‘That’s the Valeria I expected. Reputation before your brother’s life. Before anything.’ A self-satisfied smile crossed his face and she knew he had anticipated her response. ‘Thankfully, in my world, it’s what you do and who you are rather than whispers that count. I withdraw the offer. Find some other fool, Valeria. Some unquestioning fool who will believe your lies.’
Rage swept through her as she realised what she had thrown away. ‘You tricked me!’
‘No trick. A genuine offer.’ He waved an imperious hand. ‘I won’t insult your precious sensibilities by repeating it.’
She ground her teeth, hating herself for being blind to the trap. Simple, effective, and she’d tumbled into it. She tried to concentrate as her fingers explored her aching mouth. He’d been a party to the soul-searing kiss. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. The knowledge gave her courage. She could best him at this game.
‘He does matter more than my reputation,’ she said, pasting on her most ingratiating smile. ‘And should you bring him back, I’ll be delighted to act as your concubine.’
‘Before I go.’ He tapped his finger against the small table where a game of twelve lines with its counters, dice tower and six dice was laid out. The game board’s motto of Play, pleasure, fortune, life is for the living mocked her.
‘Before? What guarantee do I have that you will even go?’ Valeria tilted her chin upwards and glared at him. ‘Trust runs both ways, Piso.’
‘Certain things you take on faith.’ His hand sent the stack of counters flying across the board. ‘Or perhaps you doubt your ability to hold a man.’
‘Do you still play dice? They never seemed to be out of your hand that summer,’ she said. The glimmering of an idea formed. She was no master at the strategy game, but her mother’s predicted omens were excellent for her request. Surely it had to mean the dice would fall her way.
‘I do. It amuses me.’ His eyes grew heavy lidded. ‘Are you suggesting we play twelve lines? You used to be an untried but enthusiastic player. Has your skill improved?’
‘I gave up years ago.’ Valeria twisted the stola about her fingers. She refused to remember their foolish wagers from that golden summer when everything had seemed possible. ‘Perhaps you’d like to make a wager. Trust the gods to decide.’
‘I’m prepared to give you a sporting chance.’ He paused and his smile became merciless. ‘Something your father was never prepared to give me when I wooed his daughter.’
‘My father is not part of this wager.’ Valeria shifted uneasily. After she’d agreed to her father’s demands, she’d prayed nightly to Venus that somehow Piso would rescue her. The next time she saw Piso—on her wedding day—he’d had a prostitute on each arm and was laughing and carefree. She’d nearly collapsed when she realised what she’d done. She had sacrificed her freedom to keep him alive and she had to endure the torment of seeing how little he cared.
‘I’ve no desire to make your father my concubine.’
‘Do you wish to hear my wager or do you wish to make cheap jokes?’ Valeria reached out and curled her fingers about three dice. They were cool in her hand and she tried to think of finding Marcus and how her life would stop being cursed And ever since the disappearance of the Diana statue, which had protected her family, her life had certainly felt cursed. She felt responsible for the loss. Had taking it been worth it? ‘One roll of the dice. You win, I become your concubine before we go to North Africa. I win, we discuss the arrangement after we return.’
He raised an imperious eyebrow. ‘I risk my life and the lives of my men, Valeria. You are merely risking…your body? Hardly a fair wager, but what did you ever know about honest play?’
Valeria tamped down on her temper. He wanted to provoke her so she would storm out, but she had to get him to agree. She drew a shaky breath. ‘You will play then?’
‘I will do it if you agree to exchange the dice.’
Valeria ignored the warning twinge that went through her and accepted his dice. ‘If you insist…Fortunata will favour me whichever dice I use.’
‘You may go first, Valeria. Never let it be said that I failed to give a lady proper courtesy.’
She threw the dice onto the game board. They tumbled over and over for an age. Stopped on the word Fortune. Her heart sank. One of the lowest scores possible but not the lowest one. Hope remained. Silently she mouthed a prayer to any passing god.
‘Do you wish to roll again?’ his mocking voice asked her.
‘I said one roll and I’ll abide by its verdict.’
‘You were always a stickler for the rules, Valeria. It is good to know that you have not changed. I’ll use the same dice to prove they were honest.’ He plucked the dice from the game board. ‘Watch and learn whom the gods favour.’
He tossed the dice. They landed on the word Pleasure with a crash. She stopped believing in Fortunata’s favour.
‘Do you dispute my total?’
‘How…how long must I be your concubine?’
‘You should have sought clarification before you wagered.’ His smile grew positively sensuous. His fingers splayed across her back. ‘Shall we say until I tire of you? Or until your brother arrives home? Then again, I find women are like guests and fish—best enjoyed for three days only. Do you think you can keep my interest for longer?’
‘Will you take me to Alexandria if I do?’ she asked, concentrating on the game board rather than giving into the light caress. So, she had three days to convince him to take her to Alexandria. Three days to accomplish what countless other women had failed to do.
‘I’m open to persuasion, Valeria.’ He cupped her waist, pulling her against the hard planes of his body, every inch the arrogant male. ‘No woman has ever reckoned me a poor lover.’
Persuasion. Valeria twisted away from him. She had singularly failed in persuasion before. Ofellius used to laugh at her, treating her roughly, using her much like a beast in a field. She had suffered for a long time, closing her eyes and thinking of Piso’s kisses rather than her husband’s touch. Finally faced with his blatant orgies while she suffered from a miscarriage, she left and divorced him.
‘Aren’t Roman matrons supposed to be virtuous?’ she asked, modestly lowering her lashes. Her mind whirled. The man before her wasn’t Ofellius but Piso. She had held him for longer than three days all those years ago. She could play his game and win. Her family’s future depended on it.
‘Virtue and you are two words which fail to sit well together.’
‘I’ve no training in being a concubine. I was supposed to be a wife and a mother.’ She hated the way her heart ached over the word mother. She had longed to hold her child in her arms. She would have been a good mother.
He laughed. The rich sound rippled down her spine, dispelling her grief and sending a shiver of anticipation through her. ‘You’ll find a way, Valeria.’
‘At least one of us has faith in my abilities.’
He rubbed the back of his thumb against her lips. ‘But I have no wish to keep you against your will. If you should decide the terms unreasonable, you may leave now and never return.’
Valeria kept her back straight. He was testing her, offering her a way out. But there was no easy way. She had to try. A tiny voice in the back of her mind asked if she might find pleasure as well. She silenced it.
Valeria strode briskly back to the tiny flat three floors up in one of the back streets of the Aventine. Her feet ached from her impractical sandals and she wished she had thought of asking Piso to provide a litter. The smell of cooked cabbage, urine and people permeated the stairwell. Her stomach revolted. Valeria covered her mouth with her stola and walked up.
Her mother knelt before her father’s chair. In the corner, a small oil lamp burnt in front of the shrine to the household gods. Valeria saw that the tiny stick of incense she had lit this morning before going out was nothing but ash.
‘You’re back.’ Her mother spooned another mouth of gruel into her father’s slack mouth bef
ore wiping his chin. ‘When does the ship depart? I’ve spent the morning praying to the gods. The augur assured me the omens were good.’
‘No one will sail before the winds change.’
Her mother’s face fell. ‘That long? The gold will be gone…surely someone…’
‘Piso the Greek. Everyone said that he was the only one who would be mad enough to go to Alexandria at this time of the year and it’s true.’
Tears welled up in her mother’s eyes. ‘He refused to see you? His hatred is deep. Who can blame him after what your father did?’
‘Piso saw me, Mother, and agreed to help. But there are conditions.’ Valeria knelt by her mother’s side. ‘Everything will be well. We’ll be able to find a new place to live and proper food for Father…I promise.’
‘I only go from here when Marcus returns. And Piso must never learn the state we have sunk to. Ever. I won’t have that man gloating.’ Her mother stood and started to pace the tiny room. ‘Will you come and make the sacrifices with me tonight?’
‘I can’t stay here. I bargained with Piso and lost.’ Valeria took off the stola and laid it on the trunk. The earrings swiftly followed. Her head suddenly seemed lighter. She ceased to be a Roman matron and became a woman of no virtue. ‘I’m to be Piso’s concubine. Apparently no woman can hold his interest for more than three days, but to save my brother, I’m going to have to try.’
‘I don’t understand. He’ll find Marcus in exchange for your company? For only three days?’
Valeria shook her head. ‘Fortunata has truly deserted us, Mother. Piso seeks the final humiliation. Only if I please him as a concubine in those days, make him want me more than the allotted time, will he help us. Either my body pays my way or I do not go and Marcus is lost for ever.’
‘Crudeness is unattractive and unnecessary.’ Her mother clapped her hands together. ‘You must do as you think best, Valeria. You always do.’
Valeria hated her mother’s tone of voice—the implication that selling her body was the correct action to take—but refused to quarrel and snipe.
‘Piso is doing this to test me. He expects me to run away and never come back. Then his conscience will be clear. But I will return. I’ll shame him into going before the winds change.’ She pressed her hands against her eyes. Her mother was right on one thing. Piso must never discover her father’s current state, as she had no idea if he’d be like Ofellius and seek revenge on someone who was helpless. ‘I need to return before…before he sends someone. I won’t give Piso an opportunity to gloat at our misfortune.’
‘You were the one who lost the Diana statue, Diana who guarded this family for centuries, Valeria. It is only fitting that you be the one to reverse our fortunes. All our troubles started then. It is why Marcus never returned.’
Valeria gritted her teeth. She had placed the little lead figure in Piso’s hand so he would not die and he would know that she waited for him, but clearly fortune had chosen not to favour her. ‘All our troubles started when Father made a pact with Ofellius. When he fought with Marcus about it and Marcus stormed off.’
‘You were always an ungrateful person.’
Valeria went over to the cabinet and took down a selection of paints and creams. ‘Arguing with you, Mother, solves nothing.’
‘Try not to disappoint us this time. It will mean so much to your father to have Marcus return, to bury their argument after so many years apart.’
Fighting back her anger, and the nerves at what she was about to do, Valeria kissed her mother’s cheek and took one last look around the flat. She didn’t bother to make the customary prayer in front of the household gods. They had forsaken her long ago. ‘I’ll do my best.’
Chapter Three
‘You returned quickly,’ Piso remarked, putting down the scroll. His body leapt at the sight of Valeria. In her hand she carried a small bag. She had shed her stola and was dressed only in an ordinary tunic with a light woollen shawl thrown over her shoulders. Her dark eyes glinted with defiance as if she expected a fight.
He hadn’t expected her to return. He thought she’d have trembled in her sandals and fled at the thought of publically becoming his concubine. But she’d confounded his prediction. And he’d enjoy playing with her and uncovering her secrets until the desire faded. He was no longer some callow youth to be used and discarded. He would be the one to do the discarding after he had drunk his fill of her. The next few days were going to prove very satisfying.
‘You failed to take one of the slaves to carry your belongings. I have plenty of litters.’
‘I prefer to walk.’ Her red lips curved upwards in a mysterious smile. ‘Like your steward, I suspect you thought I’d vanish in the sea of humanity that is Rome. But I pay my debts. In full.’
‘I’ll remember for the next time we wager,’ Piso replied coolly, mentally planning several wagers that she would lose and he would collect.
‘I only went to return my mother’s stola. She might have need of it. I won’t.’ She gave a short laugh and seemed to be infused with a nervous energy. ‘My protector will have to provide the clothes. The finest linen and silk. Perhaps I’ll even start wearing a toga. A whole new world beckons.’
‘A concubine is not a prostitute.’ He moved closer and allowed his hand to trail down her warm skin. ‘You belong to me, Valeria, not to the world of men. And yes, I think a wardrobe can be arranged. I’ll arrange for a merchant to call.’
‘I am a free woman. I can visit him.’ She shrugged a shoulder. Her tunic slipped slightly, revealing more of her creamy skin. A calculated move? Regardless, it was one that sent his senses reeling. His fingers itched to unwrap the layers and reveal the woman.
Then Piso narrowed his eyes. Valeria was up to something. Why would she want to leave the compound to visit a shop? All of his mistresses had preferred the prestige of having the shopkeeper visit but Valeria wanted to go out. If she intended to cross him, she’d regret it. But he’d play along for now and wait for her to make a mistake.
‘No one asked you to wager with me, Valeria.’
All pretence of seduction vanished and her cat eyes spat emerald. ‘I knew the consequences of my actions.’
‘And the sudden desire for a toga?’
She ducked her head and rearranged the folds of her shawl. ‘I’m no longer respectable, and who knows what I will do after you tire of me. Discarded women face an uncertain future.’
There was a catch in her throat when she said the words that struck Piso straight to his core. The murmurings of what happened to the many women Ofellius bedded had flooded the wharves and docks of Rome. He hardened his heart. Valeria had chosen her destiny of her own free will. She had looked radiant during the bridal procession.
He cupped her head and looked down into her delicate features. ‘Shall we leave predicting the future to soothsayers?’
Her eyes became the colour of a meadow on a spring morning. Piso drew her against his body. He kissed her delicate skin. As in his memory, she tasted of sweet summer wine. She lifted her mouth to his, parted her lips and allowed him to drink his fill. He wanted to carry her to his room and slake his hunger deep within her.
With an inhuman effort, he drew back and regained control of his protesting body. He ran a finger down her face. She would learn her lesson first. He would demonstrate to her what he had become and the power he now commanded. Where her place in his life would be—an ornament to be enjoyed, rather than as his life’s partner.
‘Not here, not now. We have things to do.’
‘Things to do?’ She allowed the shawl to drop from her shoulders. ‘Aren’t we going to spend time getting to know each other?’
‘We knew each other years ago.’
‘I’ve changed. You have.’
‘Maybe I wish to show off my latest acquisition.’ He rearranged the shawl so that the hollow at the base of her throat was covered. ‘I’m throwing a dinner party. Business associates. Men who appreciate the way Rome works but are also men
of integrity.’
‘Business associates?’ She gave a scornful look. ‘You mean merchants, men of the street and adventurers.’
‘Do not mock my guests. I expect you to be there. At my side. There is bound to be a gap-sleeve tunic or two in the clothes press as this tunic is far too coarse. It chafes your skin. Chose a colour that suits.’
She opened and closed her mouth. He waited for the protest that Roman matrons did not dine with men. But tonight would not be about the party proclaiming the acquisition of his new concubine, rather what happened afterwards. Would the reality match the memory?
She bowed her head. Piso wondered for an instant if he had pushed her too far and she’d storm out.
‘I’ll be delighted to join you,’ she said with a little wave of her hand. ‘Will I be seated or reclining?’
‘Reclining is always the best position for a concubine.’
Being careful to remain hidden by a pillar on the upper floor, Valeria peered down at the arriving guests in their glittering array of brightly coloured dining robes.
Luckily she did not know any of the men who were assembled or the women they had brought with them—all wearing tunics and veils that revealed more than they concealed. Women of light virtue. Dinner party? An orgy, more like.
Valeria grasped the pillar, feeling more injured that she would have imagined. Their first night together and he threw an orgy. She had thought…Valeria banished the thought. Romance had no part in their relationship. He was a man from the same mould as her former husband. Piso had acquired her solely because she’d been fool enough to throw the dice. She had three nights to prove herself irresistible enough for him to agree to sail to Cyrene, and she would. Party or no party.
The Perfect Concubine Page 2
