Without Love: Love and Warfare series book 4

by Anne Garboczi Evans

  He kept kissing her.

  Her lips felt numb against his. An improvement. When other men kissed her, cold chills rose through her limbs, her heart pounding as the greasy feel and overpowering stench of thousands of brothel patrons washed over her again. These kisses were just a necessary inconvenience for them both. Wryn didn’t desire her.

  When the evening grew late, they remounted and headed toward Rome. The distance sped under the horse’s clashing feet. All too soon the river scenery broke away to the towering metropolis. Wryn circled his arm around her waist, the muscles of his forearm grazing her stomach as he held her on the horse.

  She leaned into him and wished the journey longer. “The beauty of the Tiber giving way to the stench of Roman streets. Someone should write a dirge about that.” Libya looked up at Wryn.

  He rested his hand on the reins. “Rome has its own sort of majesty. The marble of the forum, the stately Senate building.”

  “I’ve never seen the forum.”

  Wryn swept his fingers across hers, his big hand so gentle. “I’ll show you —”

  Hooves pounded up behind them, and Marcellus’ horse drew even with theirs. Marcellus glared at Wryn through the darkness. “What are you doing?”

  “With?” Wryn stiffened as if he already knew the answer.

  “Libya.”

  She tilted her head, her cheek rubbing against Wryn’s shoulder. His chest felt tight against her back. What did Marcellus fight with Wryn about on this beautiful night as the moonlight glistened on quiet roads?

  “You told me to keep her close to me.” Wryn urged his horse on.

  “Not that close.” Marcellus’ voice reverberated in the darkness.

  “You should praise me.” Wryn raised his hand from the reins, his other arm still holding her on the horse. “Libya and I discovered four Viri shipments tonight and learned the Ides of Junio plot involves an assassination. What did you discover?”

  “You could have accomplished that without kissing her half as much.” Such anger in Marcellus’ voice.

  Libya blinked.

  “Not a man in that tavern so much as looked at her because I acted the part of the jealous lover so well, just as you told me to.”

  “Not a man except you.” The accusation in Marcellus’ voice whistled through the night air.

  “Isn’t this the cross-street to your house?” Wryn glared at Marcellus, his forearm stiff against her stomach.

  Yanking his horse’s reins, Marcellus drove the horse left, down the darkened side street. Wryn spurred his horse straight ahead. The dark shadows of the night enclosed them as the Paterculi villa neared.

  Irritation creased Wryn’s brow as he squeezed the reins tighter.

  Marcellus was a controlling sort. Probably Wryn only tolerated him because of his sister. Wryn would never take advantage of any woman, free or slave. Which is more than one could say of Marcellus if one believed rumors about his past.

  At the back gate, Wryn swung off the horse. He held his hand up to her.

  She touched his fingers. “Who do you think the Viri will assassinate?”

  “I don’t know. A legate? A senator?”

  Her voice rose in the moonlight, the excitement of the evening still pounding in her veins, sleep miles away, and Wryn so delightfully close. “When will we return? I need to find a higher up Viri who knows the target.”

  Wryn’s smile lit the darkness. “Not only an excellent spy but an eager one? We would never have discovered this much without you.” He touched the horse’s flank, his arm next to her.

  She sucked in her breath. A patrician, a leader of armies, told her that her thoughts had value.

  “I’m sorry for all the danger and drama with it.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “I thought you weren’t supposed to apologize to me?”

  “Ah, but I have the right to apologize. For you’ve almost ripped open this Ides of Junio plan, and all I’ve done is put you in undeserved danger and kept you awake long hours of the night.”

  No, he’d done a thousand times more. He told her that her mind had worth. No one had told her that since she became infamia. Libya touched her tongue to her lips.

  “Perhaps I should be asking you about my garrison chaos.” Wryn reached up for her. “Legate Aemilli wants sanitation ditches dug into a swamp. That’s not possible.”

  “Building sanitation ditches, a specialty of mine?” Her laugh rose as she slid into his arms. He felt so near as if their souls could speak when her hands touched his.

  “In truth?” Wryn’s eyes glimmered by starlight, a smirk turning up his mouth. “Tell me then, how do you prevent the blasted sides from caving after the ditch is dug? Tomorrow I’m having my legionaries dig it for the third time.”

  “Is there no drier land?”

  “There’s plenty of drier land, on every other side of the wretched garrison. But no, Legate Aemilli orders it built on the west side.” Wryn’s face looked like Horus when he lost a game of knucklebones.

  Laughter rose inside her. “Idiots exist in the army too?”

  Wryn groaned. “You have no idea. Legate Aemilli’s even one of the more competent ones. I think he just hates me because I didn’t want to marry his daughter.”

  Marry. Wryn would marry soon. A lump formed in Libya’s throat as Wryn clanked the key into the metal lock.

  Mud seeped through the rocks Wryn had ordered the legionaries to place in the drainage ditch. Rain drizzled its miserableness down on leather and stuck red cloaks to legionaries’ shoulders. The top rock teetered. Vaulting into the ditch where mud-covered legionaries labored, Wryn shoved the rock up.

  The one beneath it slid. Other boulders slipped out of place. The wall crumbled as a barrage of swamp water spilled through the slush. The shoulder-high wall plunged into the ditch as legionaries struggled out and mud filled the hard-dug ravine.

  Wryn scrambled out. He held up his hand. A reeking substance covered it and streaked his legs as well. “What’s this?”

  A decurion, who hadn’t entered the ditches, wrinkled his nose. “Legate Aemilli redirected the sewage through the ditches last night.”

  While they were still building the wretched thing? Kneeling, Wryn wiped his hand against the wiry swamp grass and surveyed the wreckage of his sewage works. He could not become prefect soon enough.

  “You look like you’re enjoying yourself.” Tribune Lucius grinned. Tribune Vitus emerged from the garrison gate behind him. Both wore linen tunics now, their armor slung over their shoulders in this Britannia-worthy fog.

  “Why won’t Legate Aemilli let me build this on the north side of the garrison?” Wryn gestured up. Or even the rocky eastern and southern sides. Anywhere but here.

  “Because he hates you for refusing his daughter.” Lucius laughed.

  Wryn glared at the boulders now floating in the mud where his drainage ditch had run. He spent days on this third attempt and one rain destroyed it.

  “No need for such dour looks.” Tribune Vitus slapped him on the back. “Your shift’s over. Go change out of that sodden mess and come with us.” Other tribunes filed behind him, voices already loud though the end of the work week’s drinking had yet to begin.

  “Sounds inane. Also, I have paperwork to do at home.” He had to plan his route to get those Viri shipments Libya had discovered at the tavern. Turning, Wryn gestured to his legionaries. “Shift’s over. Get some rest.”

  Lucius groaned. “All you do is work. You don’t have garrison duty tomorrow. This is not a night to sit at home and toil.”

  “Let’s not forget what awaits him at home.” Vitus snatched Wryn’s red-plumed helmet off the ground and stepped back. “Perhaps if I owned a slave who looked like that dancing girl of his, I’d wish to spend the night at home as well. Or on a river bank….”

  “Give me my helmet and go to your imbecilic party.” Wryn grabbed for it.

  Vitus’ hands slid off the metal, yet he still grinned. “You’re telling me a woman like that doe
sn’t awaken desire in you?”

  Desire? No, he had control over desire. Last night at the tavern, he noticed the way her hips swayed. She pressed her lips against his when he kissed her last night at the tavern, merely to protect her from the avaricious words of that drunk. He needed to circle his arm around her waist too as he kissed her, feel the perfect curve there as he tugged her against him. It wasn’t immoral. He’d continue to pursue the Viri once he manumitted Libya.

  But it wouldn’t be the same.

  Manumit Libya? He told Jacob four more days until he’d manumit her. Four days! Not near enough. If he delayed manumitting Libya, then she couldn’t marry Jacob. She hadn’t even mentioned her wedding day, so perhaps she didn’t want to marry Jacob either.

  He should manumit Libya now as Aulia had requested.

  Let Victor Ocelli accomplish his nefarious Ides of Junio plan? No one could spy like Libya. If he refused to manumit her quite yet, the reason would not be that he wished to look at her again, kiss her again, pull her tight against him in the farce they played at Ostia taverns. He merely wished to discover Victor’s Ides of Junio plot.

  Even in the midst of the sewage stench and the cold rain that soaked to the skin, he could picture her. Her black hair sliding down around her hips, her bare shoulders catching the moonlight, the way her melodic voice —

  Wryn groaned. Desire, yes. Vitus had spoken truth, much as he’d like to deny it.

  Why couldn’t Aulia look like Libya? Then he wouldn’t be having this problem right now.

  No, this was his problem. He shouldn’t be allowing these thoughts such a hold on his senses.

  He always despised the other patrician men who made use of their power as masters to take advantage of the beauty of their slaves with no commitment and no repercussions.

  That’s all this was. Any Roman with a senator in the familia, like his grandfather, legally couldn’t marry a slave or freedwoman even if he wanted to. He certainly had no desire for a soiled woman with a child by another man, and who knew how many others in her past, to be his wife, mother of his heirs.

  No, this acting like other tribunes had to stop.

  Only he never realized how easy it was.

  Libya plucked the lyre strings with a plectrum in her right hand while her left hand strummed the notes. The summer foliage stretched over her, making patterns of light and dark in the Paterculi garden.

  “How do you do that?” Wryn’s eyes held a depth bespeaking the years he spent tutored in the knowledge of philosophers and generals. Despite the white linen covering his military-trained frame and the patrician signet ring on his finger, he looked at her with respect.

  “It’s not hard. Try it.” Sliding behind him on the garden bench, she placed the instrument in his hands. Her fingers touched his as she directed his hand over the strings.

  Horus looked up from his tower of rocks. “I want to play it.”

  “This lyre’s made of reed, not tortoise shell. You’ll break it.” She touched the lovely strings.

  “No, I won’t.” Horus grabbed for the lyre.

  Wryn snatched him around the midsection. “It would take a lyre cast of iron to survive you.”

  “I want an iron sword.” Horus kicked his feet against Wryn as he held the boy high.

  With a groan, Wryn lowered Horus to the brick. “Not until you cease stabbing people with the wooden one you have. The cook complained you tried to run her through.”

  Horus stuck his tongue out. “She deserved it.”

  “To be gored to death and have her guts spilled on the kitchen hearth?” Wryn cocked an eyebrow.

  The reason Horus had attempted to stab the cook is because the woman had slapped her. Libya touched her cheek where the stinging blow had landed, but the cook’s words had stung more. The cook accused her of seducing Wryn.

  Horus wrinkled his nose, but he turned back to his rocks.

  “See here,” she held out the seven-string instrument, “this is the simplest melody you can make.” She flicked her gaze up to Wryn as her fingers stroked over the notes.

  His callused fingerpads touched the strings, his palms over her hands. A horrendous screeching noise rose from the instrument. With a laugh, Wryn dropped his hands. “Not as simple as you claim.”

  “The tuning peg gave way. It’s not your fault.” She wound the bronze peg, tightening the string into place.

  Wryn gazed at the woman a handbreadth from him. “I don’t remember any tuning pegs falling off in despair when you played the instrument.”

  Libya brought her legs up on the bench as she faced him, the lyre resting on her crossed knees. “You’re admitting you’ve found a skill you can’t master, Tribune Paterculi?” Her eyes sparkled as her hair fell around her shoulders, collecting on her lap.

  “Never.” With a laugh, he reached for the lyre. “Teach me that song again. I’m going to conquer the legate’s wretched sewage project too.”

  “A most musical thought to initiate your illustrious career as lyre player.” A smile flitted at the corner of her lips.

  He rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes, I’ll sing ballads at the next political dinner in the great tradition of Nero.”

  A footstep sounded on the garden walkway. Wryn swiveled. Gwen stood there with her two children. Letting go of Gwen’s hand, Alena scampered toward Horus. The boy jumped up, and the two of them tore through the juniper hedge to the gardens beyond. Gwen moved her curious gaze from him to Libya.

  “I should check on them.” Libya ran toward the children. Grace filled her every movement as her tunica blew up around her legs, her body as graceful as the woodland creatures.

  “Taking music lessons now?” Gwen plopped on the seat next to him, her baby in her arms. “I hope you don’t plan to tell Aulia of this.”

  Wryn shoved the lyre under the stone bench, fingers tingling.

  “I saw your friends Tribune Vitus and Lucius at a dinner party last night. Quite amusing hearing them gossip about you instead of me for a change.”

  “I wish they’d muzzle themselves.” Wryn clenched his jaw.

  “Too late now.” Gwen laughed. She tilted her head, an uncharacteristic pensive light coming to her eyes. “I guess the rumors and Aulia’s anger make sense since Libya’s infamia, but your friends don’t know you. You’re a thousand times better than that.”

  Wryn swallowed. An uncomfortable feeling slid around his chest.

  “Besides,” throwing her cloak across herself, Gwen, with her characteristic lack of propriety, suckled her baby to her chest, “Libya doesn’t even like men.”

  Wryn’s back hit the marble bench. “What?”

  “After all the years of abuse, of course, Libya doesn’t like the touch of a man anymore.”

  Gwen’s judgment erred. Libya had responded to his kisses. She initiated them too. The ways her lips had touched his, her body so enticingly close.

  Wryn’s breathing quickened. Not that it mattered. In a few days, Libya would marry Jacob. After that, he’d set a wedding date with Aulia.

  A childish scream sounded from the gardens beyond. Wryn stood. “I’ll check that Horus hasn’t killed your daughter.”

  At the sound of footfalls, Libya looked up from Alena and Horus’ game. Wryn. “What did your sister want?”

  He sprawled on the grass beside her. “No idea.” The sun bathed his tunic, the tanned skin of his arms contrasting with the white linen.

  “There is a simple way to find out. You could ask.”

  He tilted his hard chin, that vaguely smiling but still perplexed look in his eyes, which always made her want to shout with laughter. “You’re mocking me again, aren’t you?”

  “Never.”

  Wryn squished the grass underneath his hands. “Your eyes betray you.”

  Horus dug into the ground with a stick, voice boisterous as he told Alena some tale of a hydra’s cave lying beneath their feet.

  The three-year-old pursed her lips. “I think you’re making that up.”

  �
��Libya,” a displeased voice called. The cook plunged around a juniper bush, her broad frame breaking branches. “I told you to have all the rooms swept and the soiled linens taken to the fuller today, and not a single one’s done yet.”

  With a groan, Libya sprang up and crossed to the walkway.

  Wryn shook his head at her and looked to the cook. “Not now.”

  “The fuller’s shop closes in an hour.” The cook crossed her arms as confidently as if Wryn’s parents ruled this household yet and Wryn was still the child he’d been when this cook first took up duties here.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Wryn glanced to Horus. Her son had his arm elbow deep in the hole, attempting to convince Alena he did, indeed, feel the tip of a hydra’s tail.

  The cook coughed. “Your mother would faint if she saw the state of those rooms. With Phoebe gone sick this entire week, it falls to Libya to do it. She’s lazy as it is.”

  “Enough.” One word, but Wryn’s voice hardened.

  The cook dropped her gaze. “Yes, dominus.” Turning, she stomped back along the stone path. As she brushed past Libya, she lowered her voice enough that Wryn couldn’t hear. “When Aulia’s mistress of this house, things will run a sight better. After he marries, don’t expect any more favors from the master for you or that murderous boy of yours, despite that you’re lying with him like the prostitute you are.”

  “You speak falsehood.” Libya balled her fists. If the woman spoke the truth, far from wearing a smile at escaping housework to enjoy this perfect afternoon with Wryn, she’d have that dead feeling again, just like every time.

  “What, that you’re a prostitute?” The cook scraped her fingers over Libya’s star-shaped tattoo and yanked at her loose hair. “Or that Lady Aulia will ensure you and that possessed boy of yours go to slave auction?”

  Fear iced Libya’s blood. Whipping around, she walked back to where Horus played. She forced her numb hands not to tremble. Wryn seemed in no rush to marry Aulia. Victor would free Horus and her long before that wedding.