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Enzo bowed to them both. “Your pardon.”
The cavaliere granted it at once and withdrew.
Fiore twined his arm into the crook of Enzo’s before he quite realized what he was doing. Enzo glanced down in surprise but seemed by no means displeased by this. Fiore smiled up at him and pretended it was his intention rather than mere instinct.
“What did you think of him?” Enzo asked in a low tone as he led Fiore away from the dance.
“Charming enough,” Fiore admitted. “In his own way.”
It didn’t sound anywhere near convincing.
If Enzo noticed, he had the grace to pretend otherwise. “Shall I find you another?”
Fiore hesitated. His heart threw itself against his ribs. He’d always sought whatever he wanted with ease and assurance. Now, however, the thought of possible failure in this venture brought his anxiety to a hitherto unforeseen peak. And yet if he didn’t ask, he would know himself as the worst sort of coward to ever grace Halcyon’s canals. So he swallowed his heart down out of his throat and replied, “I think I have one in mind already.”
“Oh?” Again, Enzo seemed astonished but not unpleasantly so.
Before Enzo could offer to escort him to his intended partner or anything else, Fiore summoned all his remaining courage and slipped his arm out of Enzo’s grasp to make way for an elegant bow.
“May I have this dance?” Fiore asked, reining in his flailing nerves to keep his voice level.
Just to prove to himself that one dance was the same as all the others. To show beyond a doubt that all gentlemen were alike. To give himself a taste of what he thought he wanted so he could know that it wasn’t half so good as he supposed it would be.
Enzo gave an astonished blink.
Fiore forced his smile not to tremble.
Another silent moment passed between them, in which all Fiore’s hopes hung suspended. Then Enzo returned his bow.
“As you wish,” Enzo murmured in the tone of one who hardly believed in his own good fortune.
Fiore could barely believe it himself.
It seemed as though they floated rather than strode onto the dance floor. Enzo laid his palm on Fiore’s shoulder, relinquishing the other to Fiore’s grasp. His hands felt warm, despite the layers of linen and satin between their flesh, warmer even than the incredible heat of the ballroom. Wherever Enzo touched him seemed to vibrate like a plucked lute string. His very blood sang.
The real music began. Enzo withdrew, inviting Fiore into his rightful place.
And Fiore dared to join him.
The whole ballroom fell away. It was just the two of them, now—just as it’d been when they’d practiced aboard theKingfisher. Fiore relearned the intricacies of Enzo’s body, just as he’d done on deck and below as well, in his own quarters, and again further back at Wolf’s Head when Enzo had first fully revealed himself, and when Fiore had first beheld Enzo’s face in the throes of ecstasy, and then further back still, to the barest glimpses he’d had of a form he’d grown far too fond of, when the mask had first fallen from his face whilst Fiore lay in his sickbed, and before that, the very first night, when Fiore knew only a dark shadow whose grace belied his size and strength. And now, despite looming over him, Fiore could lead Enzo through his paces as easily as a docile steed, as eager to please as any hound, and the utterly besotted look in his dark eyes was but the mirror image of Fiore’s own feeling. Fiore hadn’t truly enjoyed a single dance this evening. Not like this. And then—
The lift.
Enzo’s thigh slid beneath his own. Raised him up. Fiore leapt to meet it. They spun together. His heart flew up beyond his body to join the divine frescoes overhead.
And again, it never seemed to come down.
He alighted on the floor with a grace that belied his new heels. Enzo’s masked gaze smiled down at him. His pulse fluttered in his throat.
Fiore could deny his heart no longer.
And yet the thought of indulging it terrified him.
The music ceased all too soon. Enzo twined their arms together. They withdrew from the dance floor, withdrew from the ballroom entirely, all the way to the banquet hall and its fountains of wine. Enzo plucked up another sparkling goblet and offered it to him. Fiore shook his head. He didn’t want Enzo to see how his fingers trembled.
“Another dance from your card?” Enzo suggested.
Fiore wondered at how he could even think of the card after a dance like that. But the smile in Enzo’s voice didn’t reach his eyes. And in those eyes Fiore saw something like what he’d glimpsed whilst dancing with the cavaliere. It sobered him enough to speak. “I’ve already made my choice.”
