“Fabius. She’s a Paterculi. A little respect.” Consul Julius rotated to Marcellus. “We’re not trying to sell Gwen into slavery. Once you catch the Shadow Man, we’ll give you the reward and announce the patrician Caius Marcellus dead. Gwen can return to her familia as a respectable widow.”
“Or you could divorce Gwen now, ensuring this will never become an issue.” Fabius rubbed his thumb over his knife pommel.
Marcellus dropped his hands. “All right.”
“What?” Consul Julius half-rose, belly wobbling.
“I’ll do as you wish. Tomorrow, I’ll divorce Gwen.” Blood pounded against Marcellus’ temples as his chest tightened with the words. He’d never see her again. She’d marry John.
Fabius narrowed his eyes. “Why not today?”
He needed to say farewell. He needed one more night with the woman who stole his breath away. She’d hate him for this. His throat constricted. After the morrow, he’d never again see her smile or hear her laugh.
For the second time in three years, wetness formed in his eyes, but he’d put Gwen through enough risks.
“See to it you do.” Fabius traced the table lip. “Or I might tell her myself.”
Marcellus clenched his jaw, but as painful as divorcing Gwen would prove, he couldn’t risk Fabius doing that. No worse fate existed than to be a slave.
“And Corann,” the consul’s large eyes glinted, “I expect a spy caught this week and turned over to the Shadow Man.”
“Understood,” Marcellus said.
Fabius flicked his hand to the doorway. “Leave.”
Marcellus’ back stiffened. Someday he’d come and go as he pleased, not subject to the order of any man. Then he’d make any patrician who’d ever beaten, raped, or killed a slave pay, a life for a life.
With Gwen gone, he’d start his revolt soon.
Afternoon light turned into dusk’s shadows when Gwen spotted Marcellus. Feet drawn up on the bed, she watched through the window as he took measured steps across the courtyard. An ill-at-ease look lingered in his eyes.
Last night all the women she talked to said Marcellus hadn’t betrayed her. However, he left at night for something. She shifted on the covers. A desolate aura hung over the empty room, the worn paint and unfamiliar furnishings mocking her, the silence heavy as a tomb.
A knock sounded on her door.
She slid her feet to the ground. “Who is it?”
“Marcellus. May I come in?”
“I guess.” She rested her hand uneasily on the cabinet behind her.
The door swung open with a creak. Marcellus ran his gaze over her, unmasked admiration in his eyes.
Her heart fluttered.
He kicked the door. It slammed shut. In two strides, he crossed the room. He stroked his hand over her cheek. “You look like a goddess standing there, though no goddess could compare to you.” Bending his head, he touched his mouth to hers.
She clenched the edge of the cabinet. “I’m not going to let you do this.”
He slid both hands around her, tugging her to him. “You like kissing me.”
She pulled back, yet though she tried, she couldn’t force her body to stiffen. “I also like knowing what keeps my husband out all night.”
“You were out most of last night. What were you doing?” He slid his finger into one of her dark curls and ran his thumb over the lock.
“Investigating the stories that swirl about you in the marketplace.”
“Your findings?” He touched her chin, his calluses gentle against her skin.
“All two dozen women claimed you never touched them.”
He dropped his hand from her. “I told you!”
“But there are thousands of stories about you.”
“All as unfounded as those two dozen, delicia.” He slid his hands across her shoulder blades, rumpling her tunica.
“Will you swear to me you haven’t been with other women?”
“Yes.” He ran his hands down her shoulders, spreading warmth, like the sun in summer, tantalizing her to bask in their heat. “What do you wish me to swear by?”
“You hated your father. What did you think of your mother?”
Pain seared across his face. “I loved her more than life. I swear by my mother’s grave, I’ve never so much as looked at another woman.”
She shifted in his arms. “Whose sister did you try to free at the Lupanar brothel?” She shouldn’t let Marcellus touch her like this, but oh, how full of life this room now felt.
“Lupanar is a sordid place of debauchery. John shouldn’t have let you go anywhere near there.”
“He didn’t get a choice.” She pulled back from Marcellus’ arms. “Whose sister?”
“Bruno’s. She was your friend Livia’s slave. It’s how I knew about what happened that time at the Tiber.”
A straight-forward answer from Marcellus. Behold, the eighth wonder of the world. She held her arms stiff. “Why did a consul collect money from your estates?”
“What?”
“I took your signet ring and wrote to your overseer. I have the letter.” Kneeling, she extracted it from under the bed.
His knee hit the floor beside her. Clasping both her hands, he gazed at her, a pleading light in his green eyes. “Please, Gwen, can’t I tell you all tomorrow? Can’t I have this night with you?”
“But….” She touched his chest. Three days had passed since she last lingered in his arms, and all the women she asked had said Marcellus had been faithful.
“You’ve accused me falsely twice now. Trust me, delicia.” He flicked a hair from her face.
“Twice?”
“Once about asking for your hand, and then about these women.”
True. She ran her tongue over her teeth. “You promise you’ll explain your estates to me tomorrow?”
He already started to nod.
“And why you leave at night?”
“Promise, delicia.” He circled his arms behind her waist.
She melted into the arms she’d longed for every hour of the past three days. She brushed her hand down his arm. Her fingers caught on the bandage he always wore.
He flinched.
“The wound still pain you?”
“Yes, nasty battle in Dacia.” Sliding his hand under her legs, he picked her up and laid her on the bed.
Behold, he did have a battle wound. He had served in Dacia. Regardless of Wryn’s thoughts, a Dacian war hero would never turn his hand to smuggling.
Marcellus caressed his hand against Gwen’s skin. Her lips felt so soft against his. He would never kiss those lips again. He tugged her tighter. Her body fit against his, so warm, so perfect.
If only Gwen had been born a slave, he could have held her like this forever. If she’d been born a slave, she wouldn’t have cared when Consul Julius handed him manumission papers, and she saw him for who he really was, a former slave. She would have understood the revolt too, joined him. With the way she moaned about the unfairness of Roman laws, she’d excel at revolting.
One hint of his slave background though, and Gwen would scorn him forever. No domina deigned to touch a slave. And he’d never let her fall under Consul Julius’ mastery like he was. He’d freed every single man in his rabble, yet he couldn’t free himself, though these last three years he’d risked his life daily attempting to earn manumission papers.
“You seem pensive, Marcellus.” Gwen gazed into his eyes.
He stroked his hand across her bare shoulder. “Have I told you that you’re the most beautiful—”
Her laughter rang across the room. “Once or twice.”
“Not near enough times then.” He flicked his thumb, unclasping her tunica brooch.
She twisted her arms around his neck, slid onto his legs. Her lips sparked fire as she pressed her body against him.
She wanted him. If he’d been born a patrician, no scars across his back, no hate in his soul, he could have lived a lifetime with her. Traveled to those villas she wished to see, lingered un
der the grape vines, had a familia together.
Instead, on the morrow, he’d have to divorce her. He’d already sent a note to the man he’d hand over as ‘the spy’ so the rabble and he could return to catching the Shadow Man. He’d need to catch the Shadow Man and collect those million sestertii to give Gwen her dowry back.
Then he’d never see Gwen again. A pain sharper than any knife cut through his heart. How could he hand her a certificate of divorce? She’d think he abandoned her.
He forced the thought away. Many, many hours yet until the morrow.
With a sigh, Gwen nestled closer to Marcellus’ sleeping form. She rested her head against his bare chest. Through the chink in the curtain, dawn’s light painted the sky in flaming colors. Rising to one elbow, she ran her hand across the hardened muscles of Marcellus’ stomach. She loved him, but could she trust his word? He’d sworn by his mother.
John and Wryn still thought Marcellus a smuggler. Why did he have the mark of the lash across his back? She ran her hand up his arm. Her fingers caught against that bandage he never removed.
A Dacian war wound earned honorably in battle. A man who’d fought bravely for Rome wouldn’t break the law now. Why did he never remove the bandage?
Leaning over him, her skin bare against his, she felt for the knot. She tugged it. With a sleep-filled noise, Marcellus rolled and flung his arm over her, but his eyes remained shut, his breathing steady in sleep.
His bandaged arm stretched across her front, the cloth underneath her hand. The fabric gave way to her fingers.
She unwrapped one length, a second. The third layer of cloth fell away.
Seared flesh stared up at her, white from the heat of a branding iron. She gasped.
Three letters dug deep into the ugliness of burnt flesh, letters that must have elicited screams of pain when first burned. F.U.G., fugitivus, the brand a master seared into the flesh of a slave who’d run away.
Marcellus yawned and moved again, not quite in sleep. She twisted the bandage back on with frantic speed.
Eyes still closed, he stretched and pulled her closer to him.
The man who she lay naked beside was no Caius Marcellus. Rome didn’t recognize marriage between a freedman and the granddaughter of a senator. She now lay in the arms of a naked man, whose name she didn’t know, who was not her husband.
One shiver after another ran through her limbs.
She could lose her citizenship, her patrician status, her inheritance rights, everything for lying with a freedman. She whipped her gaze to Marcellus’ face. He’d known that and still imposed himself on her.
Why had he spent years playing the patrician? How had no one noticed? Had the Viri helped him with this?
Her heart thumped against her chest. She forced herself flat on the mattress. Or wait, what if he wasn’t a freedman, but a runaway slave?
Her stomach churned. His naked body touched hers. If he was still a slave, she could lose not only her patrician status but her freedom for this. Her hand trembled.
She had to leave, go to her familia. If Marcellus was a runaway, how did she tell her familia she’d committed the greatest infamia possible? Bedding with a slave. Marcellus’ breath blew across her ear.
No wonder he talked about justice for the oppressed. His brand was so brutal. If he weren't a smuggler, she’d not send him back to slavery. She could tell him she knew and take an invalid divorce certificate to nullify the invalid marriage papers they’d signed. When she went to her familia, she could merely tell them that she no longer wished to be the wife of a man such as Marcellus. They’d rejoice over that.
What if she told Father the truth? He’d turn Marcellus over to the garrison where, if his life were spared, he’d be beaten and sent back to slavery. Gwen traced the edge of the sheet. Perhaps those answers he promised her this morn would give her some idea of what to do. She could follow him again tonight.
No, she needed to leave today before she could be legally accused of knowingly cohabiting with a freedman—or a slave.
Chapter 26
Gwen felt Marcellus move. She feigned sleep.
Rising, Marcellus pulled on his tunic. With one hand, he cinched his sword belt tight above his hips. He glanced to the courtyard.
As the door swung shut behind him, she tugged on her dress and shoved her knife into her leg sheath. Parting the curtain, she swung her leg out the window just as Marcellus turned the lock in the villa gate.
This time she’d not get caught following him. Hanging behind the shadows of marble porticos, she trailed him. The porticos turned swiftly to brick apartments, then ramshackle hovels as they reached the edge of the city.
He crossed an open field. Sticking to a ravine, she kept her head down. He passed into a pine grove, and she hurried forward.
A horse stood at the edge of the grove.
Something rustled across the field. She pressed into the nearest pine tree. Bruno. She groaned. Always the faithful rabble. If Marcellus was a smuggler, then did the rabble smuggle too? Petiphor even?
Crouching to the earth, she wriggled until she could see through the pine branches. The last row of low-hanging needles covered her.
Cato stood in the grove. The man parted sallow lips. “You kept me waiting long enough. What’s it you want, Marcellus?”
With one motion, Marcellus grabbed Cato’s arm and twisted it behind his back. The same move he’d used to defeat her, only much more violent.
Cato cried out, and Marcellus drove his knee into the man’s back, plunging him to the ground. Marcellus pressed his knife against the man’s throat. His calloused hand shoved the blade against the skin like he’d told her one should when one intends to kill.
“It was you.” Cato gasped from the needle-covered dirt.
“Yes.” Marcellus rolled the man onto his back and pressed the edge of his knife tighter, dimpling the skin of Cato’s throat.
Cato’s eyes bulged as he stared up at the blue sky and Marcellus. “The garrison, they’ll want me alive.”
“I don’t plan to turn you over to the garrison. You’re going to be the Shadow Man’s spy.” Marcellus slashed his knife across the man’s throat.
A smuggler. Marcellus was a smuggler. A smuggler who killed. Cold fear dug through Gwen’s chest.
Cato gasped for breath as blood ran from his throat.
“Before you die,” Marcellus ripped the bandage from his arm, “you die at the hand of a slave.”
The sun heated Marcellus’ burnt flesh, and he’d not been given his freedom, which meant whoever his master was could try to claim her as a slave, too.
A gasp slid through Gwen’s teeth.
At the noise, Marcellus whipped around. He met her gaze. Scrambling to her feet, she ran.
The thud of Marcellus’ feet beat behind her.
Cato’s horse stood harnessed by the tree. Tearing the reins loose, Gwen vaulted onto the steed. Her tunica rode up past her knees as she dug her heels into the horse.
Glancing back, her gaze connected with Marcellus. She kicked the horse. Marcellus’ oath echoed across the grass.
She urged the horse down an alley, across a side street, past narrow buildings. Heart pounding, she glanced back. No sign of Marcellus or the rabble. She heaved a deep breath. Marcellus had slit Cato’s throat with as little concern as if human life meant nothing, and Cato hadn’t even threatened him. With the information she had about Marcellus, all she’d have to do is open her mouth, and the garrison would crucify him. He knew that.
Riding a horse on these narrow streets would only attract attention. Swinging off the horse, she whacked its rump. It galloped away.
Her pulse raced through her veins as she ran.
Marcellus’ breath heaved as he sped in the direction Gwen had ridden. The horse became a speck in front of him, yet still he ran. At the city limits, he slammed to a halt, admitting what had become obvious a mile and a half ago. He’d lost her.
“What?” Bruno drew up to him. The rabble emerged
from behind an apartment.
If only they’d arrived a quarter hour earlier. Marcellus slammed his fist against a brick wall. “Gwen knows.”
Bruno lifted his eyebrows. “About the smuggling? Or the spying? Or that you’re a slave?”
“All of it.” The penalty for a slave killing a patrician was crucifixion. He should have divorced her yesterday, or never married her.
“The slave revolt?”
“No, not that.”
Was Gwen safe running through those streets? Nothing he could do for her now. No, now he needed to ensure neither he nor the rabble ended up nailed to wooden crosses.
“We can spread out, try to find her.” Androkles advanced.
“This is Rome.” Marcellus lifted his hand. “A thousand men couldn’t find her in this city.”
“She’ll tell someone.” Androkles gripped his knife.
“Where would she go?” Bruno looked to Marcellus. “The Paterculi house?”
Her familia had left. She’d not head to the Marcellus villa, not after she’d seen his slave brand. Marcellus dug his fingers into the brick wall. “I know where she went.”
“Perhaps we should flee for Germania.” Bruno shoved him. “It’s our lives too.”
“No time. If this gets out, Fabius will discover it within the hour.” Marcellus wiped his bloody knife across the grass.
“What do we do then?”
“I’ll handle it. Go to the villa. With the blades there, it’s defensible.” Marcellus jabbed the knife into his belt. “If I’m not there within the hour, start the slave revolt.”
“And you?” the new recruit said.
“I’m going to deal with Gwen.” Marcellus crushed his foot against the grass. “Bruno?”
“Yes.”
Marcellus gripped his knife. “Dismiss the cook. I want no witnesses to this day’s events.”
Marcellus raced to the Spiros’ gate. Maybe he could wait here and intercept Gwen. No. John lived in Rome. He could prevent Gwen from reaching her familia in Gaul, but she’d find opportunity somehow to speak to John. If John sent word to her familia, they’d all face crucifixion.
To Deceive an Empire: Love and Warfare series book 3 Page 25