.
The interior of the shop continued the fashionable themes of cream walls accented with gilded scroll-work. The parlor proved the peak of this particular artistic choice. At their escort’s bidding, Fiore and Enzo seated themselves on the cream-upholstered, cabriole-legged sofa—Enzo guiding Fiore to it with a sweeping gesture of his immense cloak that felt rather like a curtain drawing across a stage, and ensuring Fiore had made himself comfortable before he descended himself, his brawny arm taking up the whole of the sofa’s back and laying across Fiore’s shoulders like a mantle molded for them alone. The attendant laid out a tray of coffee and zaletti, then withdrew to fetch his master. The parlor’s tall windows gave a splendid view of the courtyard garden—and, Fiore supposed, let in ample sunlight for a tailor to work by besides.
To Fiore’s surprise, someone arrived to see them in short order. Two gentlemen of middling age, one walking slightly behind the other with memorandum-book and pencil at the ready, both garbed in suits of exquisite tight-woven wool cut into impeccable fit, because of course how better to advertise their trade than on their own bodies. The quality of the material as much as the sheer quiet confidence of the foremost man told Fiore that no less than the owner of the establishment had arrived to wait upon them. He supposed he oughtn’t feel surprised, considering Enzo’s rank and familial connexions.
The master tailor had the grace to but glance at Fiore’s scarlet sash before continuing his conversation as he would with any other client—or at least, any other client of Enzo’s rank. His assistant, however, seemed torn between gawking and turning up his nose. Fiore resolved to ignore the latter and focus on the former.
“I expect,” Enzo began after the customary greetings were exchanged, “you’ve heard by now of the Grimaldi’s masquerade ball.”
The master tailor confirmed he had and furthermore assured Enzo that he’d enjoyed a great deal of trade as a direct result.
“If you’re not already overtaxed with commissions for that particular event,” Enzo continued, “we would be most grateful if you could make something suitable for my friend.”
The master tailor adeptly disguised any surprise he may have felt to hear Enzo intended to bring a common courtesan to a society soiree. His assistant’s brows, however, flew towards his hairline.
“It would be our pleasure,” said the master tailor. He turned to Fiore. “If the gentleman would be so kind as to stand.”
Fiore arose. Well-accustomed to disrobing before an audience, his hands fell to unwinding the scarlet sash from around his waist. He put a touch less performance into it than usual; while he wasn’t trying to seduce the tailors, he did want to put on a bit of a show for Enzo.
And indeed, as Fiore turned to hand the sash off to the latter, he found the eyes behind Enzo’s mask smouldering with desire.
Enzo accepted the sash from Fiore with as much reverence as if Fiore were handing him the golden fleece. The intensity of his masked gaze bespoke a hunger the likes of which sent delightful shivers down Fiore’s spine.
The master tailor cleared his throat—so subtly Fiore almost didn’t hear him. “If the gentleman will join us behind the screen.”
Fiore followed the slight gesture of the tailor’s chin to the standing screen in the far corner of the room. Upon reflection, he supposed most of the shop’s clientele were probably a touch more modest than himself.
The screen, as Fiore discovered upon slipping behind it alongside the tailor and his assistant, was not mere paper but rather extraordinarily fine silk of an ivory shade that allowed sunlight through as easily as if it were a window of frosted glass. He wondered if Enzo minded being deprived of the view and resolved to make it up to him afterward.
Fiore had stripped for a tailor before. Though not for one who worked in so fine a shop as this. The tailor in question had originally visited Fiore at theKingfisherfor another purpose—the usual purpose. Eventually, however, said tailor had persuaded Fiore to take some of his fee in goods and labor instead of in coin, and so Fiore had disrobed for intimate measuring rather than more straightforward intimacy.
The master tailor at present lingered far less over Fiore’s finer features. Yet he wasn’t precisely perfunctory, either. He showed his trade the care and consideration it well deserved, and by extension, showed Fiore far more respect than he’d braced for. Fiore supposed this was due more to Enzo’s consequence than to any particular regard for a low-born courtesan—even one so handsome as himself.
The assistant’s gaze, however, seemed to catch on a few particular points of Fiore’s anatomy, and a faint tint arose in his cheeks.
Fiore suppressed a smug smile. In another circumstance he might have courted the man’s obvious interest. But the patronage of a tailor’s assistant felt redundant after he’d arrived on the arm of a duke.
The master tailor read out the measurements as he took them. The assistant jotted them down. All told, the work passed in but a few minutes. Then Fiore redressed himself and stepped out from behind the curtain.
To find Enzo with his scarlet sash wrapped tight in his fists.
A smile spread across Fiore’s lips. He returned to Enzo’s side and held out his hand for the sash.
Enzo gave it over without hesitation—but not before he’d delicately unwrapped it from his clenched fingers, smoothed out its wrinkles, and folded it up for him with the same tender reverence.
Fiore felt prouder than he had in some time to tie it about his waist again.
The tailors, meanwhile, had put their heads together in low and earnest discussion marked by the swift scrape of colored chalk across the master tailor’s zibaldone. The sheer number of colors drew Fiore’s notice—and, if he were honest with himself, his jealousy.
“Perhaps,” said the master-tailor, “something like this would suit?”
He turned his zibaldone around for Enzo and Fiore’s inspection as he spoke. The human figures on the page remained little more than pale shadows in the vague shape of men. The clothes, however, were rendered with enviable precision. It showed several possible versions of a full court suit in the latest fashion; long-skirted waistcoat, still-longer-skirted coat, breeches, hose, high-heeled shoes, and tricorn hat—a similar cut and style to Enzo’s own, which made sense, given it came from the hand of the same tailor.
