FIORENZO is a queer fantasy-of-manners romance featuring secret identities, hurt/comfort, and a happily-ever-after – and it’s out TODAY!

To celebrate, please enjoy this exclusive excerpt below.

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The tailor’s preliminary sketches had not done the final suit justice.

With just a week to go before the ball, the whole ensemble was assembled at last. A vision in seafoam green head to foot, a match which Fiore well knew was no small feat. Hard enough to mix the same color twice, much less make it bind the same to two textiles of divers materials. Yet one would be hard-pressed to find the hair’s-breadth of difference between the cool-handed wool coat and the gleaming satin breeches and waistcoat. More remarkable still was how the leather of both the hat and shoes came to hold the same soft lagoon-green shade. The skillfully-applied gilding of the hat’s trim and the shoes’ heels likewise matched the gold filigree edging the hems of the wool coat. The leather itself was so smooth as to appear molded of porcelain, sleek to the touch on the outside and suede smooth as butter within.

All together, they looked, in a word…

“Perfect,” Fiore declared.

A soft sigh cut through the stark silence of the tailor’s parlor. Fiore tore his gaze away from the masterpiece to regard the cluster of men who’d held their collective breath whilst awaiting his opinion. Several assistants and twice as many apprentices had gathered behind the master tailor himself, who stood beside Enzo with his hands clasped behind his back. What Enzo thought of Fiore’s new ensemble remained hidden beneath his bauta mask—for the moment, at least.

The master tailor retained more poise than his assistants or apprentices. He smiled and gestured to the folding screen in the back corner of the parlor. “If you’d care to try it on, signore…?”

Fiore very much desired to do so, indeed. He’d had regular fittings as the tailor’s work had progressed. But never before had he held the whole ensemble complete in his grasp. The work of a moment saw it all folded up in his arms and secreted away with him behind the folding screen. Then he turned his focus to divesting himself of his everyday garments.

No sooner had he untied his scarlet sash, however, than he heard the master tailor’s voice again from the other side of the screen.

“If you require assistance, signore, my apprentices would be happy to guide you.”

Fiore paused with his sash suspended between his hands. The master tailor’s tone had retained its well-practiced deference throughout the offer. And yet it rang in Fiore’s ears with a timbre that seemed determined to strike his pride. While he had some hesitance about handling finery, he thought he’d hidden it from his audience; the conservatorio had trained him well for that, if nothing else. Furthermore, even if he hadn’t already undergone several fittings in this very shop prior to this moment, the plain shape of the garments—shirt, waistcoat, breeches, stockings—were precisely like his own everyday garb. He obviously knew how to dress himself.

Which gave the tailor’s offer a distinct undercurrent of something Fiore didn’t like.

Regardless if the tailor proved sincere or false, Fiore’s answer remained the same. He didn’t bother to disguise his self-satisfied smile as he poked his head out from behind the screen. The master tailor and all his assistants and apprentices watched him with bated breath. But Fiore had eyes for Enzo alone.

“Would you mind helping me?” Fiore asked when his gaze locked with Enzo’s beneath the mask.

The collective surprise of the tailor’s apprentices sang in Fiore’s blood like wine. The assistants kept their poise a little better. The master tailor, if he realized his mis-step at all, showed not a hint of it in his face.

And as for Enzo himself, he simply perked up and strode to join Fiore behind the screen.

The duke’s consent to act as valet to a mere courtesan did not go unnoticed in the shop. Fiore drank in as much of his audience’s astonishment as he could—guzzled it, really—before he withdrew with Enzo.

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FIORENZO is a queer fantasy-of-manners romance featuring secret identities, hurt/comfort, and a happily-ever-after – out now wherever fine books are found!

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