Page 40 of Fiorenzo

“Do you know,” he ventured, knowing even as he dropt his gaze and fiddled with his empty coffee cup that he’d failed to sound casual enough to fool her, “which noble house’s crest has a dragon?”

The question twisted his already-aching entrails. What he ought to do was ask Enzo himself. But that would risk driving Enzo away. He only just glimpsed his face. How dare he presume to ask for his family name? And again, that assumed the crest on the silverware he brought to Fiore’s quarters belonged to his own house. Even if it weren’t stolen, it might have been pawned or seized in a bankruptcy settlement. Yet still it turned Fiore’s stomach to ask behind Enzo’s back.

Artemisia served him a blank look. “Many. The city was founded by a dragon. All who wish to conjure the illusion of antiquity have woven it into their heraldry.”

This was not so helpful an answer as Fiore might have wished. He tried again. “Any who favor a black dragon?”

“Sable,” she corrected him. “And again—several.”

Fiore sipped his second cup of coffee.

Artemisia studied him all the while. At length, she continued. “The number of young gentlemen belonging to aristocratic houses and bearing dueling scars as you describe is narrowed further if their family crest includes a sable dragon. But it does not yet dwindle to one.”

Fiore supposed that’d been rather too much to hope for.

~

CHAPTER TEN

“It’s refreshing, isn’t it?” Giovanna asked. She rode beside Enzo in the hunt, both of them having ventured a little off the beaten track together whilst keeping the rest of the party—hounds, horses, and hunters alike, including Giovanna’s husband and her personal retinue numbering a full score—within sight between the trees. “Getting out into the wilderness and away from the city.”

In any other year, Enzo might have easily agreed with his sister. The vernal hunt in Diana’s honor was perhaps his favorite of the ancient rites his family enacted. They rode through the darkest hollows of the forest surrounding the mountainside estate on the trail of the mightiest stag the season had to offer. He sat astride his favorite steed, Fabio, and his faithful Vittorio trotted along beside him. To say nothing of the human company, which included the sister who remained fond of him rather than furious.

This year, however, he’d found one particular charm in the city which the countryside lacked.

“It’s nice,” he told Giovanna, because it would be rude not to reply, and frankly she deserved better given all she’d put up with from him since he’d left university.

And it was nice, after all. He liked riding and missed it when he dwelled in the city. He liked the mountainous forest and all its greenery and creatures. Gazing upon it now, however, he saw only the inspirations for the capricci Fiore had admired in the painter’s studio. How he longed to return that capering faun to his natural habitat and show Fiore the breathtaking reality responsible for his fantasy.

But Giovanna wasn’t letting him off so easily today. With the same sweet smile as she ever cast upon him, she continued. “Will you be joining us at Bluecliffe for the summer? Or will you linger here?”

By here, she meant Wolf’s Head—the family’s ancestral hunting lodge from whence the ritual hunt always commenced. The implication that she and by extension Lucrezia might permit him to remain and live alone for a few weeks or perhaps even months boded well. Some of their trust in him had returned at last.

And yet, to linger at Wolf’s Head was not his desire. Gods willing, their trust might extend a little further.

Enzo drew in a steadying breath and replied, “I thought I might remain in the city.”

A marked pause ensued. Enzo didn’t dare look to Giovanna to see how she took his suggestion. He kept his eyes on the path ahead, the silence broken only by their horses’ hooves thudding steadily through the undergrowth.

At length, she ventured, “For what purpose?”

She’d kept her voice light, indicating curiosity rather than suspicion. Enzo appreciated the difference.

Still, he couldn’t quite meet her gaze as he answered her. “I’ve made a friend.”

Another pause ensued. Giovanna doubtless waited for him to say more. He waited for her to ask again and won out.

“Is this,” Giovanna enquired, more teasing than accusatory, and even then hardly teasing, “the same ‘friend’ for whom you left me at the opera?”

“…Yes,” Enzo admitted. His glance met hers at last.

Giovanna didn’t appear in the least slighted. Instead, a gleam of intrigue lit her eyes. Enzo wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.

“And is this,” she continued, “the same ‘friend’ with whom you’ve spent the last month and a half?”

Now they trod upon dangerous territory. Carlotta reported to Lucrezia, not Giovanna. So Giovanna hadn’t heard the exact particulars of his liaisons from that quarter. But sharing Ca’ Scaevola with him as she did, she could hardly escape noticing his absence from the family halls, even with allowances for his solitary habits. The fortnight of missed fencing lessons, if nothing else, must have attracted her attention.

He knew not how she’d react to Fiore. She had a romantic streak, as evidenced by her passion for her husband. But while Antonio had worked as her mere steward before their marriage elevated him to the title of duke-consort, as a viscount he’d still ranked above any courtesan.

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