Barbarian's Soul (24 page)

A flicker of surprise crossed Bran’s face. He nodded once. Adria took Julian by the hand, leaving his sword with Damon, who gripped the hilt tight while eyeing a still-hissing Cuini, and led her charge into the garden.

The boy plopped down on the edge of the fountain, head hanging, shoulders slumped. With a sigh, she joined him. She searched for a way to begin. “Julian, you fight often. Do you like to fight?”

Julian shrugged.

This was not going to be simple. “Every time you battle, there is a different foe. Thracians, Greeks, Egyptians, today Persians.”

“You have to stay strong,” he blurted out, “else you die!”

Adria watched his thin shoulders shudder and he swiped at his eyes. Her heart clenched at the sadness in his voice. “Die? Like your mother died?”

“My mother was a strong fighter,” he said, defensively.

“Yes, she was.” Must tread lightly. “She must have been very strong to fight in the arena.” Forced to fight, never knowing from match to match if she would die and leave her children. Sympathy welled in Adria’s chest for the woman.

“She always told us to be brave,” continued Julian in a forlorn voice, “that she would never leave us.”

Adria’s heart clutched. But Beatrix had left, in a gruesome way. She’d left her children and broken a promise that had been a gamble to begin with. Adria knew the desolation, the feeling of loss. Her parents by action had made the same promise to their daughter but in the end had left her alone.

“Your mother did not wish to leave you. I know...” she laid her hand on Julian’s arm, which he jerked away. Adria grasped it again with a firmer grip. “I know this because no mother would want to leave a son as strong as you behind.”

Julian’s lower lip trembled. He raised his head, his beautiful brown eyes brimming with unshed tears. “She said that we belonged to her, not her trainer. She said we would always be safe.”

Adria did not need experience with children to recognize a broken heart. Julian’s face twisted with grief and he crumpled into her arms, his face buried against her chest. She held him close, rocking back and forth as he sobbed out his grief. She closed her own eyes against tears and made a silent vow to Beatrix that she would keep her little boy safe.

Julian’s sobs quieted and for a few long minutes, Adria just held him.

“Warriors don’t cry,” Julian said in a hoarse whisper.

“I suspect they do.” Adria thought of the all the suppressed pain she knew Bran held close and wished she could ease him as she did the little boy. “They just do so in different ways. Now. Tell me the truth. You did not put the honey on Bryna’s cat, did you?”

She saw loyalty war with the truth in the boy’s eyes. “No. But I did chase him.”

She’d accept that for now and would deal with Linus later. She dipped her hand in the cool water of the fountain and gently washed his flushed face. “Now you will go into the receiving room and ask forgiveness of the Lady Bryna and Lord Jared.”

“And then you will accept your punishment.”

Every protective instinct in her flared at the deep voice but Julian merely nodded at Bran who had entered the room, his broad shoulders propped against a column. Julian dried his face on the sleeve of his tunic and squared his shoulders.

“Yes, sir.” He rose to his feet and Adria knew he would not appreciate a hug in front of Bran. But she winked as he passed by and was rewarded with a weak smile.

As Julian moved past, Bran made to follow.

“Bran?”

He turned and gave her the same odd look he had every time she called him by name.

“Do not be too harsh on him.”

“He is my responsibility,” he answered. “I will not have him acting the heathen.”

Adria’s temper flared. “He’s only a little boy.”

“There are very few steps from youth to manhood. Better he learn now the honorable way to behave.”

Among the people of the streets there was a strict code that one did not reveal information on another but Adria could not bear to see Julian suffer all the consequences. “You do know that there is more to it than what there appears to be.”

“Do you mean the fact that Linus played a role? That he is the one who thought it would be entertaining to souse the poor creature with something it could not easily remove? Is that what you mean?”

Adria nodded her head mutely.

“That is why Linus has already begun the task of bathing the beast.”

“But felines do not like water,” Adria said.

Bran’s lips curved into that endearing half-smile that she loved. “I know.”

Chapter Fourteen

H
e knew Adria was a thief but he’d never expected her to be a liar.

Bran sat at the small, marble-inlaid table Jared’s servants had brought out, drinking wine and watching his brother-in-law roust Damon for a fifth time in a game called
calculi.
It was a game of strategy, the placement of the black and white stones on the board something easily recognized by his warrior and gladiator’s mind. The former spy had accused his friend of using his wife’s sorcery to defeat him. How else, Damon had complained, could his superior skills have been overcome?

Pompous ass.

But the pompous ass had played a role in saving Bryna from Jared’s crazed uncle, a man who had lied to his nephew about the circumstances of his Roman’s mother’s death.

Liars. Romans. Was there a difference?

His attention swerved back to Adria. From the moment he’d assigned her the task of nursemaid, she’d protested her lack of skill with children. But she’d lied. She was perched on a couch in a small alcove with Bryna, Julia and the children. Cyma sat snuggled against her side while Julian, back to putting on a brave front, allowed Adria to tend to the scratches on his arm courtesy of Cuini the demon cat who, indeed, did not enjoy bathing. Linus sulked in a corner, his own injuries bandaged, and he noted Adria glancing at the belligerent whelp with concern. Cuini sat curled on Bryna’s lap watching them all with a detached, superior air.

No experience? He scoffed. Adria handled the children as if she were their natural mother. She’d seen past Julian’s fear and discerned Cyma’s craving for love, things he’d recognized on some level but had been at a loss to know how to handle. They were opening their hearts to her. He took another drink against the half-formed thought that he might be doing the same.

That was preposterous. He had no room in his life for a woman, especially a Roman woman. Not when he was set to leave and return to Eire. A Roman woman would be appalled at the mere thought of living in a barbarian land much less the simple life of the clan, his
tuath
.

But gods, she fired his blood like no other. Engaged him like no other. Being with Adria, even when they sparred, lightened the heaviness that dwelled within him. Her body was a man’s dream, her spirit and intellect an aphrodisiac. He felt alive with Adria. As he had not felt in three years.

Bran took another sip of wine, giving her a speculative look. The lines of her body were still tense, though under the easygoing chatter of his sister and the Lady Julia they had begun to relax. Shared interests bonded women, he supposed, whether they be patrician or plebian. He watched Adria accept Ceallach from his mother’s arms, his groin tightening at the sight of her cuddling the babe.

“It’s a mystery, is it not?”

Bran scowled at Damon whose eyes remained on the playing board as he contemplated his next move. The bastard always spoke in riddles. “What?”

Damon moved his black piece and smiled at Jared’s grim face before he glanced at Bran. “Women. They are a mystery.”

“To Romans, perhaps,” Bran answered.

“To men,” countered Jared, moving his white stone only to have it taken by his friend. “We believe we understand them and they allow us to think that, while they cut a path straight into our core.”

Bran scoffed. “Nonsense scribed by your poets.”

Damon smiled at some secret memory. “Do not discount poets,” he said. “They have their uses.”

Jared leaned back in his chair and picked up his chalice. “Adria is beautiful. She must have cost your purse dearly.”

“She is not a slave!” Bran snarled. He clamped his jaw against the flair of protective anger. An image of Adria’s wounded pride as he’d kissed her before the others flashed in his mind. He’d been spurred by the desire to taste her and yes, at the heart of it, the need as a male to mark his own. Yet his actions, no matter his intentions, had been those of a master.

Damon raised a brow, first at him then at Jared. “A fine thing then, since we all know how onerous it is to serve another against our will.”

Bran ground his teeth together. He was not about to explain the circumstances of their relationship. There was no way to predict how they would react to the knowledge that she was indeed his captive, that she shared his bed, no matter that she did so of her own will. Romans valued citizenship above all else, be they patricians, freedmen or thieves and they might take issue with the situation. Forcing himself to speak nonchalantly he replied, “She has agreed to watch the children, an arrangement that is beneficial to us both.”

“I’m certain it is,” said Damon with a half-smile.

Bran leaned forward, spearing Damon with a glare, his hand on his knife hilt. “Watch your mouth, Roman.

Damon’s own blade, slipped from the side of his boot, was in his hand. “Rather protective of a mere servant aren’t you?”

Bran seethed less from the sting of Damon being able to draw his weapon faster, than the implication that Adria was more than a servant to him. Damn meddling Roman.

“Guests in my house will not be threatened,” said Jared evenly, though the underlying tone of his voice was iron. “Bryna would have my head if I allowed anything to happen to her cherished brother and Julia Manulus, I’m certain, would not relish finding another husband so soon after—” He put his tongue in his cheek. “—procuring this one.”

Bran held Damon’s flint gaze for a long moment before the former spy re-sheathed his weapon. “Believe it or not, gladiator, I understand your position more than you think. Not only are women a source of mystery and puzzlement, they bring out the worst—” He looked at his wife, his gaze filling with fierce protectiveness. “—and the best in us. As much as we are loathe to admit it, we aren’t complete without them.”

More Roman poetry, Bran thought with disgust. Yes, the two couples seemed to have found the type of happiness he had once thought possible, but that was rare. What he and Adria shared was as mutually satisfying as it was fleeting. Adria had been amenable to their arrangement and when he sailed for home, the time spent with her would be nothing more than a pleasurable memory.

“I am not being protective,” he replied gruffly. “She is a servant, nothing more.”

A soft gasp sounded from the alcove. Bran’s heart lurched and he poised to rise, hand on knife when the sound dissolved into soft laughter as Ceallach jumped up and down on Adria’s lap. The rich, melodic sound of her laughter flew through the air like an arrow and found its target straight in the center of Bran’s chest. He felt the color drain from his face.

Damon nodded his head sagely and moved another stone. “Only a servant, eh? Do all servants make you look as if you’ve just been trampled by a chariot?”

***

Something was wrong with Bran.

Adria looked over her shoulder. Jared and Damon continued their easy banter as they played their board game but Bran, scowl fixed on his face, green eyes hard, looked as if he was preparing for battle.

“Do not fret, Adria.” Bryna adjusted the covering over her sleeping son. “My brother is not ill, merely catching a glimpse of life and finding himself kicked by it. Fortunately, his head is very hard and can bear the abuse.”

A shiver flowed down Adria’s spine as she looked askance at Bryna. She liked Bran’s sister very much. She had a soothing quality about her that had cut through Adria’s initial anxiety about socializing above her class had made her feel welcome. Even the lady Julia, a lady of pure patrician blood, had treated her with kindness and respect.

But Bryna’s green eyes, mirrors of her brother’s, held knowledge in them that Adria could not decipher. It was unsettling.

“I’m proud that Bran refrained from purchasing a nurse,” continued Bryna, her expression sobering. “Slavery is a vile thing.”

Adria did not recall Bran mentioning the state of her employment.

Bryna smiled and continued. “How did you meet?”

Adria suspected Bryna knew the answer already. “We met in the marketplace.” That should be vague enough to thwart any further questions. She hoped the woman’s gift would not be able to discern the true nature of the situation. That she had stolen from Bran. That because of her, he had lost valuable assets. Assets that would soon take him from her. Adria rubbed at the sudden tightness in her chest.

Julia motioned Julian to join her on her couch and put an arm around him. “The Forum is such a bustling place. How fortuitous that you happened upon each other.”

That was one way to phrase it, Adria thought ruefully. Another would be that he’d chased her across the city like a rabid dog. She glanced at Bran again. “Yes, it was fortunate. He needed someone to care for the children.” And she? What had she needed? Someone to show her what she could never hope to have? A home? A family?

“Adria?”

Adria returned her attention to Bryna. The woman was studying her and shivers once again skittered down her spine.

“Be patient with him,” she said. “Open your heart and trust him. You will both need such things, patience, honesty, and most of all trust. It will be what saves you both.”

Alarm flared in Adria’s chest at Bryna’s somber tone. “I do not know what you mean. Bran has said he requires my services for only a short time.” And then where would she be? Back to the streets, scraping and pilfering and evading thugs like Tiege. She circled an arm around Cyma who gave a contented sigh, her sweet, warm body snug against her side. Gods, she would miss them.

She would miss Bran.

“Bran needs many things,” Bryna replied, “but he will need you most of all.”