The Patrician's Fortune- A Historical Romance

by Kayse, Joan

  “Jared has promised the use of his ship, mother.” Damon finished.

  Chryse nodded thoughtfully. “It must appear as though I’d planned to leave all along as sudden changes in habits always arouse suspicion. I can conceal Lita as one of my ladies. Oh, Damon. Please do not look so distressed. It is merely a ruse. I would never force your sister into anything she did not wish to do.”

  “You’d be surprised how much a ruse can turn into reality,” he muttered into his goblet.

  Chryse studied him for a long moment. “This new employer of yours. What do they demand in return for your rescue.”

  “She asks nothing,” Damon squeezed his eyes shut. He did not wish to get into the specifics of Julia and their agreement.

  “She?” purred Chryse. “You like this woman.”

  “She is an employer,” Damon snapped, not liking the way his mother watched him. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “You have feelings for her.”

  “No,” Damon fought to keep a fierce expression on his face, but his mother’s steady, look bored into him. With a heavy sigh, he poured another generous draught of wine into his goblet. “Yes, she is a good woman.” A goddess, he almost said, “I’ve promised her protection in a personal matter.”

  “She is patrician, your lady?”

  Damon nodded sullenly. He was in no mood for a lecture on patricians.

  “They come in all manner,” Chryse said conversationally, “I’ve served all types over the years. Not all of them are haughty or domineering.”

  “So I’ve been told,” he answered, taking another drink of wine.

  “Ah, Damon. I can not presume to advise you on matters of the heart. But son, I implore you to remember who you are. You are a son of the noblest equestrian house in Rome.”

  Damon gave a derisive snort. “Mother, we’ve been through this before. It doesn’t matter what I was born to. My birthright counted as nothing on the auction block.”

  Damon glowered when Chryse slammed her goblet on the table. “Damon Primax, no one can take your heritage from you. You must believe it here,” she put a fist to her chest. “Believe in yourself as I have always believed in you.”

  Damon looked hard at his mother. “How could you believe in me? I did nothing to stop father! I knew he was gambling, selling pieces of our home out from around us.” He rose and threw his own half empty chalice against the wall. “I did not stop him from tearing our family apart.”

  “Vesta, forgive me,” Chryse whispered to the heavens before leveling her gaze at her son. “You’ve blamed yourself all these years? You were but eleven years old!”

  Damon fisted his hands. Years of suppressed rage, bitter guilt, bubbled like a caldron in his chest, threatened to choke him. “I should have told you,” he snarled. “I should have stopped him. Damn the man!” He turned anguished eyes to Chryse. “My inaction sent us all to the slave pens!”

  Chryse rose and walked swiftly to where he stood. Damon held himself rigid as she wrapped her arms around him. He did not want her sympathy.

  “Son,” Chryse said, her voice trembling, “it is I who should ask your forgiveness.”

  “Mother...”

  “No, let me finish.” She guided him back to a couch and urged him to sit. Damon did so reluctantly. “It is I who should ask your forgiveness.” she said sternly, when he started to object. She gave him the same censoring look she had when he was a boy. Damon clamped his mouth closed.

  “I knew Felix had problems controlling his weakness in the gambling dens. I thought that if I worked harder at being a good wife, he would stay home, be proud of me, of his family.” She pursed her lips and looked down at her tightly clasped hands. “I turned a blind eye to it all. Even when he bartered my dowry, I refused to see the truth.”

  Damon looked down at his mother’s bent head. Gods, she had been bearing the same guilt as he for all these years.

  Tears stained her cheeks when she raised her head and looked at him. “Son, your father was a good man and we were right to give him our love. It was a curse of the gods that our love was not enough to save him from his own recklessness.”

  Damon could argue that an honorable man would have conquered his vices but as he looked into his mother’s grief-stricken face he forced those feelings aside. He folded her into his embrace. “The past cannot be changed. What matters most is that Lita be reunited with you...with us. Are you willing?”

  “

  *****

  Damon eased forward and peeked through the small window into the cramped room, careful to angle his head so that no shadow disrupted the meager light, alerting the occupants to his presence.

  A two-beamed vertical loom took up the larger portion of the space with the surrounding walls supporting baskets filled with a spectrum of colorful dyed threads. Four meager lamps and the lone window barely provided enough light to see, much less perform the intricate work of weaving cloth. But then his sister was so talented in her craft, she’d be able to create cloth with her eyes closed.

  Lita had been the last and the hardest of his family to locate. At nine years old she’d been sold to a wealthy textile merchant where she had learned the skills of making cloth. Excelling at weaving intricate designs, Tertius paid a large sum for the young girl when the merchant retired to his rural estate. Damon had just missed finding her before she fell into the Senator’s greedy hands.

  He remembered his first glimpse of his dark-haired sister sitting on the ground before a similar loom, expertly using wooden weaving combs to push the weft threads up to create a tighter weave. She’d used other terms such as pin beaters and warp threads and spatha or weaving sword. He could still hear her laughter as he’d looked at her dumbfounded, saying he preferred a real sword to some wooden replication. While the tools were a mystery to him, the beautiful things she did with them amazed him to this day.

  Lita had barely remembered her elder brother and was at first skeptical then thrilled when he announced he was going to see her free. That had been three long years ago and it was a miracle to him that she had kept any faith in him at all.

  “Do you wish more of the blue thread, Lita?” asked a girl no bigger than his sister had been when they’d been sold.

  “No, the threads are even now and we can begin weaving,” answered Lita, stepping away from the loom into his line of vision.

  Damon ran a critical eye over his sister’s slender form. She looked fatigued, more than usual though Tertius had never been an easy master. The bastard’s greed kept her at the loom for hours each day. It would have been impossible, Damon thought gloomily, for him to have ever been able to work off her slave price.

  “Haven’t you begun the tapestry yet, girl?”

  Instantly, the child’s eyes fell to the floor as Sirrus filled the doorway. Damon could see the girl trembling and his gaze flew to Lita. While she did not look at the steward, neither did she cast her eyes down in submission. A bolt of pride shot through Damon, but his hands curled into fists as Sirrus stepped into the room.

  The steward ordered the young slave girl out and approached Lita. “You are so sad these days, pretty one.”

  “Sad? No, only worn to the bone doing our master’s bidding.”

  “Oh? I thought perhaps it was because you missed that bastard brother of yours.”

  Damon’s heart clenched at the grief that flashed across Lita’s features before she concealed her reaction.

  “He is on the master’s business. He is often occupied for great lengths of time.”

  Sirrus chuckled darkly. “But not this long.”

  The bastard was baiting his sister. He was purposefully playing on her emotions, no doubt with the intention of informing Lita of his death. Damon’s hand fisted on the hilt of his knife and mentally calculated how he would dispose of the steward’s hulking body. He was saved from deciding when Sirrus was summoned from within the domus.

  “Return to your work,” he growled. Lifting her chin with one beefy finger he a
dded, “We will continue this later.”

  Lita glared after him then sank to the floor looking the very picture of despair.

  Damon had little time left. “Psst,” he hissed through the opening.

  Lita raised her head and looked around in confusion.

  “Psst. Lita, it is Damon.”

  Her gaze flew to the window. With a smile she hurried toward it.

  “Damon!” She exclaimed in a loud whisper, catching his hand with hers. “Oh, Damon. You are all right.”

  “More or less,” he answered. “I haven’t much time. Tertius believes me dead as does Sirrus...” He’d kill that bastard when this was done. “I’m certain that was what he was about to tell you.”

  “Dead? I don’t understand.”

  “I will give you the details later. For now you must know that in seven days, I will come for you. I am taking you to mother and then to freedom on a ship sailing for Alexandria.”

  “Runaway?”

  Damon squeezed her hand and held her uncertain gaze. “I know there are risks, sister, but there is no other option.” He flicked his gaze around the gloomy room. “I do not wish to see you spend your life laboring from dawn to dusk, your shoulders stooped from too many hours at the loom. All to make your master rich.”

  “You have risked much for me brother, more than I most probably deserve.”

  Damon’s heart clutched at the weariness in the small smile Lita gave him.

  She squeezed his hands back and nodded. “I will be ready.”

  Damon returned her smile. “You worried me for a moment, little sister. I thought I would have to use my rank as your older and wiser brother to persuade you.”

  “Older, yes. Wiser? That is a matter for discussion.”

  Damon sent her a mock expression of affront, pleased when she laughed. “In seven days, then. You will know it is I by the word Cleopatra.”

  Lita looked puzzled but gave him another smile as she remembered. “Be careful, brother.”

  Damon cupped her cheek with his hand. “Always, sister. Always.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The trip had been unbearable and if Kaj had not stopped her, Julia would have leapt from the litter and run the remainder of the way home.

  Where had Damon gone? Her imagination ran wild, from images of him seeking the murderer responsible for poor Ithacus’ death, to roaming the crowded streets of the city an open target for assassins, to confronting the Urban Prefect outright. She recalled that Damon had spoken to Kaj before their departure and on their arrival home she had pummeled her servant with questions which he refused to answer. For the first time in her life, the big man’s taciturn ways made her want to scream.

  Hours had passed since her return home and Julia could now admit that she was calmer, though there was still an undercurrent of apprehension thrumming through her with Damon’s continued absence. She’d spent the time checking on her family. Aunt Sophia had fallen on her, weeping and clinging, and after much reassurance and a draught of sleeping herb, her aunt was now resting. Lares had walked to the door, supremely smug about his newfound abilities and had given her a chiding look of manly proportions when she’d shed a tear over it. Basil was healing nicely and the rest of the servants—behaving as if she’d been gone for longer than a day—had expressed their delight at having her home.

  And every one of them asked after Master Damon.

  Julia looked around the garden and picked at her dinner. She had chosen to take her meal in the garden as the walls of her chamber had felt as if they were closing in on her and instructed Dorcas to bring enough for the master. Both meals were growing cold. The sun would soon set and Damon was still not home.

  She would give him a tongue lashing, she decided, spearing the roasted piece of dove with her knife. A sound set down for leaving her to worry all day long. He wasn’t a stupid man. He had to know that she understood the ramifications of the bookseller’s murder. She’d also noted the grief that had filled his eyes on learning of his friend’s death and longed to comfort him, reassure him that he was not to blame.

  No, she thought bleakly. He was not to blame, she was. The responsibility for this entire debacle lay squarely on her shoulders. Kaj had been right, and Damon too, that it had been insanity to think that such a ruse as she propagated could to anything to deter a man like Quintus. She should have just taken her family and left the city.

  But then, Damon would have died.

  That thought fanned the terror she’d managed to subdue. Where was he? She would die if anything happened to that infuriating man.

  You love him.

  Bryna’s words echoed in her heart. Julia pushed her plate aside and sat on the edge of the couch, ran her hands through her hair. She could no longer deny the truth. She loved Damon. Had, she supposed, from that first meeting when he’d challenged her with his cutting wit and overwhelming pride.

  As trite as it may sound, he possessed every trait of a true aristocrat—courage, honor, passion, integrity—in his own way. He may have been raised a slave, but his every action proclaimed his pureblood nobility. And not a bit of it mattered to Julia.

  What did matter was what this man made her feel alive, cherished—she sighed deeply—desired. If anything happened to him...

  “Goddess, a glum face does not suit you.”

  Julia’s head shot up and she stared wide eyed at Damon, her gaze raking him from head to toe including the puzzled frown that graced the wonderful, hard angles of his handsome, wonderful face looking for any sign of injury.

  “Have I grown another head?” he asked, walking slowly toward her.

  She didn’t answer, just bolted to her feet and flung herself at him, circled her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder, inhaling the musk and sandalwood scent that was only Damon. Unprepared, he stumbled back a few steps before she felt his arms band around her.

  “Most husbands receive a simple ‘Greetings, husband. How was your day at the Forum?’”

  A small laugh spilled from Julia. She pulled away and rested her forehead against his, her relief so great that he was whole and had returned that she could not trust herself to speak.

  Damon guided her feet back to the floor, lifted her chin and studied her face, his brow creased with worry. “Julia, what is wrong?” he asked. “Is your family well? Is it Basil?”

  She shook her head, feeling a bit foolish at her overreaction to his return. “No, everyone is fine.”

  Now he was looking at her as if she had two heads. She could try to explain, but wasn’t certain she had the words to describe what she was feeling. She did know she could not speak of love and have the strength to bear the sting of his rejection.

  Instead, she framed his face with her hands and drew him to her lips. She brushed them softly against his, as light as a butterfly’s wings. No words, no explanations. She teased the corners of his mouth with her tongue before parting her lips and giving him a long, passionate kiss.

  For a moment, he seemed to hold back, but then slanted his head and deepened it, his velvet tongue sparring with hers until their breathing came in short, shallow pants.

  He broke contact first and set her away from him, but not before she’d seen the desire in his eyes. It gave her a heady feeling that she had this effect on him. But his next words brought her feet quickly back to solid ground.

  “Julia, no more.”

  Julia hugged herself, watched as he walked to the low table and helped himself to her full wine glass. She’d smelled the spirits on his breath, could still taste it where his lips had savaged hers. “Eat some bread, unless you relish the incapacitation of drunkenness.”

  He glanced up sharply, a thin edge to his half smile. “I’m nowhere close to being inebriated.” He took a long swallow of wine as well as a bite of the crusty bread and added bitterly, “I don’t believe there is enough wine in the entire Empire to dull my senses to oblivion.”

  Julia walked slowly toward him. “Damon, I don’t und
erstand.”

  “Well, goddess, you should,” he tore off another piece of bread, popped it into his mouth. “You’ve known from the beginning that we are from separate worlds. I’ve tried on multiple occasions to convince you. Oh, do not misunderstand,” he looked up at her, “I’ve enjoyed the pleasure of your body immensely and I thank you for the gift of it. But it would do us both a disfavor to think it can continue.” He averted his gaze. “That it should continue.”

  His words slapped at her like physical blows.

  He will think to cast it from him.

  Julia drew a steadying breath, studied Damon’s sullen profile, considered Bryna’s words. He was doing exactly that, she realized. Casting her away with harsh words. It was the way he distanced himself from things that mattered. She’d heard it in the gruff banter with Ithacus, in the caustic word play with Jared. She held back a smile.

  Damon raised one brow, sent her a suspicious look.

  Julia strolled to the couch across from him and lowered herself gracefully to it. “You’re correct of course. It has been quite entertaining. I merely worried a mishap had occurred on your way back...” She paused for effect and when the scowl on his face deepened, continued, “...home.”

  He stared long and hard at her until she began to squirm, her sense of satisfaction to have used his own tactics on him fading. When he answered, it crumbled to dust.

  “No. There were no mishaps, though I have no doubt there will be and of the most serious nature.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Damon ate a handful of berries. “Ithacus was murdered. I saw the horror in your eyes when Jared’s slave revealed the manner of his death.”

  Gods, of course she had been horrified. Any civilized person would be at an unnecessary and violent death. “I’m sorry, I know you held him in high esteem.”

  The flash of grief that passed across his features was almost too brief to see. “He was a good man and it grieves me that I was the cause of his demise.”