‘So you think he was planning to blackmail Scaevola, too?’
‘Probably, as soon as he thought of a use for him. I doubt he would have taken on his debt otherwise, although perhaps he thought it was a reasonable price to pay to get rid of us.’
She ran her hands through her hair, pushing it out of her face and over her shoulders. ‘Part of me was excited when he told me where we were going. I’d always wanted to see Caledonia. I thought it would be a kind of homecoming even though I knew my marriage would be the same situation all over again. Then I met Scaevola and I realised it would be even worse. He didn’t even need to know the truth to hate me. He was repelled just by the colour of my hair, though in a strange way that made me feel better. I knew that when Tarquinius finally did tell him the truth, he couldn’t have hated me any more.’ She drew in a deep breath and then let it out again slowly. ‘I thought that there was no way out. I thought I was trapped.’
‘And then I won you.’ He twisted his face away again.
‘Yes.’
Slowly she unfurled her legs and clambered to the edge of the bed, sitting down beside him. ‘I’m not trying to excuse myself. I should have told you before we got married. I’m sorry that I didn’t. After you stood up to Scaevola for me I owed you the truth, but it all happened so quickly. I was selfish and knew that you’d be a good father to Julia, and...the truth is, I liked you. I felt as though there was something, some kind of bond, between us from the start. I wanted to marry you, but I was afraid that I might have misjudged you the way I did Julius.’
‘A bond?’
‘Yes. I thought that we could be happy together, but I was scared that if I told you the truth then you might change your mind about me, too.’
‘I wouldn’t have.’
‘You wouldn’t?’
‘No.’ His voice sounded leaden. ‘Your husband was a stupid man, Livia. Your brother and Scaevola are stupid, small-minded men. Your mother was captured and sold into slavery. Neither of those things was her fault. There’s no shame in them either.’
‘But she was still Caledonian. I’m half-Caledonian. They’re enemies of Rome.’
‘Rome has a lot of enemies.’
She stared at him. The words themselves sounded sympathetic, though his tone was anything but.
‘So...you mean you don’t care who my mother was?’
‘I don’t care if she was Boadicea herself. I don’t care about the colour of your hair either. I do care about the fact that you didn’t tell me.’
‘I was going to, I promise. I tried when we arrived, but then the timing didn’t seem right with the rebellion...’
‘You didn’t think it important considering who’s rebelling?’
‘I hoped that Nerva was right and you were mistaken. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to choose sides. I’ve never wanted to do that.’
‘If we’re attacked, then you might have to.’ His gaze turned accusing. ‘This is why you were so upset about the prisoner yesterday, isn’t it? You should have told me then what was wrong.’
‘How could I when you spoke about him so cruelly? You called him a barbarian.’
‘Because I’d been fighting! What did you expect?’ He glared at her for a moment and then seemed to look inwards. ‘But it was still wrong of me. I lost my temper and I shouldn’t have.’
‘So did I.’ She looked across at him hopefully. ‘You’re right—I should have told you then, but maybe it’s not too late...’
‘It is. It’s too late for any of this.’ He got to his feet, his expression as stern as she’d ever seen it. ‘I can’t trust you now, Livia. You kept secrets from me and went to see a prisoner behind my back. How do I know you’re not planning to help him escape?’
‘I’m not.’
‘But if you had the opportunity, would you?’ He held her gaze steadily. ‘Would you let him go?’
She hesitated for a moment and then nodded. No matter what his reaction, she wasn’t going to lie again. ‘If it came to a choice between that and abandoning him to a life of slavery, then, yes, I’d help him escape.’
‘Then you need to stay here. Consider yourself a prisoner, too.’
‘A prisoner?’
‘Until things are settled. After that... I don’t know.’
He made for the door and then stopped, his shoulders tensing suddenly as if a new thought had just occurred to him.
‘Didn’t you think your brother would try to blackmail me, too?’ He turned around slowly, a look of suspicion on his face. ‘Didn’t that occur to you when you married me?’
‘Ye-es, but I thought he’d leave us alone.’
‘Because there’s nothing he’d want from a man like me?’
‘What? No!’ She was shocked by the strength of bitterness in his voice.
‘Or is that the real reason you married me?’ Green eyes blazed with a burst of anger. ‘Because you thought that with my family history I couldn’t be blackmailed?’
‘No, I told you I was going to...’
His lip curled. ‘You know, I thought I was doing the honourable thing in marrying you, but it wasn’t my honour that you wanted, was it? You wanted a man with no honour left to lose. That way your half-brother would leave you alone and you’d never have had to tell me the truth. I was just a means to an end.’
‘No! It wasn’t like that. I didn’t think he’d try to blackmail you, but I thought that if he did then you’d be the kind of man who’d stand up to him, who wouldn’t be threatened or intimidated. I never even thought about your family history. How could I when I don’t even know what it is?’
‘The details aren’t important.’ The anger in his eyes seemed to dissipate suddenly, his whole face shutting down as if he’d just pulled a mask across it.
‘Aren’t they?’ She shot to her feet, angry now, too. How dare he accuse her of using him so callously! ‘I’m not the only one who’s been keeping secrets!’
‘It’s no secret. I told you, there was a mutiny.’
‘But you won’t tell me what about!’
‘Because I don’t talk about my father. If you want to know more, then ask someone else. Half the legion could tell you.’
‘I don’t want someone else to tell me. I want you to do it! I’ve just told you everything about my mother. Why can’t you do the same?’
‘Because he dishonoured my family!’
‘Our family now! Mine and yours and Julia’s, too! And did he really dishonour it? Or was that just according to Rome?’ She narrowed her eyes scornfully. ‘You know the similarity between us, Marius? We’ve both been told that our pasts are shameful, something we ought to hide, but the difference is that you actually believe it! I don’t. Yes, I should have told you about my mother before, but now that I have, I’m glad of it. I don’t want to hide her away any more! I’m the daughter of a Caledonian slave, but she was a good woman, a better person than most Romans I’ve met. I’ve never been ashamed of her. I could never be ashamed of someone I loved, no matter how many insults are hurled at me, but you’re so deeply enslaved to the Empire that it never occurs to you that Rome might be wrong!’
‘I said I don’t talk about him!’
‘Do you really think that Rome is so perfect? Do you think that fools like Scaevola should be allowed to rule just because of who their fathers are? Was your father any worse than him?’ She stormed up to face him. ‘Even if he was, it doesn’t reflect upon you!’
‘If you can say that, then you really aren’t Roman.’
‘Then maybe I don’t want to be Roman!’ She shoved him hard in the chest, the words bursting out of her in a frenzy. ‘Maybe I’d prefer to be Caledonian!’
‘Exactly.’ His tone was brutal. ‘Which is why I can’t trust you.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Marius stormed out of the villa and along the Via Praetoria,
mind whirling as if there were some kind of tempest raging inside his head. He’d asked her for the truth and she’d given it, more than he’d ever imagined, so much that he’d had to get out, to get some space to think, to absorb everything she’d told him and then work out exactly how he felt about it.
More than anything, he was furious. How could she have kept such a secret from him, now of all times, just when he’d thought they’d been getting closer? Just when he’d thought... He stopped the thought in its tracks. He wasn’t going to think it, wasn’t going to acknowledge any feeling for her at all when he was so furious.
Ironically, however, it wasn’t her story itself that enraged him, or at least not her part in it. When she’d told him about her marriage, he’d felt angry enough at her half-brother and first husband that he could cheerfully have wrung both their necks, though towards her he’d felt only sympathy. That and a strong desire to gather her up in his arms. The truth about her mother didn’t horrify him in the way she’d seemed to expect either. The fact that she was half-Caledonian didn’t bother him. Even the fact that her mother had been a slave didn’t bother him, although he knew many Romans would regard it as something to be ashamed of. The fact that she’d been keeping secrets from him definitely did bother him.
Yet even then he could understand it. Much as he resented her not telling him, he could see why she hadn’t. She was right—everything had happened quickly and she’d had Julia to think about. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to protect her daughter and after everything she’d been through he could appreciate her lack of trust. And she’d certainly been acting strangely on the evening of their arrival in Cilurnum. Maybe she had been trying to tell him something then... Now that he thought about it, he’d actually discouraged her from doing so.
No, he conceded, he wasn’t furious with her for either the details of her past or for not telling him. Both of those he could deal with. He wasn’t even upset with her admission about freeing the prisoner if she could. Under the circumstances, he couldn’t blame her. Imprisoning her in the villa, too, was only common sense, but lack of trust still wasn’t the root of his anger. No, that was something else...something that his mind instinctively shied away from, but that, for once, he couldn’t deny. It was the dent to his pride, the idea that she might have married him simply because of who his father was, that infuriated him, as if her secret would be safe with the son of a dishonoured soldier, a man who couldn’t be blackmailed because he couldn’t sink any lower.
Deep down, however, he knew even that was unfair. There had been an attraction between them from the start, a bond she’d called it—a word that seemed to describe perfectly what he’d felt, too. Despite everything, he believed that she’d wanted to marry him, a claim that might have warmed his heart the day before, but now left him cold. He believed that she was sorry. He even believed that his father had had nothing to do with her decision to marry him. But the very thought of his father had, as usual, made him see red.
Besides, it wasn’t true that he couldn’t be blackmailed. He did have something to lose, something he’d wanted and worked towards for the past thirteen years. Despite his recent, reckless behaviour, he still wanted to become Senior Centurion. It was the only way to redeem his honour after his father’s disgrace, the thing he wanted most in the world, or so he’d thought. He’d jeopardised that ambition simply by gambling with Scaevola in the first place and now the truth about her past could destroy it completely. She had the potential to bring disgrace on him, too, in some eyes at least. How could she have let him risk so much?
On the other hand, she hadn’t forced him to gamble—she hadn’t even known about the game of tabula—and, as much as he resented the accusation, he hadn’t exactly been open with her either. He’d hardly told her anything about his father at all. How was she supposed to know how badly his father’s disgrace had tainted his life or how much he needed to redeem his own honour?
His father’s disgrace... His own honour... He stopped abruptly, as if he’d just walked into a wall, standing stock-still and staring sightlessly ahead. Once upon a time it had been both of their honours that he’d set out to restore. Since when had it become just his? Since when had he stopped including his father in his ambitions and become ashamed of him instead?
It was raining again, he realised absently, heavily enough that pellets of water were dripping from his hair into his face. He hadn’t even noticed when he’d stepped outside. In truth, he barely felt it now, though he was almost soaked to the skin. Anyone looking at him would think he was mad.
Perhaps he was. He felt mad suddenly, Livia’s words pursuing him out into the open air, refusing to let him run away, demanding his attention. He’d gone to accuse her and she’d accused him right back—of hypocrisy, of putting Rome ahead of his father, of being enslaved to the Empire. And the worst of it was that she was right.
I could never be ashamed of someone I loved!
Those were the words that had really made him furious, the accusation that had sent him charging out of the villa and into the elements, fleeing the sudden onslaught of guilt. Now he couldn’t escape it as a flurry of memories came back to him, the impressions of a thirteen-year-old boy listening to his father’s dying words. He’d loved his father then, deeply and fiercely, only somehow over the years he’d forgotten it. He’d joined the army seeking redemption and yet at some point he’d let single-minded ambition and purpose take over from emotion, even from love. He’d let anger and bitterness get the better of him, allowing himself to be swayed by the opinions of others until finally he’d come to believe that his father really had betrayed and abandoned him. He’d become ashamed of someone he’d loved, someone he hadn’t realised he still loved, and he hadn’t even known it until Livia had told him. Was he going to turn on her now, too, like he had his father? Like her husband had on her?
He tipped his head back, letting the rain splash over his face as if it were some kind of cleansing force. Livia was right—they were similar. He knew how it felt to be torn between two conflicting loyalties as well. Deep inside, he’d always been just as divided as she was, torn between love for his father and loyalty to the Empire he’d sworn to serve.
Love and loyalty, two things that ought to go hand in hand, but which life seemed to have made very complicated all of a sudden. He couldn’t think of a worse time to start questioning his loyalty to Rome, on the very eve of a Caledonian rebellion, but now that he’d finally come to his senses, it was too late to go back. He’d do his duty to the Empire, would stay loyal to his oath of allegiance, but if he had to choose then he chose her, the woman he suddenly realised he loved—he’d been a fool not to see it before—the woman he wanted more than any ambition. Which meant, if they were going to have any kind of future together, there was only one thing he could do.
He turned his feet in the direction of the prison, gripped with a new sense of urgency.
‘Open the cell!’ he bellowed ahead to the guard.
‘Sir?’
‘Release him.’
‘Marius?’ Ario came running across the fort as the prisoner staggered out, squinting in the daylight. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Letting him go.’ He didn’t flinch from the Decurion’s interrogative stare, meeting it squarely. ‘I can’t explain, but it’s something I have to do.’
Ario held his gaze for a tense moment and then ran a hand across his jaw. ‘He hasn’t told us anything yet. We don’t know their numbers or when they’re coming.’
‘I know.’ He glanced towards the prisoner. Despite an outward look of defiance there was a distinct glimmer of fear in the boy’s eyes, as if he were afraid of what they were about to do to him. The thought made Marius ashamed and even more determined.
‘I take full responsibility. I doubt the boy will tell us anything unless we force him to and I won’t do that. We know enough. Those warriors would never have dared to attack us so soon in b
road daylight if they weren’t planning something bigger. I’ll send word to Coria to prepare the legion.’
‘Without the prisoner, you’ve no proof.’
‘If I’m wrong, Nerva can demote me.’
Ario blew air from between his teeth. ‘Perhaps the prisoner told us something before he died from his injuries?’
Marius arched an eyebrow. ‘I don’t ask you to lie for me.’
‘But I will anyway.’ Ario swore softly. ‘I owe you a debt, remember?’
‘You’re a good friend.’ Marius watched as the prisoner disappeared through the fortress gates, then turned his gaze back in the direction of the villa, his feet itching to go back to her, though he had a fort to prepare for battle first. If only the battle didn’t arrive before he could set things right between them...
‘Go.’ Ario gave him a pointed look. ‘I’ll get everything ready.’
‘Set double lookouts.’ He clasped the Decurion’s arm gratefully. ‘And tell the men to get ready for battle. The rebellion’s coming.’
* * *
‘You’re back?’ Livia looked up sharply as he reappeared in the doorway. She was still sitting on the edge of the bed, her face pale and drawn. ‘I didn’t think you would be.’
‘Neither did I.’ He took a step into the room. ‘I’ve let the prisoner go.’
‘What?’ Her eyes widened, looking bigger and bluer than he’d ever seen them. ‘Why?’
‘Because I know what it’s like to have divided loyalties, too. Sending that boy to a life of slavery might be the Roman way, but it would be wrong.’ He coiled and uncoiled his fingers, concentrating on keeping his voice steady. ‘It’s not my way either. I’d just forgotten that until now. Most of all, I don’t want to start our marriage with his fate coming between us.’
The Warrior's Bride Prize Page 19
