‘Say you will stay with me and I will give your guardianship back to your father, if that is what you desire.’
Lydia shook her head. Something she had longed for had ceased to matter. ‘I trust you to look after my interests as well as, if not better than, my father.’
‘You humble me.’ Aro raised her hand to his lips. ‘I do solemnly swear that I will never be autocratic again.’
‘Be mindful of making promises you can’t keep.’ Lydia gave a gentle laugh. ‘Before the next Ides is out, you will be autocratic and demanding as ever.’
He sobered at this, but she gave his hand a squeeze. His face broke into a wreath of smiles.
‘And,’ she added, ‘I wouldn’t have you any other way, my Sea Wolf.’
‘Yours and no other.’
He bent his head and she tasted his mouth, glorying in his kiss.
After a long while he said against her lips ‘Do you know what they say about wolves?’
‘What do they say?’
‘A wolf mates for life.’ He pushed her hair back off her forehead. ‘I will have no other but you.’
Lydia laid her head against his chest and sighed contentedly.
‘Aro, Aro!’ Piso charged in to the room and then stopped, turning pink cheeked at the sight of Aro and Lydia embracing.
‘I thought I gave orders not to be disturbed.’
‘This arrived from the censor.’ Piso held out a scroll. ‘I knew you would want to see it.’
Aro broke the seal and read the scroll. A huge smile came over his face. ‘By popular acclamation, I am enrolled as a senator!’
Lydia reached up and smoothed a lock of hair from his forehead. ‘It would appear you will have the need for that purple-striped toga rather sooner than you had anticipated. You have achieved your heart’s desire.’
Aro’s arms tightened around her, holding her close.
‘As long as I have you in my arms and safe, my dearest love, that is the only thing that matters. All else can wait.’
Aro bent his head and allowed the scroll to fall from his fingertips.
Historical Note
S ine manu versus cum manu marriage—in other words, who had control of a woman’s fortune and served as her guardian. It is somewhat surprising to learn that by the end of the Republic most marriages were sine manu. Control of a woman’s property and right to divorce stayed with her father or legal guardian, it did not pass to her husband. As there was no bar on women inheriting property and no system of primogeniture, a marriage sine manu ensured a family’s wealth would stay with the birth family. Marriages in the early republic were almost exclusively cum manu and there were cases of terrible abuses by husbands, including the murder of one wife for daring to take the keys to the wine cellar. Thus, to give women and their families more rights over the disposal of the dowry, the marriage sine manu was enacted. The move towards marriage sine manu coincided with a decrease in a father’s rights over his children. It was supposed to strengthen marriage, but in fact led to a higher divorce rate. The marital freedom which most women at the end of the Roman Republic (the time period in which this novel is set) enjoyed under the sine manu marriage system would not be repeated in the Western world until the twentieth century as Jerome Carcopino points out in his excellent book Daily Life in Ancient Rome. Also, as Romans during this period believed that upper-class women needed to be educated in order to teach their sons, one discovers a number of interesting and strong women, from Caesar’s mother Aurelia and Clodia Metellia (the inspiration for Catullus’s love poetry whose passion for lower-class vowel sounds changed the Roman accent for generations) to Sempronia, who was widely admired for her wit, wide reading and personal culture, and Attia, the rather more shadowy mother of Augustus.
If you want to read more about Roman marriage or women, Jerome Carcopino’s Daily Life in Ancient Rome and Robin Lane Fox’s The Classical World are both excellent places to start. Other books I have found useful are:
Broadman John, Jasper Griffin and Oswyn Murray (eds), The Oxford History of the Roman World (Oxford University Press 1988) Oxford
Carcopino Jerome, Daily Life in Ancient Rome (Yale University Press 1967) New Haven
Grant, Mark, Roman Cookery: Ancient Recipes for Modern Kitchens (Seriff 1999) London
Holland, Tom, Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic (Little, Brown 2003) London
Lane Fox Robin, The Classical World—An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian (Allen Lane 2005) London
Rauh, Nicholas K., Merchants, Sailors & Pirates in the Roman World (Tempus 2003) Stroud
Woolf, Greg (ed), Cambridge Illustrated History: Roman World (Cambridge University Press 2003) Cambridge
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4831-5
SOLD AND SEDUCED
Copyright © 2007 by Michelle Styles
First North American Publication 2010
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book please contact us at [email protected].
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.eHarlequin.com
Sold and Seduced Page 25
