#cosimo;

@cosimoidemedici

At the hour of High Mass, a crowd flows toward the vestibule of the royal chapel to pray for their dead and the sick, and beg the lord for His blessing, half-repentant, half-beseeching His pardon and forgiveness, and she attends it with him at her side, attired in a black, velvet dress with rows of embroidered patterns set in designs with innumerable small diamonds, and a bejewelled black veil that spills over her long curls. There is no music except when the choir sings, and people often toss their gaze toward them, but she cares little for them; in the mid of a long sermon on the love of God, she opens her book of hours and peels a collection of pages back until she finds an image of the Annunciation--there she has written a passage from the Corinthians in her own hand, and now, she inscribes a promise, for him.

❛ Love suffereth long; it is bountiful. Love envieth not. Love doth not boast itself. It is not puffed up. It doth no uncomely thing. It seeketh not her own thing; it is not provoked to anger. It thinketh no evil. It rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. It suffereth all things. It believeth all things. It hopeth all things. It endureth all things. ❜

Three days pass, and she finds herself embodying the excitement she feels in something of an ethereal glow; all seems well; she has come to believe, too, that he cannot fathom leaving her now--or she, him, which does much to improve her general mood. She has not lain with him in such long a time now, she thinks, for her lion has been kept occupied elsewhere--but tonight, the likelihood that she can steal him away from his duties for a short time appears doable; for she does not want him to tire of her-- and she, too, misses him dearly; she wants to stir him a little, to excite him-- he is a passionate man, she knows, and she loves toying with him; it thrills her. At nightfall, she leaves her mother’s side, dressed in a red dress edged in lace and an over-gown of black silk, lined throughout with black taffeta with wide bands of velvet down the fronts and round the hem--a lavish gift from him.

He waits for him in the antechamber of his rooms, in the mid of the shadows that pour over the floor and the high ceiling with a continual shift and play, with the starlight licking at the pale skin of her neck and cheeks--he will not be long now; a veil of silver-grey vapor spills through the windows, and the fire that flickers in the fireplace is low and thick; for she has dismissed his servants for the night. He comes, and she steals a long, half-sultry, half-coquettish glance at him, with quite a self-possessed, playful air, over the peak of her shoulder; she waits until he takes a step toward her to slip deeper into the shadows, taunting him; if he speaks, she says nothing; her body speaks for her: the delicate arc of her back, the slow, enticing glimmer in her gaze--her liquid eyes, that she well knows how to play, are most attractive in the flicker of the starlight, too. “--come,” she whispers in a low drawl, the flash of a fire in her eyes from under long, curled, dark eyelashes as she turns and slips toward his room-- sweet-scented and with a voluptuous motion in her hips-- letting her over-gown slip off her shoulders as she goes; she passes in and out of the strips of moonlight, always just out of reach just as she unlaces a string of ribbons of her bodice-- she gives him of that appealing fruit they have long denied themselves of late, appealing flashes of her neckline; the swell of her breasts, her fair neck framed by her long curls; there are few differences, at the present, between her and a cat (the sleek nature, the bend of her figure, the inviting darkness of her presentation). Everything is positively feline--and it is all for him, too, to whet his appetite; for was he not born on a day such as this, all those years before her?  

Breathless and flushed with joy, she collects the contract, and her smile hastens in a spasm of rapture, her face glowing with a rosy blush; relief washes over her, for she is absorbed in ecstatic delight, exhilarated and most pleased and satisfied at her triumph: she is itching to deliver the contract to Cosimo--how she longs to please him! How she hungers for his approval; for she craves to exist in a world where he thrives and garners vast amounts of power over Lyttelton and his whore, and longs for nothing more than for him to remove that crown from his head-- an outcome she desires above all others.  She puts on a blue dress and wears her hair in a mass of long, loose curls around her neck, colors her fleshly mouth red and adorns her wrist with a bracelet he has given to her; she ties a red, silk ribbon around the taut apex of her thigh and slips the neatly folded paper between the lace-trimmed ribbon and her skin, and then, slips out of her room in search of him, her pulse sputtering--glowing and radiant, she is delirious with joy, her eyes glimmering with a particular spark, her smile, charming when she talks to a man of his guard; he is dining with his Prime Minister, she is told, for his guards are aware of their relationship and dare not to lie to her or send her away.

She opens the door, slow and soundlessly, and Dorian catches her gaze over the peak of Cosimo’s shoulder while he swallows a mouthful of meat, a little frown creasing his brow, but she lifts her finger to touch her curvy mouth, silently beseeching him to keep his silence, and he looks away. Pleased, she saunters toward their table, bends to the waist-- her dress sweeping around her legs, a mass of laces and silk-- and dips her mouth to kiss the back of Cosimo’s neck, a slow, slick kiss that she draws to his ear at her leisure,  hoping to surprise him.

“I request an audience with His Royal Highness.” she whispers, peppering his cheek his sweet little kisses, her smile growing softer at the sight of him, and Dorian observes them, holding an eyebrow aloft.

The spectacular candle-lit ballroom is flowing with guests, in heavy, elaborate costumes -- a rich display of their wealth-- lavish and dripping with splendor. A formation dance is in progress, the pulse of the music pouring a minor key in three-quarter time; large formations of pairs perform elaborately choreographed moves, and then, dissolve from one formation into another, waltz about with finesse, and break, and scatter, and form again, dancing down to the end of the set, and then, they mile about, seeking out their partners for the next set. The buffets are lavish and the wine is being poured in abundance--a splendiferous dinner. The scent of flowers and sour wine is in the air through the lush candles that are sprawled across the tables and windowsills,  displaying the ballroom’s grand, pillared walls and high ceilings, a collection of light pouring over stone and marble from the chandeliers.

Amphelice is sat with Rose, her stomach coiled and tight with a pool of tensions, her mind abuzz with the potential the night holds; she glances at Sir Nicholas and every sinew in her body tightens, her blood thick with vast amounts of guilt and tension; her lashes flick over her cheekbones, and she exchanges a meaningful glance with Annabelle, offering a smile over the glimmer of the candles. Cosimo and his wife are sat at their table, too, an endless source of tension, and she is grappling with her self-restraint, for she is thoroughly aware of his general presence, and the looks Ophelia is casting toward her direction-- however subtle-- are heavy and thick with bitterness and, perhaps, jealousy, too. For all intents and purposes, she has spent a significant amount of time glamming herself up for the night, for she knows his wife is sat with him, ever present at his side, and comparisons will be unavoidable; she longs to appear vastly prettier than his wife, to stir him and please his eye; in spite of the tension that is burning at the base of her spine, she appears collected, too, her demeanor pleasant and proper, her face lit with tilting smiles, her cheeks rosy. She is wearing a long dress, its laces loose and light, drifting about her legs like clouds, offering daring flashes of her thighs, her skin, pearl-white and silken. Beneath her skirts, she is wearing delicate white silk stockings clocked with pale pink. Her hair is charming, too, a mass of loose, inviting curls, seamless and adorned with strings of pearl drops--overall, she is glowing, gold and ivory, a sight to behold.  Occasionally, she allows herself to toss a sidelong glance at Cosimo, and every time she catches his gaze, she burns with a melting thrill that travels all the way to her toes, her looks from under her long lashes a blatant invitation.

She is besieged with requests to dance, too--her and Rose. By every rule of proper etiquette, she can not refuse a man a dance, unless she is to give up dancing for the rest of the night entirely. She has never, from the night of her coming-out ball, ever sat out a dance at a ball, and it is a distraction from the stress that is clotting her lower stomach. She dances with Chevalier d'Éon, a proper gentleman in manner and looks, who appears quite taken with the splendor of her eyes-- blue flecked with green--, the swell of her mouth, looking at her with such heartfelt admiration that makes servants giggle and whisper words, and then, she returns to the table, catching Rose’s arm as she slips from her dance partner too, the arc of her delicate back straight and steeping in poise; a Viscount approaches the table to offer his greetings, and lingers, ogling Rose’s luscious cleavage and Amphelice, too, a gleam in his eye--he smiles and chatters, teasing her with prods and flirtations, with pokes and suggestive winks, until it is all she can do not to slap him across the face-- a lecher, leering at her, and Rose, too, unwilling to understand her (--their) rejection of him. He asks her to dance, and she thinks of lying, and saying that she is already engaged, but if she is left without a partner, she will never survive the shame. Nevertheless, she lies with a forced smile, and he turns to Rose with a flourish to ask her to dance with him, his gaze drawn to her mouth. Amphelice holds her thigh under the table and offers another practiced smile with ease. “Alas, you may not,my Lord. She has no dances to spare, for she, too, has been claimed.” she offers, and he swallows a sharp response, tosses an appreciative glance at Annabelle, and then, leaves with a tight smile.