“No one raised any questions about our leaving.” Tristan accepted the reins when Angus handed them over. “I shouldn’t be more than an hour.”
“Everything is good on my end,” Angus said, sparing a quick, hesitant glance for Valeria. “I’ll be waiting.”
Valeria watched with interest as Angus slung a bag over his shoulder and walked across the grounds, headed towards the city rather than back to the palace. He and Tristan were wasting no time getting out of Rome. They’d be gone within the hour.
Tristan lifted himself into the saddle first, then reached down for her. “Let me help you up.”
Though she didn’t want to see him go, there was nothing she could do to stop him or change his mind, so she slid her hand into his and let him hoist her into the saddle in front of him.
Every plane of his hard body came into contact with hers as he situated his weight behind her to get more comfortable. She was half-seated in his lap by the time he slapped the reins and steered the horse down the hill to the city.
The slow, easy pace of their ride created a sensual friction between their bodies and it wasn’t long before she felt his hard erection pressing into her backside. In her mind, she had visions of him stopping the horse and taking her down to the green grass to make love to her one last time. But he didn’t speak at all. She could think of nothing to say, but the closer they got to the city, the less she wanted to get off the horse. Being so close to Tristan, with his arms around her and his warm body pressed close to her, she thought she could ride with him to the end of the world and back and it wouldn’t be far enough.
She wasn’t ready to see him go.
A sob of despair rose in her throat and she swallowed past it, desperately racking her mind for something to say. Anything. But no words could convey what she was feeling. She wanted to stay with him, for them to be together, and he didn’t feel the same.
When they reached the city, the loud noise of activity made talking almost impossible. People were going about their day-to-day business, selling goods and services, bargaining with the street vendors and laughing and gossiping with each other. It was as if the rebellion had never touched the streets.
The activity stopped when people saw Tristan passing by with her on the horse, and he became the main topic of their conversations. They said what a brave warrior he was, how grateful they were that he’d joined the rebellion, how because of him, the city of Rome would be free. He’d given the people the one thing they needed the most. He’d given them hope.
Despite his status as a hero of the city, Valeria knew once the legions returned everything would change. If they discovered him, they’d make an example of him to show the people of Rome what happened to those who dared to defy the Empire. She’d worked too hard and prayed too much for it to end like that. Her vow to him was fulfilled.
They finally stopped in front of Lucia’s villa. This would be her home until the palace was taken back. Or until she was forced to do her duty and marry Gaius. She hoped he was dead. It was a terrible thought, but it gave her comfort.
Tristan jumped off the horse to the ground, then held his arms up to her and gently helped her slide down. Valeria remained standing there, her hands still clutching his shoulders, while his hands stayed firmly planted on her waist.
She stared into his cool, grey eyes for the last time, and once again, she felt that thread of something form between them, like a force that connected them and drew them together. It was like neither one of them wanted to let go of the other. Tristan was the one to let go first.
“You should be safe here,” he said, gathering the horse’s reins in his hand.
“Safer than the palace,” she agreed in a shaky voice, on the verge of tears. “Thank you for bringing me.”
“I’m sorry things couldn’t be different.” His eyes filled with a tenderness and a longing she understood, and it almost broke her heart.
Was she a fool to let him walk out of her life without telling him how she truly felt? Why couldn’t she just say the words?
I love you, Tristan.
“Do you think if things had been different…” she tried to get the words out. “Maybe if we—”
The front door flew open and Lucia stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips and an angry glower on her face.
“It’s about time you came to your senses,” she shrieked at Tristan.
A servant girl hovered behind her with wide, curious eyes, and Rufus was walking out of the atrium and over to the door. Valeria was glad to see they’d survived the rebellion unscathed.
“I decided leaving the palace was the best thing.” Tristan addressed Lucia directly. “I wouldn’t leave Valeria there alone, so I’m placing her in your care. As you requested.”
“Praise the Gods.” Lucia raised her hands to the heavens. “The northerner has half a wit.”
Tristan clenched his jaw in order to keep his mouth shut. The woman was more exasperating than Valeria, and he didn’t want his last words to her to be spoken out of spite.
“Did he harm you?” Rufus pushed past Lucia and came out into the street, walking right up to Tristan and glaring down at him. “I’ll be happy to fulfill my promise and kill him.”
Tristan retreated back a step. He’d come to bring Valeria to safety, not to start another scuffle with her protector.
“Do I look harmed?” Valeria attempted to calm the furious warrior. “What do you think he did to me?”
Rufus turned and gave her an incredulous look. “The same thing he did to you in his tent when we were in the north.”
Valeria paled visibly, and the surrounding crowd erupted in hushed whispers and speculations. They were getting quite a dramatic show this morning.
“I think we should take the conversation inside,” Lucia casually suggested, stepping back into the villa and waving Valeria over.
“Tell me the truth.” Rufus stood in the doorway, blocking her path. “I have a right to know what the man has done to you.”
Valeria sighed heavily and gave Tristan a shy, blushing smile. “He didn’t do anything I didn’t want him to do.”
Tristan knew he should take his leave when Rufus grew enraged and his face reddened. He tugged the horse’s reins and started backing into the street. The last thing he needed was to fight Rufus with such a large crowd of people watching.
“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” Rufus snarled. “I knew you’d bring nothing but trouble into our lives.”
“Oh, don’t be such a child,” Lucia scolded the warrior. “He brought her to us and that’s all that matters.”
She placed a hand on his back to urge him into the house. Valeria started following after them, but paused right inside the door and looked over to Tristan. She smiled so brightly it made her eyes sparkle and glow.
“Whenever I think of you, it shall be with fondness.”
Tristan returned her smile, though it pained him to do so because it felt like his heart was shattering. “And I you, little Roman.”
“Goodbye, Tristan,” she said finally. “Good luck.”
Here was his last chance to declare his true feelings, to beg her to leave with him. “Valeria—”
“Safe journey,” Lucia said, then slammed the door closed.
As he heard the lock slide into place, all he could see in his mind was Valeria’s stunned face. Their last, few precious seconds had been cut short, leaving too many unspoken words between them. He knew he would continue to think of her until he drew his last breath. How could he leave Rome without telling her that a life without her love would be no life at all?
Chapter Twenty-Six
That day the trials in the arena ended. Tristan and Angus attended earlier in the afternoon tocatch the last of them. What they saw made them wonder if the people of Rome weren’t as bad as their rulers. With only a handful of nobles left to be judged, the executions had turned extremely gory and barbarous.
It was no secret the people of Rome wanted blood,
and they were getting buckets of it.
Tristan understood what it felt like to want revenge. In coming to Rome, he’d gotten the chance to rise up against the corrupt rulers who held the fair city in their grasp and find some sort of justice for the way he was wronged. He also knew that revenge and justice were not at all the same thing. With justice, there was an inner sense of completion, a feeling that all was made right again. Revenge left a man feeling empty, for nothing was made right, it was only made even.
When Tristan and Angus had left the arena, Senator Nero confronted them in a frothing rage for leaving the palace and taking Valeria with them. He demanded to know where she was. Tristan told him she was under the protection of Rufus and Lucia, and the man backed down, wisely deciding not to pursue her further. Rufus and Lucia were popular among the people and held the mob’s favor.
Nero didn’t need Valeria. He had what he wanted. He ruled the Senate, and therefore, he ruled the city. All of that could change when the legions returned, but Tristan wouldn’t be there to witness the outcome. He had only delayed his departure because he needed to know if there was a chance Valeria might love him.
He and Angus had secured lodgings at a tavern for the night. The owner of the tavern, a hard, fiercely intelligent man named Vorenus, had given them rooms for free, saying it would be out of the question to charge the hero of Rome to stay under his roof. He said it honored him to have such exalted guests and provided them with a generous abundance of food and drink, and women if that was what they wanted. Angus was loving every second of the exclusive treatment.
Tristan only wanted to see Valeria.
He sat brooding over a mug of ale at one of the tables in the tavern, trying to wipe the bloody images of the arena from his mind and figure out what he was going to say to Valeria.
Did he simply declare his feelings?
Ask her to leave by his side?
What if she didn’t care for him? What if she refused?
“You’re looking rather out of sorts.” Vorenus slid onto the bench across the table. “What’s got you grieving?”
Tristan liked the gruff tavern owner and respected him for running such a disreputable business with a firm, but fair hand. One of the bar maids swept by the table and dropped off two mugs of ale. Vorenus pushed one over to Tristan, then picked up the other and took a long drink.
“It must be a woman,” he observed astutely. “I’ve never known a man to hang his head in a mug of ale for anything else.”
“Is it that obvious?” Tristan felt like a lovesick fool.
“Let me guess…” Vorenus stroked his fingers thoughtfully over his dark beard. “She loves another?”
“No, I don’t think so.” He thought she’d been quite honest in her attempts to convince him she wanted nothing to do with the golden Roman, Gaius Cato.
Vorenus raised his brow in amusement. “She’s married then?”
“No, she’s not married.” The very thought of her married to another made him want to tear something apart with his bare hands.
“Could it be she fancies women?”
Tristan looked up from his mug and stared at Vorenus, astonished by such a ridiculous idea. “She likes men, I’m just not certain how she feels for me.”
“Ahh, I see.” Vorenus chuckled as if sincerely amused. “There’s only one way to cure that ailment.”
When he didn’t continue, Tristan asked, “How?”
Vorenus had a playful twinkle in his eye. “Keep drinking until you can’t stand up.” He guffawed loudly and reached across the table to slap him heartily on the back.
Tristan bit out a curse. He should’ve known the man would make jokes rather than take his suffering seriously.
“Or you could tell her how you feel,” he added in a sincere tone. “And hope for the best.”
A few more mugs of ale might give him the courage to do just that.
Valeria groundthe pestle into the wooden bowl harder and harder, smashing the dried herbs. Lucia’s kitchen was uncomfortably hot, and damp strands of hair clung to her sweaty forehead. Spending all day making remedies was the last thing she wanted to be doing. But it was how Lucia made her living, and when a client needed a special remedy, she made sure they got it.
Valeria tried her best to ignore Lucia and her guest, who were seated at the end of the long working table in the center of the room. They chatted quietly while Lucia cleaned juniper leaves from branches and collected them in a wooden bowl. The way the two women kept sending curious glances down the table at her was making her nervous. Lucia already suspected something more had happened between her and Tristan at the palace, it was in her nature to be suspicious, and Portia Caelius was a natural born gossip. A woman as round as she was tall, with all her children married off, she didn’t have much else to occupy her time.
“I heard they were lovers.” Portia politely attempted to keep her voice down, and failed. “Do you believe it’s possible?”
“Anything is possible,” Lucia answered with a casual shrug of her shoulder. “She was his prisoner for a number of days, and he’s not a bad looking man.”
“That’s a fine way of putting it,” Portia scoffed, fanning her face with one of her chubby hands. “The man is divine. He must have the stamina of a wild bull.”
“Shh,” Lucia shushed her for Valeria’s sake, but both women ended up cackling like the shameless old gossips they were.
Valeria had practically pulverized the herbs in the bowl she was so upset. She didn’t like being the subject of gossip, and she didn’t like hearing them talk about Tristan in such a lewd manner.
Didn’t they have any shame?
“Every woman in the city is mad for him,” Portia continued. “He can’t walk through the streets without getting several offers. It’s Antonia he has to worry about, though. The tailor’s daughter will go to any lengths to get her man.”
“And from what I’ve heard,” Lucia said, angrily stripping the leaves from a branch, “she’s gotten many.”
Valeria had heard that bit of gossip before as well.
“She’ll have no problem catching this one either. Not with her special skills.” Portia shook her head dolefully. “It’s shameful, really.”
Valeria had reached the limit of her patience.
“Yes, it is!” She slammed the bowl down on the table, sending the herbs flying all over the place and startling the two women. “It’s absolutely shameful, and so are the two of you!”
She stormed out of the kitchen and left the villa through the front door, wandering through the streets with no real purpose or direction. The late afternoon was mild and sunny, and she rejoiced being outside. She’d been cooped up in Lucia’s villa, not allowed to leave on her own because it wasn’t safe. Though she might be staying with people she loved and trusted, she was still a prisoner. Lucia was sure to be angry with her for leaving and would probably send Rufus after her. She didn’t care. She needed some fresh air, a change of scenery, some form of activity to take her mind off Tristan.
He’d been about to say something to her before Lucia had closed the door on him, and she wished she knew what it was.
As she walked through the crowded streets, no one tried to stop her or apprehend her, so she grew more comfortable and took the time to stop and chat with some of the citizens she knew. Varro was the best butcher on the main and she always inquired after his young daughter, a girl Lucia had cured of the fever a few years back. She was doing well, and would soon be old enough to marry. Horatius was a master craftsman and made pottery and dishes. She liked to look at his work, admiring the artful detail he added to every piece to make it unique. She’d like to be blessed with some sort of useful talent.
Old Lena was a mother of seven and sold fruits and vegetables from her family’s farm. Her brown hair turned whiter every year, but she never lost her friendly smile or her kind words.
“Lady Valeria, do come and talk with me a moment.”
Valeria ambled up to her stand a
nd marveled at the colorful display of fruits and vegetables she always managed to produce.
The old woman handed her a shiny, red apple. “An apple a day keeps the worries away.”
Valeria smiled fondly and accepted the fruit. “Thank you.”
“Where might you be off to on such a lovely day?” The mischief glittering in Lena’s eyes was impossible to miss.
“I’m just getting some fresh air.”
“I was hoping to see you well after everything that’s happened. What goes on at the palace?”
It was obvious the woman was looking for news, and she had none to share. “I have no idea. I’m staying at Lucia’s.”
“Then you musn’t be a stranger now that you’re so close. I enjoy our visits.”
Valeria wondered what was so special about their visits. Lena always gave her an apple and a smile, but they never exchanged more than a few polite words. She regretted not knowing the woman better, or any of the citizens in that regard.
“I’ll be sure to come by more often if I’m able to get away.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Lena smiled from ear to ear. “No matter what people are saying about you, hold your head high. Don’t let them know their words affect you.”
What could people possibly be saying about her? Going by Lucia’s earlier conversation with Portia, she guessed it couldn’t be good. Did the entire city know that she and Tristan had been lovers?
“Here comes my new favorite customer.” Lena waved a beckoning hand at someone in the crowd.
Valeria slid a glance over her shoulder and went weak in the knees when she saw Tristan striding up to the produce cart. Her heart beat a frantic rhythm against her chest and it became difficult to breathe. Why was he still in Rome?
“I’ve found the two most beautiful women in Rome,” he said.
His stance was wide and confident, as always, and the muscles in his arms bunched as he stood there. His hard, handsome face was the same one Valeria saw every time she closed her eyes, and she could still feel the burning echo of his lips on hers. She suddenly didn’t care if the city and everyone in it knew she was on intimate terms with the warrior. She’d once told Lucia she’d rather have Tristan over any other man, and the words were truer now than they’d ever been. She wanted a future with this man, and didn’t know how it could be possible.
Gladiator Heart Page 26