“I would never defile myself with such—” Marcellus swore, many words she didn’t know, though she could feel the hate behind the syllables.
Her fingers slid off the knife as she pushed back against the headboard. “You sound like you’ve seen such things.”
“Seen it, experienced it, hate any person who would do such a thing to another human being.” He swore again, dark words tumbling from his tongue.
Experienced? “But you’re a man.”
“That doesn’t much matter when you’re a slave.”
Her body trembled. Tears rolled down her cheeks as cold wind whipped the curtain and the fabric billowed in the darkness.
“The signet ring.” His eyes were so hard, no hint of the laughing light they always possessed.
With one hand, she swept it from under the pillow. The metal clanked against the floor.
“I’ll take your lock pick too.” His jaw looked hewn from rock.
“I don’t have a—”
He flipped his left hand over.
She dropped the sliver of metal on his palm. He closed his hand over it, the same hand he’d killed with.
The bed’s curved headboard dug into her back as she gasped for breath. Sweat slicked her hands and even closing her eyes didn’t stop the pounding in her head. Oh, to scream, but who would hear?
No one.
Marcellus reached toward her, his hand extended, but not touching her. “Do you want me to hold you?”
She lurched back, palms pressed against the engravings in the cold headboard. “I’ll not take comfort from a smuggler and a murderer.”
With a groan, Marcellus sat on the foot of the bed. The mattress shifted under his weight. “I’m not a smuggler. I’m a spy against the Viri.”
“A spy?”
He nodded. “For Consul Julius Semproni and Fabius Agricola. Do you think John would have aided the Viri? I showed him the proof.”
Spy? The word he’d used with Cato. She narrowed her eyes. That would make more sense. John would never do anything illegal. With how much information about smugglers Wryn had, quite unfairly, shared with John, he’d demand proof before joining Marcellus. “You murdered Cato.”
“He smuggled for the Viri. It was necessary.”
“In cold blood?” She dug her fingers into the headboard. Wood polish came off underneath her nails.
“You know how many slaves like me that man had killed?”
Yes, Marcellus was a slave. A runaway no less. A dangerous man. Her blood-drained fingers trembled as she tugged the coverlet tight around her shoulders.
“You’re shaking like a leaf in a windstorm. Let me hold you.” He reached out, so gentle now.
“I could be sold into slavery because you forced me to stay here. Slavery.” Her voice echoed against the furnishings in an eerie stillness. He’d known it too, and still he’d done this to her.
“Consul Julius pledged he’d let no one else know about the infamia of our marriage.” Marcellus brushed his fingertip against the edge of her knee.
She lurched away. “Marriage? You’re a slave. This is no marriage.”
Red rose across his face, hate burning in his bloodshot eyes. His sandals thudded against the tile as he rose. “Well then, domina, this slave has no desire to die for you. So, you’re a prisoner in this villa until the Shadow Man’s caught.”
The door clicked shut behind him. Her pulse raced in her veins, but no matter how brutal Marcellus proved to be, he worked for the right side of the law. Which meant, he’d not kill her.
At least as long as she followed his dictate to stay.
Chapter 28
Morning breeze tugged at Gwen’s covers, carrying the scent of rain. Standing, she cinched her belt around her tunica. Taking a deep breath, she turned the door handle.
John, apart from abandoning her, had spoken truth. She’d willingly drawn this fate. Now, what to do with it?
As promised, the rabble marched the hedged walkways, denying exit. Gwen moved through the empty atrium. A lonely wind moaned outside the broad windows. Marcellus planned to bring down the Viri leader, the same Shadow Man that she and Wryn had hunted for years now.
Her stomach growled as she crossed to the kitchen. The man who’d gotten her into this disaster sat there, back to her. The man who she couldn’t love anymore, no matter how her heart ached. “Marcellus.”
Seated cross-legged by the kitchen fire, he ripped into a hunk of bread with his teeth. He grabbed a tumbler of wine and tilted it up.
“I wish to talk to you.”
He jerked his gaze to her. “What would a domina have to say to a slave?”
Oh, the hate he filled domina with. “The Viri and the Shadow Man—”
“Are no concern of yours, domina.”
She cringed as he pronounced the syllables again. She shouldn’t have said that about his slavery last night. For all his other misdeeds, his birth was not his fault. “Marcellus.” She stepped next to him.
Dropping the bread, he recoiled as if she burned him. In the daylight, he looked like the Marcellus who had written her love notes and compared her beauty to the stars, not the one who had grabbed her arm and threatened murder.
Her breathing calm, she met his gaze. “I’m sorry I mocked your slave status.”
“You spoke naught but the truth.” He swept her a bow. “Domina.”
“Stop calling me that.” She shoved his chest with both hands.
“It’s who you are.”
She strode closer, her face up in his as she glared at him. “The reason our marriage is over is because of your deceit, not your birth.”
“Without my lies, what use would you have had for me, a slave?”
“I loved you.” Tears formed in her eyes. Despite everything, she wanted to reach over the handbreadth separating them and cling to him, take him up on last night’s offer of the comfort of his arms.
“What would that have amounted to? Want to use a slave to warm your bed? It is the fashionable thing in Rome these days, I hear.”
She went rigid. “I’m not a loose woman.”
He slid his flat eyebrow up, a mocking light in his green eyes. “Then again, you said marriage with a slave was nothing. Yet, here you stand in the circle of my arms.”
Oh, to slap her hand across his smug face, but he had killed a man yesterday. She stepped back. “I hate you.”
He shrugged. “I told you hate’s stronger than love.”
She glared at him. Then she slammed on a bench. “You’re going to sit down, Caius Marcellus, or whatever your real name is, and tell me why and how and wherefore about the Viri, and this consul, and everything else.”
“So you can betray me?”
“So I can understand you.” She stabbed her finger at the bench across from her.
“You were raised in luxury as a patrician. You’ll never understand me.” He spat on the floor.
He hated her. Tears sprang to her eyes, though they shouldn’t have. She balled her fists. “How could you plot to ruin me? I’ll lose my patrician status, citizenship, freedom even when Rome discovers you’re a slave.”
“You’ll not be ruined. After I’ve caught the Shadow Man, Consul Julius will give me my freedom and declare the patrician Caius Marcellus dead. You’ll be a venerable widow.”
Relief should have seeped through her marrow, but it didn’t. “What if I’m with child?” He’d taken the firsts of everything, knowing full well he’d abandon her afterward. More than likely those stories about him and other women were true.
“He’d not want me as father, not after he’s known the patricians.” Marcellus’ glare burned the kitchen tiles. He dropped his voice. “After he’s met John.”
“What?”
His shoulders touched plaster as he leaned casually back. “I assume that is who you’ll choose as your new husband.”
John? John who’d left her in the garden with Marcellus, even though she shook from fear? She crossed her arms. “Finish what you st
arted telling me last night about the Viri.”
“I was drunk.”
Given to drink, another rumor about him proven true. She flattened her hands on the bench. “I can help you catch the Shadow Man.”
“Domina, as little as you trust me, I trust you less.” With an incline of his head, he walked out the door.
Gwen paced her bedchamber in the stifling villa as afternoon shadows lengthened over the streets Marcellus’ guards kept her from walking. What if Flora came to the fuller’s shop for work today? She should check on the carpenter’s baby. Claudia still needed to be whisked away from Fabius. Was this how exile felt?
The door swung open with a creak. Marcellus stood in the entranceway. “I’m going to a dinner party at Victor Ocelli’s house. You’ve been invited, and if you don’t go, you’ll arouse suspicion.”
“You’ll let me out of my imprisonment for one night? How delightful. I’ll have to decide whether to wear my red or yellow tunica for my hour of freedom.”
“You’ll come then?”
“Of course, I’ll come.” Gwen threw open her box of jewels. “Do you think I enjoy being imprisoned in these four walls?”
“It’s been one day.” Marcellus shifted his feet on the tile. “And there’s a garden and courtyard too.”
“I’ve never spent an entire day cooped inside a villa in my life.”
His voice fell, barely audible. “A slave doesn’t ever get to leave a villa’s grounds without a master’s order.”
She glanced at him. He lowered his gaze. Some of her anger fell away. “It must have been awful for you as a slave.”
Marcellus stiffened. “John doesn’t know about my slavery. Don’t tell him tonight.”
“You know I won’t. If word gets out I’ve…” she dropped her voice, “bedded with a slave, I’ll become a woman of infamia, more degraded than a prostitute, and I could lose my freedom to your master.” She jerked her chin up. “Who is your master?”
Marcellus rested his hand on the cabinet. “Consul Julius Semproni. He’s promised to do nothing to you.”
“What if someone else discovers it?”
“I’ll ensure no one finds out. And I’m sorry, Gwen.” A pained look tensed his face.
She dug her hands into her waist. “Truly? Are you truly sorry?”
“I didn’t intend to tangle you up in any of this. The Viri ordered me to kill you. It’s why I showed up in your chamber that night. But I couldn’t, so I married you.”
He’d intended to kill her on that wildly inappropriate night in her bedchamber? “How does marrying me have anything to do with not murdering me?”
“The Shadow Man said if I didn’t kill you, he’d kill me. When I married you, he relented, as I suspected.”
She scoffed. “Do you honestly expect me to believe a word you say after all your lies? I almost wish the Shadow Man had killed you, Marcellus. If that even is your real name?”
“It’s not.” He turned his lips up in a room-lighting grin. “And I’m honored that at this point you only ‘almost’ want me dead.”
She groaned. “What is your real name?”
“It’s better you don’t know it.”
She raised her hands, frustration swelling through her. Marcellus turned on his heel and walked out.
An hour later, she and Marcellus passed through Victor’s house into the courtyard. John stood by a colonnade.
Marcellus strode up to him and dropped his voice. “I have to arrange a meeting with the Viri. Take care she speaks to no one and be on the watch for assassins.” Marcellus pushed her toward John.
Gwen spun. “You trust him more than me?”
“John wants a political promotion. I can give it to him. I have nothing that you want. Therefore I can’t trust you.” Marcellus rested his green-eyed gaze on her, sorrow in his eyes.
She planted her feet on the garden step. “Trust is not bought and sold. Trust is something you earn.”
“Perhaps if you are the kind of man able to earn it.” Marcellus moved into the villa.
Gwen stubbed her toe against a Vesta statue. The goddess’ docile face turned up in a pasty look of happiness. Inside, Marcellus did business with smugglers. Here, John kept watch for assassins, and where did that leave her? She didn’t even have her lock pick anymore.
Wryn had gotten away with not sharing smuggling details with her, but after what Marcellus had put her through, he would let her help catch the Shadow Man.
She walked to the other side of the peristyle, away from John.
A man crossed the colonnades. Fabius’ arrogant posture matched the insolent gleam in his eyes. “Still invited to patrician events after your infamia?”
She froze. “What infamia?” Fabius didn’t know she knew. Marcellus had said Consul Julius promised not to use Marcellus’ birth against her, but even if that promise failed, legally a woman who didn’t know she cohabited with a slave couldn’t be punished.
“Haven’t you discovered it for yourself yet? Surely one look at his back on your wedding night—”
“How dare you speak so lewdly to me?” She summoned a haughty voice worthy of Hermina. “I’m a Paterculi, and I’ll not have you talking to me like one of your slave paramours.”
“Slave paramours? Perhaps you’d know something of those….”
Insinuating a patrician woman spent her free hours sleeping with slaves was the crassest insult one could make against a woman. Once, three years ago, a rejected suitor much too deep into his wine had made such a jest against her. Wryn and Eric had taken turns pounding him bloody.
Only this time, the accusation was true.
Fabius couldn’t know she knew that. Gwen crossed her arms. “How dare you imply such? I’ll tell my father. Have him get your tribune position revoked for talking about me like this.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Watch me.” She stared right into his eyes.
Fabius marched away.
Marcellus lounged against the wall as casually as if his conversation concerned Senate news. “When’s the next smuggling shipment?”
“Next week.” Victor slid his dark brow up. “We meet the Shadow Man then too if you’re not dead yet.”
Marcellus stiffened.
“I warned you the Shadow Man thought you a spy, and you disregarded me. I can’t protect you forever.”
“The Shadow Man found his spy. Cato.” Marcellus struggled to keep his fingers from knotting.
“Yes, the wretch, but one spy doesn’t preclude the possibility of a second.”
“What do you mean?”
“You spent an entire day at the Paterculi house at least once.” Victor’s black eyes pierced him. “Aquilus Paterculi trusted you enough to leave the city while Gwen was in your keeping, and everyone knows how protective he is of his daughter.”
“The man got a consulship.” Marcellus raised his hands. “What was he supposed to do?”
Victor shrugged. “It’s your life, not mine. Don’t be surprised though if the Shadow Man slits a knife across your throat.”
If the Shadow Man killed him, he’d send an assassin for Gwen afterward. Marcellus racked his wits. “You think Aquilus Paterculi would ally with me when his daughter hates me? As you said, he’s a protective father.”
“The girl defied her father to run off to you. I’m your friend, and even I wouldn’t believe that ludicrous tale about Gwen hating you.”
Friend? Ha! Marcellus rested his foot on the dais ledge. “That was before she’d shared my roof or my bed. She’s in the peristyle. Come there in a quarter hour and see for yourself.”
Victor snorted. “If your far-fetched story held any truth, she’d have divorced you and rode to Gaul with her familia.”
Marcellus arched one eyebrow. “As I told the Shadow Man, I want her. I’m not about to let her leave until I’ve had my fill of her.”
Victor narrowed his black eyes.
Keeping every muscle relaxed, Marcellus let the man search his
face.
“Very well, I’ll come to the peristyle in a quarter of an hour. I’m reporting the truth of what I see to the Shadow Man, though, no more, no less.”
Marcellus nodded and turned. As he walked to the peristyle, a hand caught his shoulder. Marcellus dug his elbow back. He saw Fabius’ face. He dropped his arm and stifled a groan.
Jerking his thumb right, Fabius pointed to an empty room off the atrium. Marcellus passed into the room.
“You said you’d divorce Gwen yesterday.”
Marcellus shrugged. “I changed my mind.”
“Gwen looked unsettled tonight. Perhaps she discovered you’re a slave and that’s why you haven’t divorced her yet?”
The sharp edge of a Hera statue dug into Marcellus’ back. If Fabius knew Gwen knew, he could try to get Consul Julius to enforce the law to enslave her. “Of course not. You think she’d be here with me if she knew?”
“With how mad with love that harlot is, I could see her staying with you regardless.”
Grabbing Fabius by the shoulder, Marcellus yanked him forward. “Don’t you ever call my wife a—”
Fabius struck him against the jaw. “She’s not your wife, and well you know it, slave.”
Legally, Fabius spoke the truth. Marcellus dropped his hand. First, he needed to earn his freedom by catching the Shadow Man, then he’d deal with Fabius.
Besides, if he tarried longer, he’d not have time to speak to Gwen about what he needed Victor to see when the man came to the gardens. Marcellus shoved the curtain aside.
Across the triclinium dais, Victor broke off his conversation with Senator Sulla and turned to the peristyle—and Gwen. No! Fabius had delayed him too long. Marcellus hastened his step, but Victor strode ten paces ahead.
Gwen lingered by the dark hedges. Victor blocked his path. He couldn’t speak to her now without Victor overhearing. Marcellus thudded to a halt.
A smile lit Gwen’s beautiful lips. She raised her hand to him as if in greeting.
Victor glanced at him. The man rolled his eyes and took a step back toward the triclinium. Victor would repeat this to the Shadow Man. The Viri would kill him and Gwen.
“Wait.” Marcellus grabbed Victor’s shoulder and yanked his gaze back toward Gwen. Now he could only pray Jupiter the girl’s temper flamed as hot tonight as other times.
To Deceive an Empire: Love and Warfare series book 3 Page 27