‘What are you doing?’ She stared after him suspiciously. He looked like one of the sentries.
‘Waiting.’
‘For what?’
‘To escort you back to the villa.’
‘I don’t need escorting. I remember the way.’
‘None the less.’
‘I just told you I’d rather be on my own.’
‘So you did.’
She glared at him, seized with a combination of irritation and guilt. He’d caught her off guard—again!—and now she was being rude, unfairly so since he hadn’t done anything to offend her, not really. On the contrary, since they’d met he’d been thoughtful and protective and sensitive too, in a severe kind of way. Even now he was still being thoughtful and protective!
But she was angry, not just at him, but at her whole situation. Somehow he made her feel even more powerless than before. It wasn’t his fault, but if they’d never met then she would only have had Scaevola and Tarquinius to worry about. Without him she wouldn’t have imagined, even for a moment, that her future could have been anything more than a prison.
She heaved a sigh, oppressed by the thought. If only it had been someone else who’d come to greet her! If only it had been someone else who’d defended her the previous evening, too. But it had been him, the only man apart from her father who’d ever stood up for her, who’d put a stop to Scaevola’s insulting behaviour as if he’d been personally offended. Now the fact that she ought to feel grateful made her even more irritated. But it was only right that she thank him.
‘About yesterday evening...’ she strove to sound calmer than she felt ‘...thank you for interrupting when you did. I hope you weren’t in any trouble for it.’
‘No.’
‘Good. I appreciated your help.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I only stated the facts. You and your daughter were tired.’
‘None the less.’
She repeated his words ironically and saw one side of his mouth twitch upwards. It was the first time she’d seen any hint of a smile from him and it made her feel slightly less irritable.
‘Are you going somewhere?’ She gestured at his cloak. ‘You said you were in the stables.’
‘I’m visiting some of the other forts today.’
‘Then you shouldn’t let me detain you. I’m sure you’re eager to be going.’
‘It can wait.’ He gave her a look that suggested the subject wasn’t up for further discussion. ‘I’ll be here until you’re ready, lady.’
She sighed again and leaned forward against the parapet, gazing into the distance, but it was no use. There wasn’t even the faintest hint of a wall on the horizon. Meanwhile, Marius’s refusal to leave was infuriating. Perhaps he was right and she ought to go back, but she refused to be coerced, even for her own good.
‘Have you ever been north of the wall?’ She glanced back over her shoulder at him.
‘Yes.’
‘More than once?’
‘More than once.’
‘More than ten times?’
His lips twitched again. ‘I’ve lost count, lady.’
‘Oh... Have you ever been attacked?’
‘Yes.’
She twisted around fully this time. ‘Do you agree with Scaevola, then? Do you think that Caledonians are all savages?’
‘No. They’re not Roman, but that doesn’t make them savages.’
She made a sceptical sound in the back of her throat. ‘I thought that Rome was always right.’
‘Rome isn’t perfect, but it’s civilisation and order.’
‘And conquest and slavery.’
She sank her teeth into her bottom lip, inwardly berating herself for the words. She’d said too much again, just like yesterday, letting her mixed feelings about the Empire get the better of her. It was dangerous to voice such thoughts aloud, but something about this man made her reckless. For some reason, she felt as though she could talk openly to him. Despite his sternness, he didn’t seem like the kind of man who would arrest her simply for expressing an opinion.
‘Conquest?’ His gaze dropped to her mouth as she bit into it, though his expression seemed to become even more serious. ‘In terms of conquest, Caledonia has already won. The tribes there are still independent from Rome. Hadrian might have called it a triumph, but the wall marks the limits of Rome’s power, not its strength.’
She felt a jolt of surprise. The limits of Rome’s power... There was something both liberating and dangerous about that idea, although if such cynicism wasn’t permitted for a woman, then it certainly wasn’t permitted for a centurion, a servant and defender of Rome. Yet he was speaking to her like an equal, like someone he trusted as well...
She looked into his eyes and then wished that she hadn’t as the air between them seemed to pulse and vibrate with tension suddenly, as if they were alone together in dangerous territory, in more ways than one. She felt the fluttering of tiny wings again, only lower down this time, in the very pit of her abdomen.
‘How long have you been here?’ She changed the subject, trying to break the moment, though her voice sounded oddly breathless.
‘Three years.’ His voice sounded different, too, rougher and deeper. ‘I was among the first of the legion to be sent back from Gaul when Severus became Emperor.’
‘Is that where you’re from, Gaul?’
‘No.’ He looked vaguely uncomfortable to be talking about himself. ‘I was born in the heart of the Empire, Rome itself. After I joined the army, I spent seven years in Germania before I was sent to Gaul. Then I spent another two years there.’
‘So you’re almost halfway through your military service already?’ The idea seemed incredible. ‘You must have enlisted when you were young.’
‘I was just past my fourteenth birthday.’
‘Fourteen?’
He lifted his shoulders as if the number were of no consequence. ‘It’s not supposed to happen, but it does.’
‘What about your family?’
‘I didn’t have any. My mother died when I was born and my father when I was thirteen. The family he’d paid to look after me had enough mouths of their own to feed, so I joined the army. There was no other choice.’
‘But so young?’
‘It’s worked in my favour. According to regulations, you can’t become a centurion until you’re thirty.’
‘But you’re...’ she did the sum quickly ‘...twenty-six?’
‘Not officially.’
He grinned suddenly, revealing a row of gleaming white teeth, and the flutter of wings became a violent flapping sensation. Coming out of the blue, his smile seemed to have a particularly potent effect, as if she’d just drunk a full amphora of wine. When he wasn’t frowning, his rugged features became quite devastatingly handsome.
‘You must have been promoted very young, too.’ She wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to distract herself.
‘Not particularly. I’m only in the fourth cohort.’
‘Isn’t that good?’
‘It’s not good enough. I want to be Senior Centurion of the First Cohort some day. The Primus Pilus.’
‘The First?’ She was impressed. The Senior Centurion ranked only just below the Tribunes. It was the highest position a legionary could aim for, though something told her that if anyone could achieve such a thing, it was him. ‘You’re ambitious, then?’
The frown snapped back into place with a vengeance. ‘It was my father’s rank. He was Senior Centurion of the Eighth Legion.’
‘So you want to equal his accomplishment?’
A look of some indefinable emotion flitted across his face, a combination of pain, anger and determination all rolled into one, so intense that she regretted the question almost instantly.
‘No.’ He looked as though he were wrestling
with himself. ‘I only want to regain it, to restore my family honour.’
‘Oh.’
She sucked the insides of her cheeks, surprised by the depth of emotion behind the words. Some instinct told her not to ask any more. Whatever had happened to his family honour, his feelings about it were clearly still painful and she didn’t want to pry. She had no right to ask anyway, still less to offer comfort, no matter how tempted she was to reach out a hand towards him, to stroke the tightly locked muscles of his jaw and soothe away his frown lines... The tension between them was palpable again and pulsing even more strongly, as if her attempts to dispel it had only brought them closer together. Maybe she ought to have gone back to the villa when she’d had the chance, she thought with a gulp, although she still didn’t want to leave. So much for familiarity breeding contempt. The more time she spent with him, the more she wanted to. The closer she wanted to be...
He cleared his throat, looking visibly relieved when she didn’t ask any more questions.
‘What of your family?’ he asked one of her instead. ‘You’re from Lindum?’
‘Close by, yes.’ She grabbed at the words eagerly. ‘My father had an estate in the country to the south and I was born and raised there. I had a very happy childhood.’
‘Only your childhood?’
She winced. ‘My mother died of a fever when I was ten and my father four years later. They were devoted to each other and her loss affected his health. I think the only reason he survived as long as he did was for me. He knew that I’d be alone afterwards.’
‘What about your brother?’
‘Tarquinius is only my half-brother.’
‘Ah.’
He acknowledged the difference in one short word and she pressed her lips together, trying to dispel the feeling of bitterness. What was she doing anyway? Talking about herself would only bring them closer together and she ought to be putting distance between them instead. This was the point where she really ought to stop talking and leave, but the need to vent her anger at Tarquinius seemed to be stronger than common sense. Besides which, she wanted to keep talking to Marius, she realised. Tension aside, he was surprisingly easy to talk to.
‘We have different mothers and he hated mine. He called her...’ she paused, unwilling to repeat the words out loud ‘...names. I suppose it was inevitable that the feeling would extend to me. I only met him for the first time when I was thirteen and he made his opinion of me clear straight away.’
‘Why did he hate her?’
‘What?’ She froze at the question.
‘You just said he hated your mother. Why?’
‘Why?’ She swallowed, trying to come up with a convincing-sounding lie and settling on several half-truths instead. ‘Maybe because he thought our father was too old to marry again. Maybe because he was worried she only wanted his money. Or maybe because she was a Briton.’
‘So I assumed.’
She blinked, taken aback by his matter-of-fact tone. ‘You did?’
‘Your hair...’ He half-raised a hand and then dropped it again. ‘It’s quite distinctive.’
‘Oh.’ For a moment, she’d thought he’d been about to touch her. ‘Yes. Tarquinius hated that, too.’
‘I didn’t say I hated it.’
‘No...’ She was surprised by his defensive reaction. ‘I meant that he hated my hair as well as my mother.’
‘Ah... Of course.’ A muscle in his jaw twitched. ‘But he’s still your brother, whatever he thinks of your hair. If you don’t want to marry Scaevola, then surely you can tell him so?’
‘Do you think it’s so easy?’ She gave an incredulous laugh. ‘Yes, I suppose you do. A man is free to choose his own future. A woman doesn’t have that luxury. I had no choice with my first marriage, let alone now. I’m under Tarquinius’s protection, which means I have to do everything he says. So if you’re suggesting that I appeal to his better nature, then it’s impossible. You can’t appeal to a conscience that isn’t there!’
She was breathing deeply by the time she finished speaking and for a few seconds there was silence, with only the sound of their combined breathing stirring the air between them.
‘I’m sorry. I should have considered.’ His voice was gentler when he finally spoke again. ‘How old were you when you married?’
‘Fourteen. So it seems we have one thing in common.’ She gave a brittle laugh at the irony. ‘We both started out in the world early.’
Fourteen. So young and afraid and utterly alone. That was what she remembered most of all, being lonely, although at the time Julius had still seemed infinitely preferable to Tarquinius.
‘Was he a good husband?’
‘Yes, he was very kind.’ To begin with, she added silently. She didn’t want to talk about what had happened later...
‘It’s not right.’ His voice hardened again. ‘You shouldn’t be forced to re-marry so soon.’
‘It’s a common enough story. My brother is a man of business. He makes alliances with people who can be useful to him. My first husband was a wine merchant and Scaevola’s a tribune. I imagine that Tarquinius thinks he might prove useful one day.’
‘He’s probably right.’
‘So he’s sent me here to be married again. Even though neither of us like or want the other. Even though this time...’
‘This time?’ He prompted her as she stopped mid-sentence.
‘This time,’ she went on, choosing her words with care, ‘I thought that maybe things would be different. I thought...’
She swung towards him impetuously, tempted to tell him all the rest of her hopes, to tell him everything about herself and her heritage, too—the real reason she wanted to see the wall—so quickly that she bumped straight into his chest. At some point he must have moved closer to her, so that now the full length of her body was in contact with his, her breasts pressing against the hard contours of his mail shirt. His arms came up, instinctively it seemed, to steady her, so that he caught her around the midriff, one hand on either side of her waist.
For a moment she forgot to breathe. At the back of her mind she could hear a small voice telling her to move away, but her body didn’t appear to be listening. She was standing face-to-face and chest to chest with a man who wasn’t her intended in almost broad daylight, on a walkway for anyone to see, yet she couldn’t seem to do a single thing about it. Her hands were still loose at her sides, but she had to fight the temptation to lift them up around his shoulders, just as she was already lifting her chin, tilting it up so that she could look deep into his eyes, her pulse accelerating at the look of raw desire she saw there.
She licked her lips, the thin sliver of air between them seeming to crackle and spark as if they were in the midst of a lightning storm, making her breasts tighten and her blood heat in response. Still holding her gaze, he slid his hands inside her cloak and she found herself swaying, leaning forward as if he were pulling her towards him by some invisible string, her eyes closing and lips parting as he lowered his head towards hers.
Then he stiffened, yanking his hands away as he took a step backwards. ‘Forgive me.’
Forgive him? She opened her eyelids again, though for a moment she found it hard to focus. What had just happened? He’d been about to kiss her, she’d been certain of it, and she’d been going to kiss him back. She’d been ready and eager and excited. For the first time in her life she’d been about to kiss a man she actually wanted to kiss and then he’d pulled away as if it had all been some terrible mistake.
She felt a rush of shame, mortified as much by his pulling away as by the fact it had happened at all. As if her situation wasn’t bad enough already—now he was rejecting her, too!
‘It was my fault. I walked into you.’ She pulled at the edges of her cloak, wrapping it tightly around herself.
‘No, you’re grieving for your husband. I should not
...’ He cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘My apologies, lady... Livia.’
She lifted her eyes again in surprise. It was the first time he’d used her praenomen since they’d arrived in Coria and now it only made her more confused. Never mind the rest of his words! Nothing about her being betrothed to another man, only you’re grieving...
The idea was so ludicrous that she almost laughed out loud. Grieving for Julius? Maybe she ought to be, but how could she mourn for a man who’d made her life a misery for the last five of their ten years together? Who’d called her a deceiving whore before he’d disinherited both her and their daughter? She’d grieved for the man she’d married a long time ago. She wasn’t going to waste so much as a minute grieving for the man he’d become.
For a split second she was tempted to say so, to denounce her former husband out loud, but she’d never told anyone the misery of her first marriage and she wasn’t about to start now, especially to a man whose very presence seemed to undermine all her self-possession and who’d just rejected her...
‘I have to go.’ She darted around him, making for the steps, relieved that this time he didn’t insist upon accompanying her. ‘Julia must be awake by now. I should go to her.’
Chapter Seven
Julia was still fast asleep, Porcia, too, in a small pallet bed on the other side of the room, as Livia stood in the open doorway of their shared cubicula, trying to get her thoughts back into some semblance of order. She didn’t know what had come over her on the palisade. Her pulse was still racing and not just because of the speed at which she’d fled back through the fort.
It had been an accident, bumping into Marius, yet the memory of it was seared so deep in her mind that she could almost feel the warm, solid pressure of his hands on her waist again, making her knees tremble and her nerve endings tingle anew, as if she had no control over her own body.
They hadn’t kissed, but just standing so close to him had provoked a physical reaction she hadn’t known she was capable of. That side of her marriage had been unpleasant at best and painful at worst, a brief and uncomfortable joining of bodies after which Julius had left her chamber almost immediately. It had brought her joy in the form of Julia, but a guilty part of her had been relieved when he’d turned against her and stopped coming to her bed. That had been the one positive of Tarquinius’s interference.
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