The Warrior's Bride Prize

by Jenni Fletcher

  ‘You’re injured!’

  ‘It’s only a break. The surgeon tells me it’ll be as good as new in a few months, but Nerva said it was about time I took some leave.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s been twelve years, after all.’

  ‘I see.’ She didn’t know how else to respond. What was he saying, that he’d come to spend it with her? The idea was exciting, insulting and unlikely all at the same time.

  ‘How is everyone else? Trenus? Ario?’

  ‘Both alive, only a little the worse for wear. They both send their respects.’ He paused momentarily. ‘I travelled here with another old friend.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Scaevola, only not quite the man you might remember. It seems that war changes some people after all. He got more than he bargained for coming here, but it might be the making of him. He’s actually proved a competent soldier. His father’s found a reason to summon him back to Rome, but he wished us both well.’

  ‘Scaevola wished us well?’

  ‘Yes.’ His brow furrowed again. ‘Although it might be risky for him if your brother’s here.’

  ‘I doubt it. Tarquinius is probably on the road south already.’

  ‘Ah.’

  She turned her head, averting her eyes from the intensity in his. ‘What’s happening with the rebellion?’

  ‘It hasn’t been easy, but we’re winning, slowly. Now that the rest of the garrison has arrived, we should push the rebels back over the wall before winter. We’ll recapture Cilurnum. We’ll get our villa back, too.’

  ‘Oh.’ She didn’t know what to say about that either. ‘So you were right about the rebels all along.’

  He made a face. ‘That doesn’t make it any better.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  ‘There was one consolation, though. Nerva offered me a promotion.’

  ‘You don’t mean...?’

  ‘Not quite. Second Centurion of the Second Cohort. It’s still a great honour, more than I could have expected.’

  ‘Then I’m happy for you.’ She forced a smile. ‘You’re getting closer.’

  ‘I turned it down.’

  ‘What?’ She blinked. ‘Is that allowed?’

  ‘Not really, but under the circumstances... In any case, Nerva’s more understanding than most Legates. I asked him for something else, a transfer to the auxiliaries. It doesn’t usually happen—in fact, I’m not sure I’ve heard of it ever happening before—but I asked him to make an exception.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He said I had some nerve. Then he asked me why I wanted it. I said it was because my wife was happy at Cilurnum and I thought it might make her happy again to go back once the rebellion was over.’ Dark eyes flickered with a look of uncertainty. ‘Was I wrong?’

  ‘No, but...’ Her voice trailed away as he took a step towards her.

  ‘He said that the fort still needs a commanding officer and that the position was mine if I wanted it... I said I had to speak with you first. Being married to Hermenia, he understood that some marriages are based on equality.’

  She stared at him breathlessly. Equality? He sounded as if he meant it. He was talking as if he wanted to take her back to the wall and give their marriage a second chance, too, but how could they go back? After everything he’d said, how could he think that she’d even consider such a thing? And how dare he change his mind again, as if she ought to just forget all his insults!

  ‘You called me a barbarian.’ She lifted her chin angrily. ‘You said you couldn’t trust me.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean any of those things I said. I trusted you, even before you saved my life, but I knew you wouldn’t leave unless I made you and I was afraid of you getting hurt again.’

  ‘You mean you were trying to protect me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A welling of hope turned into a fresh burst of anger. ‘So you lied to me? And you expect me to forgive you for saying that I was untrustworthy? You tricked me!’

  ‘Only because I had to get you away from Cilurnum. I was afraid that none of us would survive. I thought that I wouldn’t. That’s why I lied.’

  She stared at him incredulously, replaying the scene when he’d ordered her to leave in her head, only now from a new perspective. She’d replayed it so often over the past two months that she knew every word and look by heart. Was it really possible that he’d just been pretending?

  ‘How can I believe you?’ She shook her head in bewilderment. ‘How do I know you’re not just being honourable again? Because you don’t need to be. I have plans of my own. I’m going to start a kitchen here in Eboracum.’

  ‘Then I’ll ask Nerva to give me a job in headquarters here, too.’

  ‘What? No!’

  ‘The food would be worth it.’

  ‘No, Marius, you don’t have to feel responsible for me. I won’t let you take a demotion to the auxiliaries. If you do that, then you’ll never become Senior Centurion.’

  ‘I don’t care.’ He strode towards her, close enough that they were almost, but not quite, touching. ‘Trust me, Livia, I know what I want. There’s nothing like a horde of screaming rebels to focus the mind. I don’t care about rank or promotion or being anyone other than your husband any more. I’ve spent years trying to prove a point, to overcome my father’s dishonour, but there was never any dishonour to overcome. Rome might think so, but I don’t. I’m proud of him and I’m not going to spend the rest of my life making up for a mistake he never made. I’m going to be my own man, just like he was.’

  She felt her heartbeat accelerate even faster, his near proximity having its usual disorientating effect on her body. ‘You mean sort of Roman, but not?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was a glimmer of hope in his eyes again. ‘I love you, Livia. I couldn’t tell you before, but I can now. I love you more than any promotion, any gladius, more than fifty thousand denarii!’

  ‘Fifty thousand?’ Her eyes widened. ‘How much did you gamble on me?’

  ‘Everything I had.’ He lowered his face so that his mouth hovered just above hers. ‘And I’d do it again if I had to. I’d risk everything for you. If you’ll just...’

  ‘Marius!’ He didn’t get any further as a small figure hurtled through the courtyard towards them.

  ‘Empress.’ He took a step back, bracing himself to scoop Julia up in his one good arm.

  ‘Where have you been?’ The little girl looked at him seriously. ‘Mama’s been worried.’

  ‘Has she?’ His eyes seemed to smoulder as they turned back towards Livia.

  ‘Yes.’ Livia looked between him and her daughter and then couldn’t stop herself from beaming. ‘Just because I’m a barbarian doesn’t mean I don’t love you, too.’

  His answering smile was wider than she’d ever seen it. If she’d thought he’d been handsome before, he looked positively devastating now. ‘Then you’ll come back to the wall with me? When the fighting’s over and the fort is rebuilt?’

  ‘What do you think, Julia?’ She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around both of them. ‘Would you like to see the wall, too?’

  ‘You mean where Grandmama came from?’

  ‘Yes.’ She met Marius’s questioning look with a smile. ‘I’ve been telling her some family stories.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. Then how about it, Empress? Can you persuade your mama to say yes?’

  ‘She doesn’t need to.’ Livia squeezed her arms tight. ‘I’ve already decided.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And it’s a yes. You were right the first time—we do belong together, and as for Cilurnum...well, the edge of the Empire seems fitting somehow.’

  ‘Sort of Roman, but not?’ He kissed the top of her head, nuzzling his face against her red curls. ‘I can’t think of a more perfect place for us.’

  * * *

 
If you enjoyed this story you won’t want to miss these other great reads by Jenni Fletcher

  Married to Her Enemy

  The Convenient Felstone Marriage

  Besieged and Betrothed

  Captain Amberton’s Inherited Bride

  Keep reading for an excerpt from A Most Unsuitable Match by Julia Justiss.

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  A Most Unsuitable Match

  by Julia Justiss

  Prologue

  London—late March 1833

  ‘She’s done it again,’ Gregory Lattimar, oldest son and heir of Lord Vraux, said as he ushered his twin sisters, Temperance and Prudence, into the small salon of their Brook Street town house, where their aunt, Lady Stoneway, awaited them.

  The vague foreboding she’d felt when her brother pulled Pru from happy contemplation of the latest fashions in Godfrey’s Lady’s Magazine intensified into outright alarm. ‘What’s happened, Gregory? Whatever it is, surely we won’t have to delay our Season yet again!’

  That pronouncement was met with a groan from her aunt, who came over to give Prudence a hug. ‘I’m so sorry, my dear! I thought for sure we’d be able to launch you girls this spring!’

  ‘So it’s no Season for us, eh?’ Temperance asked, crossing her arms as she regarded her brother grimly. ‘What’s the latest event to besmirch our reputations?’

  ‘Your brother heard about it over breakfast at the Club and summoned me for a strategy session straight away.’

  ‘A strategy session about what?’ Temperance cried.

  ‘Easy, Temper,’ Gregory said, putting a hand on her arm. ‘I’m about to tell you.’

  Though, as usual, she suppressed the emotions her more volatile twin was expressing, Pru could hardly refrain from raising her own voice. ‘What happened, Gregory?’

  ‘Farnham. Well, not being officially out, you won’t have met him, but he’s recently down from Oxford and followed the usual convention of appearing enamoured of our mother. He and another young admirer, Lord Hallsworthy, have been snarling at each other around her like two dogs over a choice bone. Apparently last night, with both of them well in their cups, Farnham claimed Hallsworthy had insulted Mama’s virtue and challenged him to a duel. Which Hallsworthy accepted, the two of them dispensing with the usual protocol and going off at once to Hounslow Heath.’

  ‘At night?’ Temperance said incredulously. ‘Besides, I thought duelling was illegal—and out of fashion.’

  ‘There was a full moon and it is,’ Gregory said. ‘I don’t know what got into them. The upshot was, before anyone realised what was going on, Farnham put a ball into Hallsworthy. The friends who caught up with them took Hallsworthy to a surgeon, but he isn’t doing well. Farnham has fled to the Continent and, by now, the news of the duel, and over whom it was fought, is all over London.’

  ‘Well, I say “bravo, Mama!” if she’s still bewitching young men at her age,’ Temperance said defiantly.

  ‘If she only would consider how much her actions reflect upon us!’ Pru cried, beset by the familiar mix of admiration and resentment for her dazzling mother.

  ‘To be fair, it’s not her fault, Pru,’ Aunt Gussie said. ‘Paying court to London’s longest-reigning Beauty has been a rite of passage for young men coming down from university since the Season your mama debuted. You know she does nothing to encourage them. Quite the opposite.’

  ‘Which only intensifies their rivalry,’ Gregory observed with a sigh.

  ‘Mama has been trying to shield us, Pru,’ Temperance added. ‘Though she’s certainly had offers, she hasn’t taken any new lovers these last five years.’ At her aunt’s gasp, she snapped, ‘Oh, please, Aunt Gussie, there are no innocent maidens here. Not after what we’ve seen going on in this house.’

  Though her sister didn’t blush, Pru felt her own cheeks heat at the reminder. They’d barely been out of leading strings when, even relegated to the nursery, they’d started noticing the parade of handsome men paying calls on their mother. They were hardly in their teens when they’d pieced together the whispers among the staff and come to understand exactly why.

  ‘The Vraux Miscellany,’ society called them. Knowing that only Gregory was truly the son of her legal father, while her brother Christopher and she and Temperance were acknowledged to be the offspring of other men.

  Keenly as she felt this latest scandal, which might well delay once again her chance to find the love and family she yearned for, fairness compelled her to agree with her sister. ‘I know Mama has been trying to live less...flamboyantly, just as she promised us. For all the good that’s done,’ she added bleakly.

  ‘It’s not her fault society conveniently forgives a man the errors of his past—but never a woman,’ Temperance retorted.

  ‘I haven’t always agreed with her...wandering tendencies,’ Aunt Gussie admitted, ‘but married to my brother, I could certainly sympathise. He’d already begun to show passion only for the beautiful objects he collected before I made my come-out. I remember one morning in the breakfast room, I tripped over his latest acquisition, some sort of ceremonial sword. He rushed over when I cried out—it gave me a nasty cut! And completely ignored me, all his concern for whether the sword had been damaged!’

  ‘If only he hadn’t chosen Mama to add to his collections,’ Temperance muttered.

  ‘Well, that’s past lamenting,’ Gregory said briskly. ‘We need to decide what we shall do now, which is why I asked Aunt Gussie to join us. Do you think the hubbub will die down soon enough for the girls to have their Season this year?’

  Aunt Gussie shook her head. ‘I received two notes from acquaintances before I’d even arisen from bed this morning, wanting to know what was truth, what rumour. With the Season beginning in just two weeks, Hallsworthy so badly injured he may hover on the cusp between life and death for some time, and Farnworth having quit England, it’s likely to remain the on dit for months.’

  ‘We could just brazen it out,’ Temperance said. ‘Really, Aunt Gussie, do you truly think we will ever escape being tainted by Mama’s reputation? Since we are her blonde, blue-eyed images, we must naturally possess the same reckless, passionate character. As far as society is concerned, we’re the “Scandal Sisters”, and always will be.’

  ‘I know it’s unfair, child,’ Aunt Augusta said, patting Temperance’s arm. ‘I understand your bitterness, but there’s no need—yet—to give up on the goal of seeing both of you well settled—eventually. It’s what your mama desires, as much
as I do! Not this Season, alas. But soon.’

  ‘That’s what you’ve been saying for the last four years,’ Pru said, trying to stave off her desolation over this new delay. ‘First, you ended up having to assist at your daughter’s lying-in the year we turned eighteen, then you were ill yourself the next year, then Aunt Sophia died, and last year, Christopher married Ellie. An absolute darling, whom I love dearly, but trying to overcome the infamy of your mother’s reputation right after your brother marries a notorious former courtesan is clearly impossible. If we have to wait much longer, we will be too old for any man to wish to marry us!’

  ‘You should rather pity the girls who did debut and marry,’ Temperance told her flippantly. ‘Stuck home now with a husband to please and a babe on the way.’

  ‘Perhaps you would!’ Prudence flung back, raw disappointment goading her out of her customary restraint. ‘But having a husband who cares for me and a normal household filled with our children is all I’ve ever wished for.’

  Looking contrite, Temperance gave her a hug. ‘No female under Heaven is sweeter, lovelier or more deserving of a happy family. I’m sorry for speaking slightingly of your hopes. Forgive me?’

  Feeling guilty—for she knew if she didn’t keep such a tight control over herself, her reactions might be just as explosive as her sister’s, Prudence said gruffly, ‘I’m no angel. I know you were teasing. Forgive me, for being so tetchy.’

  ‘If squelching the rumours is impossible, what should we do, Aunt Gussie?’ Gregory asked.

  ‘I think it would be best if I took the girls out of London for a while.’

  ‘Not to Entremer!’ Temperance cried. ‘With nothing but empty moors and coal mines for miles, I’d expire of boredom in a month!’

  ‘I should know, I was raised there,’ Aunt Gussie said with a shudder. ‘No, I propose taking you somewhere much more pleasant. Granted, with the Season beginning, it will be thinner of company than I’d like, but my dear friend Helena lauds its excellent shopping and the lending libraries. There will be subscription dances and musicales, as well as the activities around the Pump Room—’