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“Forgive me.” The deep bass of Enzo’s voice rumbling up from his ribcage resonated through Fiore’s skull pressed against it. “I ought to have mentioned. While one comes down on the heel in walking, in dancing one ought to balance on the balls of one’s feet.”
Fiore righted himself—with Enzo’s assistance—and forced a smile over his humiliation. Again he reflected how this would be a wonderful opportunity for a kiss were it not for Enzo’s mask and their judgmental audience. Serafina’s music had ceased. He expected her laughter to fill the silence. Yet, somehow, she withheld what must have been overwhelming glee at his folly. Perhaps she didn’t wish to anger the duke.
“If we may continue?” Enzo enquired of Serafina over Fiore’s head.
Fiore didn’t dare look at her.
The music resumed. Fiore took a tentative step, balancing on the balls of his feet as Enzo had instructed. He did not fall.
Again Enzo retreated. Again Fiore advanced. But as he swept in to fill the lack, only for Enzo to withdraw, Fiore realized it was no such thing. Enzo did not flee from him. Rather, Enzo made way for him, inviting him to occupy the space he once held but a moment ago, continually welcoming him into his arms as he’d so oft welcomed him into his body, showing Fiore over and over how eager he felt to draw him into his life. And he drew very near indeed—near enough to feel the warmth of Enzo’s heaving chest; near enough for their stockinged calves to brush against each other as they tangled and untangled like they had so oft before amidst the bedclothes; near enough to behold the smiling gleam in his tender gaze beneath the bauta mask. They twirled across the deck in the tentative embrace demanded by the dance. The music seemed to bear them up and swirl them ‘round in its irresistible current.
Only when the song ended did Fiore recall they had an audience.
The spell broke. Their steps halted. Before he could prevent himself from revealing his hand, Fiore’s head whipped ‘round to regard those who surrounded them. He couldn’t quite read Corelli or her sons beyond how their faces bore no trace of the ridicule he’d expected. And a glance at Serafina showed, to his astonishment, that she smiled without the glint of mockery in her gaze. He returned to Enzo to find his dark smiling gaze cast down to meet his own.
“Another?” Enzo asked, his voice as gentle as his touch.
Fiore couldn’t keep the grin from growing across his face as he replied, “Of course.”
Yet Enzo hesitated. “If you feel up to it, I had thought we might try something more.”
Fiore raised his brows.
“A lift,” Enzo explained. “It’s become quite fashionable in ballroom circles.”
“No doubt taken from the taverns,” Fiore mused aloud. The dance steps Enzo had taught him thus far felt familiar for a reason; fashion travelled upwards as well as down, all the moreso when it came to music.
This seemed to surprise Enzo. “You’ve done it before, then?”
“Now and again,” Fiore confessed with an easy smile.
“You shouldn’t even attempt to lift me now,” Enzo replied, more adamant than Fiore had ever heard him before.
Fiore wondered if he ought to feel offended that Enzo presumed him so weak—even as his rational mind pieced together his own recent injuries and the stark disparity in the size of his and Enzo’s respective frames.
“For another year, at least,” Enzo continued. “Lest your abdominal wall rupture and your entrails hernia beneath the skin.”
Fiore understood him to mean an errant lift might burst his guts. If that were the case, however… “What ofyourwound?”
“There are bones as well as muscle holding the lungs and heart in place. At worst I would suffer a minor tear. Given the lift is performed with the leg moreso than the arm, I think it unlikely.”
Fiore supposed Enzo knew his own body better. And had his medical education besides.
“Traditionally it is the leader rather than the follower who performs the lift,” Enzo admitted. “But I think we might bend the rule between us, if you’re willing.”
Despite his bruised pride, the notion sent a thrill through Fiore’s heartstrings. “I’d be delighted.”
Enzo raised his head to regard Serafina beyond. “Another furlana, an’ it so please you?”
She nodded with a poorly-suppressed smile and set bow to string again.
Their dance resumed. Again Enzo drew him in to a whirling embrace, his body flowing where’er Fiore led, every step in perfect harmony. But faster now, and the frantic controlled chaos of Serafina’s bow brought them nearer with every slash to the crescendo of the piece. First the leaps—one, two, three, all landing with precision despite Fiore’s new heels, for which he thought he deserved some manner of applause—and then a final capriole by Fiore alone, where at the crest of his wave he felt Enzo’s thigh arise beneath him to meet his own, drawing him up and spinning him ‘round in Enzo’s grasp with such grace he felt as if he flew. For three quarters of a turn he hung suspended like the kingfisher coasting over the lagoon. Then came the descent, his feet alighting on the deck with an ease that belied the recent vintage of his heels. Enzo’s arms caught him in the most willing snare. Together they twirled out the remainder of their momentum. As they slowed to a natural halt, so too did Fiore’s eyes find their natural rest meeting Enzo’s masked gaze, shining down upon him with infinite admiration in its dark depths.
Fiore had landed safe and sound in Enzo’s embrace.
His heart, however, never came down.
~
