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“My bauta, as you call him, cannot discard me if he never has me,” Fiore insisted. He didn’t add, at least not aloud,And I can never lose him if I never had him.“Which is why I seek an elderly patron. Or at least middling-aged. I need never know the indignity of being thrown away if he drops off before I grow too old for his taste.”
“So you object to your bauta as your patron merely because he is too young for you.”
“Yes,” Fiore sighed, half-irritation and half-relief. He tried not to think on what Enzo had said about plying his suit again. “You understand at last.”
“Of course,” Artemisia replied in her cavaliere tone. “You’re so determined not to let him break your heart that you’ve decided to break it yourself.”
Fiore’s intended retort died on his tongue.
~
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Fiorenzo Scaevola, Duke of Drakehaven,” the herald declared. He paused and shot a glance at Fiore that swept him up and down with a faint hint of confusion and a dash of suspicion, before he continued, “And consort.”
Fiore supposed the title fit him well enough. It leant an air of mystery to his entrance on Enzo’s arm, which he appreciated. Particularly as scores of aristocratic heads whirled towards them at the sound of Enzo’s title. Fans fluttered up to cover mouths feverishly whispering to each other.
Enzo laid a reassuring hand on Fiore’s arm linked with his own and strode forward. The crowd gathered in the formal entryway of Ca’ Grimaldi parted before them like the waves before a ship’s prow.
The gondola ride from theKingfisherto the palazzo had calmed Fiore’s nerves somewhat. Or rather, having Enzo all to himself within the felze had. The firm clasp of their entwined arms seemed to imbue Fiore with some of Enzo’s strength. But all that calm had vanished as they neared the palazzo itself and Fiore saw through the lattice just how many other vessels had gathered in tightly-controlled chaos to jostle for entry to the portico.
Now that they’d entered Ca’ Grimaldi proper at last, Fiore’s heart had crawled fully into his throat. He’d tried to tell himself no one would notice him amongst the throng—much less single him out as an impostor. Unfortunately all eyes had settled upon him and Enzo. Fiore could only imagine how his death-grip discomfited Enzo’s arm.
“Are these sort of things always so crowded?” Fiore murmured into Enzo’s ear.
“I suspect,” Enzo whispered back, “that the guest list grew considerably once the hosts secured the notorious dueling duke’s attendance.”
Fiore’s fixed smile became a true one despite himself. He beheld it reflected in Enzo’s masked eyes.
It became difficult to tell, as they moved through the crowd, whether he or Enzo caught the more notice. This was, after all, the first instance of the dueling duke appearing in society since he gained his notoriety. But then again, if the gazes lingering on Fiore were any indication, whatever rumors had surrounded the dueling duke in shadowy intrigue had evidently not included a consort. Or at least not one of Fiore’s particular make.
And yet Enzo didn’t seem to feel the eyes as Fiore did.
Fiore recalled the experience of donning Enzo’s bauta mask for himself—to be perceived without being perceived. Even so, he felt as though he could perceive Enzo as if the mask weren’t even there. He wished he’d gone for the bauta himself rather than a mere domino, but he’d wanted his mouth to be seen by potential suitors so they might yearn to kiss it. If they could see only his lips then said lips would linger in their thoughts long after the whole of him had vanished back into the crowd.
The entryway proved but a fraction of the ball’s splendor as Enzo led Fiore into the banquet hall. Provisions enough to satisfy the whole of Halcyon’s navy were laid out across a vast round table. Oysters encircled the mighty centerpiece; a life-sized hippocampus sculpted from butter by a hand almost as skillful as Artemisia’s.
Nerves had precluded Fiore’s breakfast. He hardly noticed hunger pangs amidst the butterflies fluttering in his stomach. Only his wish not to make a fool of himself by wolfing down food at the ball’s banquet could persuade him to nibble at dinner aboard theKingfisher. Even so it hadn’t settled.
Wine, however, he thought might do the trick. The banquet had many on offer, in every shade from reds deeper and darker than the blood in his own veins to vivacious sparkling whites that glittered to rival the resplendent crystal chandeliers overhead. The latter suited his palate. He didn’t have to ask; a glance sufficed to send Enzo to retrieve a glass on his behalf. Fiore determined not to let his gallantry go unrewarded and told him so with another look—though how he took it one could hardly tell beneath the mask. Yet even amidst the ball’s splendor Fiore had to admire the hollow-stemmed goblet, which he fancied would feel altogether weightless in his fingers were it not for the wine. The first sip began with the brightness of limonata and lingered with sweet almond. It sufficed to settle Fiore’s nerves. He nodded to Enzo, and together they pressed on.
Scores of attendees had lingered in the entryway and the banquet hall. The ballroom seemed to hold hundreds more. Fiore, determined not to gawk at the city’s richest splendors like the son-of-shepherds he was, forced himself not to crane his neck upwards to stare at the gilded domed ceiling or its magnificent fresco depicting youthful Achilles astride Chiron’s back.
Instead he looked out over the crowd. He skillfully avoided any one person’s gaze using the old performer’s trick of fixing his own on a point on the wall over everyone’s heads so each individual in the crowd felt he was but a glance away from meeting their eye. He’d learnt to do so in the conservatorio to combat stage fright—and this was after all a kind of performance.
In a surreptitious gesture that would’ve done any pickpocket proud, Enzo slipped Fiore an embossed card. It was not a script but rather a cast, withSignor Fioreprinted across the top and a dozen titled gentlemen’s names handwritten beneath. It took him a second glance to recognize what he’d only heard of in gossip columns and stories and never held in his hand until now; a dance card.
“How is it you’ve already compiled a list?” Fiore wondered. Enzo had hardly left his side, save for the mere moments required to procure the wine, and if he’d filled out a dance card in so brief a span as that then he was nothing short of a magician.
“I asked our host to assist me beforehand,” Enzo answered, his masked smile evident in his voice.
“And what did you tell her?”
“The truth.” Enzo shrugged. “That I had a particular friend I wished to introduce into the wider society of eligible gentlemen.”
Fiore supposed that safe enough. “Anything for the duke’s happiness.”
Enzo made a queer humming noise that Fiore had come to understand meant he demurred. “Hardly an imposition for her, as she possessed a full list of her guests and knew which might be interested in making an offer to a handsome and talented man.”
