A Stray Drop of Blood (63 page)

“
Do not cry, my son.” She ran her hand over his head, fighting back tears of her own. “I know you want a father. And Titus loves you as though you were his son. It is just that I cannot marry him, dear one.”

“
Why not?” Samuel cried. “You love him. He kisses you all the time.”

Abigail let her head fall back against the wall behind her. “It is not that simple. Even if he wanted to marry me, he could not. His father would not approve.”

Samuel snapped up, looking furious as he faced her. “Then why does he act with you as my father did? Why does he kiss you and say he loves you, why does he touch you if he cannot be your husband?”

She should have realized her sensitive child would have seen and understood far more than she had expected. And looking into the warm brown of his eyes, golden flecks magnified by the tears still clouding them, she felt the stab of responsibility that she had been ignoring. She was the one this boy looked up to, the one who guided him, who taught him right from wrong. And how was she to give him lessons on the Law in the morning and then sin knowingly as soon as she put him to bed? Something solidified within her, something that brought a peace with it even as it hurt. “He should not. And he will not any longer. You are right, Samuel, unless he is my husband, he should not act that way.”

It was certainly not the solution Samuel had hoped for, but he subsided. For a moment, he let her soothe him, let her dry his tears. Then he leaned up and soothed her in return, made her tears begin to fall.

“
He will always love you, Mother,” he murmured as they held each other. He could not understand the words he spoke, but that made them all the more striking. “Even if you anger him, he will love you.”

She wiped at her eyes, gave him a kiss on the forehead, and finally realized that Phillip was in the corner of the room in his usual position. She had no idea when he had come in but assumed it had been while she still slept. “Where is Miriam?”

“
She went to get your breakfast and bring it up, Mistress.” Phillip’s voice did not betray any concern, but the flash in his eyes did. “When you still slept, we assumed you would want to take it up here. She should be back directly.”

Abigail nodded. “Thank you.” She heard a hearty cry come from the other room, so she swung her legs off the bed and stood.

She was just finishing feeding Benjamin when Miriam arrived with food for the rest of them, and they ate in relative silence. As soon as Samuel was done, Abigail asked Miriam to take him and Benjamin to Antonia for a while.

Samuel drew his brows together. “What of our lessons?”

“
We shall do them a little later,” Abigail said softly. “If the clouds on the horizon are any indication, it will be raining this afternoon. Go play now, and we will do our lessons when you cannot be outside.”

Samuel apparently thought that was a fine arrangement. He gave Abigail a kiss and fell in beside Miriam with no argument. The girl carried the baby in her arms tenderly but darted a worried look at Abigail over her shoulder on her way out.

Abigail sat mutely, her eyes fixed on some point straight ahead, her fingers toying absently with the fruit on the plate before her. She was not hungry, but taking little pieces of the meal from plate to mouth at least provided her with something to do with her hands. Her few, distracted actions stood in marked contrast to the thoughts flying through her mind.

She knew what she had to do. She felt the persuasion within her, felt the Spirit hovering just beyond the edges of her reserve. All she had to do was open herself that small crack, and he would come flooding back in, calming the place that had been raging within her. She knew that. And she intended to do it. But first, she closed her eyes and looked back across the last few days. She had been unhappy, but that was not what she thought about now. No, what upset her the most was that Titus had been unhappy, too. She was not certain he realized it, but their actions had hurt him as much as they hurt her. He had reacted by doing the only thing he knew to do: reverted to his Stoic roots and refused to accept into his sphere everything he did not want to influence him.

Unfortunately, that happened to include everything that had brought them together to begin with. It had resulted in a man unwilling to feel but unwilling to admit to a lack of his feelings, one who let himself want but would not grant that he had needs beyond that. She saw again his smile that morning. It had been true, it had been warm, but it was the only one like that she had seen in all these days. He needed her to stand firm as much as she did.

Miriam slipped back into the room, and Abigail opened her eyes, looked at both of her servants. Her soft words drew their startled gazes to her. “I owe you both an apology. For the past week, I have faltered greatly. I have not been a deserving mistress or a worthy friend. I have been a hypocrite.” She blinked back a few tears. “Forgive me, my friends, for teaching lessons I did not obey.”

Miriam had tears in her eyes as well. “Mistress . . .”

Abigail shook her head and stood up. “Please, give me a few moments.” She turned and quickly exited through the door to the courtyard, knowing neither Phillip nor Miriam would actually leave, but needing at least the appearance of solitude. Outside, she fell to her knees on the cool ground.

“
Father, forgive me.” Her words flowed into the ground in Hebrew. “I knew what I did, yet I did it anyway. I deliberately turned from you to chase after my own desires, I put Titus above you, and now I feel the emptiness that my actions have caused. Come back to me, Spirit! Forgive my sins and fill me with your peace.”

The Spirit descended upon her as heavily as the first time, pressing her down further into the ground until she was lying prostrate, her arms over her head. She wept, but the tears were cleansing, washing away the bitterness and the resentment.

“
Give me strength. Give me strength to face him, Lord. Give me the strength to stand and maintain my position. Soften his heart, please, so that he may hear me and choose the same path. Please,” she beseeched on a broken sob, “please do not let this be the end of our love.”

A breeze whispered over her, and the rain began to fall. It washed away her tears and soaked her with heaven’s.

~*~

The returned ship did not hold so many secrets as Titus would have liked. Or if it did, they were all locked within the minds of the few sailors still alive, and those minds were not in very good shape. There were five men that they found on board, and all of them had to be carried ashore. It was a wonder that they managed to sail back into the harbor at all in their current condition.

The ship itself was not in much better condition. All of the stores were depleted, which was certainly not surprising, and the goods they should have had after their last voyage were gone. That was not surprising either, given the many months of time they were missing. No one knew what kind of situations they encountered or what they had to do to get out of them, and the men were not speaking. In fact, most were tossing around in delirium.

Titus and Caius stayed several hours, supervising the transfer of the men into clean quarters and fetching physicians to look at their conditions. They stayed while they unloaded everything on the craft and went over it from bow to stern, trying to find a clue as to where it had been. Again, not much information was forthcoming. At noon, they both turned the reins back to the steward and headed home to eat.

Titus was informed upon his return that Abigail and Samuel had just finished their meal, so he went ahead and dined with his father before going in search of her. They took the time to continue mulling over the mysterious reappearance of their ship. In spite of anything and everything they found or could not find, it was an unexpected turn of good fortune to have it back; even if it returned empty, it was still one more ship that they could repair and send back out.

“
I am headed to the Forum in about half an hour’s time,” Caius said as Titus stood once he was finished eating. “Will you be joining me?”

“
Probably.” He wanted to talk to a few other men of his acquaintance who owned similar companies and see if they could offer any insights into what most likely happened to his ship. “I will meet you down here then.” At his father’s nod, Titus headed for his room.

At the peristylium, he saw Caelia. She was simply standing there where courtyard met hallway, not moving. When she spotted him, a feline smile curved her lips. Titus sighed and braced himself for whatever she might have to say.

“
Good afternoon, Titus.” She ran her eyes over him with the same appreciation they had always held.

Titus waited a moment to see if she would say more, but she did not. When he drew even with her, he stopped. “What are you doing here, Caelia?”

Her smile became even more smug. “Just watching, my love.”

He made an arrow of his gaze. “Watching?”

She hummed her agreement. “And now that you are back, I will simply wait.”

Titus clenched his jaw. “And what is it you will be waiting for?”

She shook her head.

Not in the mood to deal with her, Titus turned away and walked to his door.

“
She is not in there.”

Titus turned back around to face her. He was not surprised to learn that Caelia knew where Abigail was. He would not have been surprised if she always kept tabs on her, as a matter of fact. “Very well. Where is she?”

Caelia lifted an elegant, tapered finger and pointed a door down, to the room Miriam and Phillip had moved into. She said nothing, and Titus did not try to get her to. He simply moved the extra steps, knocked, then opened the portal.

He stopped abruptly just a step inside, his eyes hard and all-seeing. He noticed, for instance, that there were far too many possessions taking up residence in there to be only the property of the slaves. He noticed that in addition to the bed, there were three pallets on the floor. He noticed that the basket that was Benjamin’s bed was in the corner. And he noticed that the three people who turned to face him at his entrance looked like warriors ready to do battle until the death.

“
What is going on in here?” His voice was calm, deadly calm, coldly calm, familiarly calm. He knew his face reflected the same stolidity, and he did not care. Could not care.

Abigail moved a hand, and Miriam and Phillip both moved quickly past him and out the door, closing it behind them. Titus did not so much as glance at them. His full attention was on Abigail.

“
If I had spoken to you first, I knew you would have talked me out of it. But I cannot do it anymore, Titus, it is killing me inside.”

He did not have to ask what “it” was. Though he had to wonder how she could destroy him so peacefully. “If I could have talked you out of it, it is because you do not really want to do it. You are letting your emotions get caught up in details, Abigail. Being with the man you love should not kill you inside.”

Abigail clenched her eyes shut for a long moment, and Titus had the uncomfortable impression that she was holding back a storm of tears. He was relieved when she opened them again steadily. “The man I love is not my husband. He never will be, because there are more important things to him than me, and I understand that. But knowing a man that is not my husband is a sin I will never commit again.”

Anger surged up, hot and comfortable. It was the only emotion he could trust right now. “Abigail, you are being absurd! It is not my fault that I cannot marry you, so why should we be punished for it by having to keep a distance between us? No woman has ever made me feel the way you do. Does that not count for anything?”

“
Even if your family were not an issue, you would not marry me.” Something akin to anger flashed in her eyes, too. “Yes, you love me, I know that. We have something amazing between us, Titus, but it is not enough. We are too different. Look at us. In the past week we have shown ourselves for who we truly are: you are a fine, popular Roman man of nobility, with business concerns and invitations to all the events in the city, and you thrive on that. But I am a Jewish woman raised with strict beliefs, and I have spent too many years as a slave to feel comfortable in a crowd that I am not serving. Surely you remember what Aristotle said about relationships between unequals.”

“
I do not care what Aristotle said!” Titus roared. “It is irrelevant anyway. In the important matters, Abigail, we
are
equals. You yourself have affirmed that. You are my teacher–”

“
What lesson have you learned at my hand?” She tossed out an arm in a defiant show. “I teach you the Law and you disobey it, I teach you the Prophets, and you decide their wisdom interferes with your pleasure. I cannot live like that, Titus, not if I want to keep from falling into the same despair I knew with Jason. Why did Jesus bother making the sacrifice he did if I am going to refuse his salvation?”

He dared not step closer lest he do something he would later regret. “This is not about salvation. This is about you being angry that I will not do as
Jason
did and be badgered into making you my wife.”

“
I never asked to be made his wife.” Her voice broke on a sob, but she did not stop. “But I will not be made your whore.”

It infuriated him that she would say that again when he had already told her he did not want to hear her speak of herself that way. He forced himself back into his icy rage. “I did not make you a whore. If you are, you chose it for yourself.”