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Fiore had never worn lace before; had only touched it when peeling it off of Enzo. Now, with his own new shirt in hand, he found its lace cuffs as light and ebullient and delicate as seafoam. He knew well the hundreds of hours that went into tatting something so effervescent. He held too much respect for the lace-maker’s craft to treat the resulting garment with anything less than reverence.
The silk stockings were likewise a hitherto-unknown luxury. He wore his own woolen stockings, true enough, and had beheld and felt the silk variety on Enzo’s beautifully-turned calves. But never before had they graced his own flesh. His anticipation, eager though it was, didn’t begin to equal the thrill he felt when Enzo knelt in front of him and held out the stocking for him to step into. And it seemed Enzo had a thrill of his own, given his lingering caress as he smoothed the silk over Fiore’s calves. To say nothing of how tenderly his fingertips tied the garters over Fiore’s knees. The tailor had provided seafoam green silk ribbons embroidered with golden scales to match the ensemble, which Fiore greatly admired, but he couldn’t help wondering at how it might feel to wear an intimate garment embroidered in Enzo’s own peculiar chirurgical stitch.
The thrill continued as Enzo tightened the laces on the back of his drawers and again after he slipped on the satin breeches, which required not just the tightening of laces behind but also the fastening of buttons at the knee, and for that Enzo knelt once more, making Fiore’s heart flutter to new heights. It increased as Enzo kissed the crown of his silk-clad foot, as a commoner would kiss the knuckles of a prince, before slipping on his heels.
Then there was the waistcoat—with tenfold the buttons of Fiore’s everyday garment and whereupon Enzo wielded the buttonhook with all the dexterity expected of a chirurgeon—and the coat proper. Enzo slipped and smoothed it onto Fiore’s shoulders in a gesture as intimate as any embrace. No less so was the way he tied the pristine cravat around Fiore’s throat.
At last Enzo withdrew, presumably to admire his handiwork. What wonder he found there shone in his masked gaze. He stepped aside, out of the path between Fiore and the standing mirror behind the screen.
And Fiore beheld a masterpiece.
However beautiful it’d been to imagine his suit—however more beautiful to behold the finished work—it proved still more beautiful to see it displayed on the very body it’d been molded for and to feel against his own skin all its deliciously indulgent weaves. He’d never seen himself so handsome. The hand-mirror he kept in his quarters aboard theKingfisherhardly sufficed to show him his own face. The luxury of standing before a full-length mirror alone was worth the tailor’s price.
The shop did not have the luxury of privacy, however, which Fiore thought a shame. He could feel Enzo’s desire for him even at arm’s length. More than ever before Fiore wished Enzo needn’t wear the bauta mask. He wanted to know precisely how Enzo felt about the results of his investment. But with the mask concealing all save Enzo’s eyes, there remained only one way for him to know.
“Well?” Fiore asked him. “How do I look?”
~
Enzo could hardly speak.
Fiore always looked impossibly handsome. Now, however, in the bright warmth of the tailor’s shop, scarcely hidden behind a sheer paper screen, he looked resplendent.
Not because his clothes matched his natural beauty. None ever could. His daily garb was made gorgeous by his presence in it, and even his new attire—however skillfully made and of however fine material—was outshone by his smile alone.
But that very smile now shining on Fiore’s handsome, sun-kissed features showed just how well he loved the suit. And his happiness made him look more magnificent than any other gentleman, from courtier to king, could possibly appear in any finery. His sheer radiance made the suit brilliant. Enzo knew not how to begin to explain it aloud.
And all the while Fiore gazed up at him with those perfect lips spread in the most beautiful smile in all the world. He had asked such a simple question. Enzo could hardly refuse him an answer. Mindful of the master tailor and the half-dozen assistants and apprentices besides just beyond the sheer screen, he stepped in to deliver it, near enough to enfold Fiore in his arms as he so dearly wished but hardly dared.
“To think,” Enzo murmured. “All this trouble to put it on you… and now all I wish to do is tear it off.”
It was not at all what Enzo had intended to say. But it was true regardless. Flames engulfed his face beneath his mask.
Fiore grinned.
Then he spun—the skirts of his coat unfurling like a blossoming rose—and stepped out from behind the screen to bow to the master tailor. Enzo hastened to follow him.
“It’s magnificent,” Fiore declared. “Better than I might have dreamed. I cannot thank you enough.”
From another’s mouth the words could hardly have sounded so sincere. Yet Fiore made them ring with truth.
Enzo’s heart warmed to think on the small part he’d played in realizing Fiore’s wildest dreams. His own thanks to the tailors proved softer and more succinct but no less sincere.
The master tailor at least seemed to realize this. The infinitesimally small smile that appeared on his face was more than Enzo had ever seen from him in all their long acquaintance. Still his appraising eye swept Fiore up and down.
“A few adjustments, if you will permit, signore,” he said.
Fiore granted him this with evident gladness. Even an artist’s dissatisfaction with his masterpiece could not dull his shine.
Enzo forced himself to sit in still and silent patience on the settee whilst he watched the master tailor flit over Fiore with pins and tape. The attention of all present fixed on Fiore. Which was just as well, because the flames that had sparked in Enzo’s face had since spread throughout his entire body. If the tailor dallied much longer they would consume him altogether.
Even when the tailor declared himself satisfied at last, Enzo found no relief—for that meant Fiore must divest himself of his finery, and again he asked for Enzo’s particular assistance. As beautiful as the raiments appeared on Fiore’s form, they looked still more beautiful as they were stripped away. Enzo’s hands had never trembled with a scalpel in their grasp, yet they shivered to slip the silk and satin from Fiore’s skin. He could do nothing about it, nor about the coy glances and bitten-back smiles Fiore continually tossed his way. While the tailors couldn’t see anything behind the screen, they could certainly hear everything and absolutely knew that both Enzo and Fiore were there. Doubtless so many of them had gathered specifically with the hope of seeing or overhearing something salacious between the duke and his courtesan. Tantalus himself could suffer no more than Enzo did now with Fiore beneath his fingertips yet out of his reach. The rote recitation of alchemical formulae in his mind kept Enzo’s breeches presentable but only just. And Fiore himself, as Enzo could well perceive when green satin was swapped out for chestnut wool, felt no less inspired by their present predicament.
Finally they returned Fiore to decency and re-emerged from behind the screen. Enzo fell back on formal etiquette to finalize matters with the tailor—all-too-aware of Fiore waiting in the corner of his eye, the perfect portrait of patient innocence. Somehow they kept their thwarted desires contained long enough to depart the shop with some semblance of dignity remaining.
“A brisk walk back to theKingfisher?” Fiore suggested the moment the door shut behind them. His tone conveyed light indifference but the breathless nature of the words themselves belied his own desperation.
Enzo felt he might die if they waited another moment, never mind the minutes it would take to return to Fiore’s quarters. However, unlike Fiore, he hadn’t arrived at the tailor’s shop on foot.
