The Roman

by Caroline Storer

  The bitterness of his words made Justina’s stomach plummet. “I…I don’t-”

  “Is something wrong, Justina? Marsallas?”

  Justina’s head whipped round to see Lydia standing at the stable door, concern etched on her face.

  A long silence fell between the three of them before Marsallas answered her question. “There is nothing wrong, Lydia. I was just informing Justina that I have arranged for a boat to take us to Herculaneum tomorrow. It leaves at the Fifth Hour.” Then he bowed stiffly to both women, and strode out of the stables.

  * * *

  Marsallas punched his fist against his bedroom wall, the pain a welcome relief.

  Hatred has festered in you for so long.

  Justina’s words kept going round and round in his head, and bile roiled in his stomach making him feel sick.

  Hades! She was right of course. Hatred, revenge, call it what you like, had eaten away at him, and he had been blinded by it for so long. He should have realised that Quintus was up to no good. But anger had blinded him, and when she hadn’t denied any of his accusations he had taken her silence as an admission of guilt, believing that she had wanted his wealth and position more than him. And all the while she had endured such pain at Quintus's cruel hands.

  But she'd still managed to be strong, retain some inner strength somehow. Guilt lay heavily in his stomach, like rancid wine. He should have realised the truth when he had discovered that she had been a virgin.

  “By the gods you are a fool!” He cursed to himself. Raking a hand through his hair in agitation, he strode over to a low table and poured some water into a goblet, noticing that his hand shook with the force of his emotions. And that, he realised with a start, was the root of the problem. He had absolutely no idea how to reveal his feelings to her, because he’d suppressed them so ruthlessly, and for so long now.

  He’d lost her. She had made her position clear, and deep down he couldn’t, didn’t, blame her. She deserved better. A virtual prisoner by Quintus’s hand, she deserved her freedom, to finally do what she wanted. He could see that.

  But he still wanted her. Loved her.

  “Yes,” he hissed, when he realised the enormity of what he’d just admitted to himself. He did love her. He’d resisted for so long, when the truth had been there all along, staring him in the face. It had always been her. Ever since she had come back into his life he’d tried to persuade himself that it was just lust that he felt for her. But he’d just been fooling himself. The simple truth was…he’d never stopped loving her.

  Marsallas took a long deep breath. It was time he made peace with his past. Time he went after what really mattered in his life. Justina. She was what he wanted more than anything else.

  The only problem was, how in the name of Jupiter was he going to convince her otherwise? Had he left it too late..?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Justina looked at the scene of devastation laid out before her, hardly able to take it all in. It was as if some macabre play had been put on for all to see. A play of such spectacular horror, that it defied belief. Surely this couldn’t be real? It had to be a nightmare, a bad dream, and wanting it to end she closed her eyes to block it out.

  But the slight swell of the boat, the flapping of the wind in the sails told her otherwise, and her eyes snapped open. This was no dream. This was reality.

  Nothing remained of Herculaneum, or of Pompeii, for that matter. Nothing to show that they had once been thriving towns, home to thousands of people. Vesuvius, the mountain she had lived next to all her life, had sucked up all the hot entrails of the underworld and thrust them upwards into the heavens, before falling back to earth and covering all the surrounding area in a heaving mass of stones, ash, lava and boiling mud.

  Boiling mud that had flown down the mountainside and entombed the whole of the town, before it had met the coldness of the Mediterranean Sea where it had solidified in a seething mass of hissing steam to create an artificial peninsula some one thousand feet from what had originally been the coastline. The coastline villa, where she and Marsallas had lived; the most sumptuous villa in the whole of Herculaneum, now lost forever.

  The enormity of it all caused her to sway, and she had to tighten her grip on the wooden railings of the boat to stop herself from falling.

  “Are you ill, Justina?”

  Marsallas! She hadn’t even been aware of him standing next to her. She finally managed to speak, “No…no I’m fine.” She heard the stiffness in her voice. Hardly surprising really, as this was the first time she had spoken to him since last night. Their trip from Anna Faustina’s villa, to the port of Misenum this morning, had been conducted in total silence.

  She looked at him for the first time since they boarded the boat, and her heart stilled momentarily. He looked haggard, drawn, the skin stretched tight across his cheekbones, his lips thin lines of strain, and her heart suddenly lurched when she saw the depth of pain in his eyes.

  “Nothing remains,” Marsallas said eventually, his voice raw. “You could have been there. Lost to me forever.”

  Justina tried to speak, but she was incapable of words. Had she had heard him correctly? Her heart beat faster, hope filling her as she stared up at him, willing him to continue.

  “Do you know how many people there are in my life, Justina?” He gave a short, harsh, laugh. “None. No-one. And why? Because I wanted it that way, that’s why. You were right in what you said yesterday. I am bitter and twisted. I wanted to punish you so badly for what had happened in the past.

  I promised myself that I would take your body and discard you, as I thought you had discarded me. Ever since I left Herculaneum I’ve been consumed by hatred. Hatred for you. Hatred for my uncle. I was driven by it. It’s made me the man I am today,” he drew in a ragged breath, before lowering his voice, “That night” – his face worked “- that night I made love to you. Once I realised that you were a virgin I knew I could never let you go. And it scared me, made me angry. It wasn’t supposed to be like that.” He went on raggedly, “I was just going to take your body. Have my revenge against you.”

  He shut his eyes for a moment, and then opened them, his gaze fierce, the intensity of it making her breath catch.

  “I wanted to hate you, wanted to punish you. Oh, how I tried, believe me. But there was always something deep inside me that fought against it. And do you know what it is?”

  She shook her head, incapable of speech, and he smiled, the briefest of smiles, before he lifted his hand and cupped the side of her jaw the roughness of his fingers against her skin sending shivers down her spine.

  “It’s love, Justina. I love you. I always have. I made myself suppress it, refused to acknowledge it. But ever since you’ve come back into my life – that day at the Circus – I’ve not been able to get you out of my head. It’s as if it had lain dormant, just like that mountain over there had for years,” he said, gesturing with his head towards the smoking volcano in the distance. “I know I’ve treated you badly, and I can’t take that back … but…but what I can do, is promise you that I will always love you. All I ask is that you give me a second chance to prove it to you.”

  He stopped speaking, his chest rising and falling deeply as he took in a deep breath. Then he said, his voice intense, “Be my wife. My love. My all. Fill my life, Justina because it’s been empty for too long.”

  Justina looked up at him, tears shining in her eyes, when she saw his eyes were almost black with emotion at what he’d just revealed to her. She knew it must have taken a lot for him to share those feeling to her, to confess his innermost fears.

  So she smiled up at him, and whispered, “My life would be empty too without you, Marsallas.”

  It was all he needed to hear, and he pulled her gently towards him and lowered his head, his mouth touching hers, the kiss long and sweet. Eventually it ended, and he reluctantly pulled away. Justina looked up at him, her face alight with hope, her voice husky, “I love you too, Marsallas. I always have, and I
always will.” Justina lifted a hand, her palm resting on the hard planes of his face, communicating her feelings to him, a radiant smile illuminating her face.

  “Marry me, Justina. I want you to come back to my villa and make it a home. I can’t live without you. You make me whole, make me feel alive, make me want to live again.” There was a break in his voice, an uncertainty that made Justina’s throat tighten. “Will you Justina? Will you marry me?” She heard the sudden fierceness of his words, saw his eyes flare with longing.

  Sucking in a deep breath, she took one final look over her shoulder at what had been her birthplace, now lost forever under a sea of mud, before she turned back to face him and whispered, “Yes, Marsallas. I will marry you. Take me home.”

  Then he kissed her again, and she knew that in Marsallas she had her future. A life full of possibilities. He would let her sculpt, let her fulfil her potential. And eventually they would have children. And all the while she knew that she would have his love. An endless, boundless supply of it.

  They had conquered their pasts, and they were about to celebrate their futures. Together. Forever. For always.

  EPILOGUE

  “It’s magnificent. You are magnificent.”

  The words whispered in her ear caused her to shiver. Justina turned, and looked up into the handsome face of her adoring husband.

  “It’s not bad.”

  “Not bad!” Shaking his head, Marsallas looked up at the bronze statute that sat above the entrance arch of the Circus Maximus.

  “I should have spent more time on it. I hurried some of the castings at the end.”

  “You’ve been distracted. I accept that. But still, the statute is magnificent. All of Rome is talking about how wonderful it is. How talented you are.” Marsallas leaned forward his mouth trailing down to the softness of her neck.

  “Umm. I have been distracted,” she murmured, “A new husband has that effect on a woman.” She gasped when his teeth nipped at her skin, turning her bones to molten wax. Turning, she slipped her arms around Marsallas’s neck, lifting her mouth up for his kiss.

  “I love you,” Marsallas whispered, when the kiss finally ended, and he’d stepped away from her. His eyes went to the bronze statue once more. “Tomorrow I race my last race here. And then we begin the next chapter of our lives.” His hand reached down to clasp hers, bringing them both up to rest on her rounded stomach, heavily swollen with child.

  “You coming back into my life finally made me realise what I want most in life. You. As my wife, as the mother of my children, but most importantly, by my side, forever.”

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  First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2014

  Copyright © Caroline Storer 2014

  Cover images © Shutterstock.com

  Caroline Storer asserts the moral right

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  This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

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  Ebook Edition © February 2014

  ISBN: 9780007568857

  Version 2014-02-05

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