Christina Phillips - [Forbidden 02] (28 page)

For a moment she tumbled back in time, to that night when Carys left to be with her Roman. Morwyn had begged her to reconsider. Had told her the enemy would crucify her if they discovered her true calling.

Maximus had said they weren’t complete barbarians. That they could honor a foreign princess. And after having seen them together, Morwyn knew he did honor Carys, loved her truly and would do all in his power to protect her.

But his Emperor hated Druids, feared the influence they had wielded for generations. Wanted to wipe even the memory of their existence from the face of the earth. How could one man, no matter how honorable, stand against the bigoted might of Rome?

Let her Gaul think Carys was little more than a common slave. It could help save her skin.

She had to divert his attention. But her mind thudded with only one thought, and before she could stop herself, the words spilled from her lips.

“Why do you hate Druids so?” She knew it wasn’t personal. He hadn’t the first idea of what she was. Yet still his contempt ate into her. “What did they do to you?”

For a moment she didn’t think he was going to answer. He continued to chew the meat, took a second mouthful, and only after taking a swing of wine did he finally look at her.

“I don’t hate them.” His voice was level. “I despise them. There’s a difference, Morwyn. Hate requires too much energy.”

Heat crawled over her skin, prickling her flesh, and an odd despair trickled through her stomach as if he had told her she was the one he despised.

Would
he, if he knew?

“Then why do you despise them?”

He regarded her in silence, as if contemplating whether or not she deserved an answer. The moment stretched, interminably. He wasn’t going to respond. Didn’t think her worthy of confiding even that much of his inner self to her.

And then he spoke. “Do you believe they’re never wrong?”

Instantly the image of Aeron flashed across her mind. Aeron; impossibly beautiful with his long golden hair, strange silver eyes and the aura of mystical power that had always surrounded him.

A shudder flicked over her neck, her arms, along her spine and the backs of her legs. Once, she’d loved him. Would have done anything for him. And when her eyes had opened, when she’d seen the evil polluting his blackened soul, she had been the means for his destruction.

“No.” Her voice choked on the word. Once, she’d believed it inconceivable for Druids to be in the wrong. They were conduits for the gods. And the gods were supposed to be infallible. “They can be wrong.”
So horrifically wrong.
“They’re only mortal, despite their blood.”

Was it her imagination or did her Gaul’s hard features soften by the minutest degree? As if he hadn’t been sure of her response and her words gave him some measure of relief?

“Mortal.” He appeared to savor the word. “And vindictive.” His lips twisted into a parody of the smile she had come to cherish. “My contempt is personal, Morwyn. It doesn’t stem from the bloody quagmire of battle.” He paused as if reconsidering his words. “Although it certainly led me there.”

“Personal?” Did she truly wish to know? Unease shivered through her mind, as if a premonition of disaster hovered on the near horizon. But how could she not want to know, when he was so close to confiding something of his past?

“You’ll find it hard to believe, I know.” He shot her a strangely defensive glance, although she had the strangest conviction that only she could see that trace of vulnerability in his look. And it pierced through her heart, as tangible as the blade of a Druid’s sacrificial dagger. “But a trace of noble blood taints my veins.”

Of course it did. She had always suspected he was more than a common auxiliary. Wild suppositions whipped through her brain. Perhaps the Romans held his noble mother and sisters captive, and in exchange for their safety her Gaul had to fight in the loathed Legions?

That wouldn’t make him a traitor. And of course there were insurmountable reasons as to why he’d been unable to rescue his womenfolk. Perhaps the Druids forbade it. Perhaps they were in cahoots with the Romans. And that was why her Gaul despised them so.

Her grip tightened on her knife, and she silently willed him to continue.

“And as such”—bitterness iced his words—“my choice of bride was condemned.”

For a moment she continued staring at him, wondering at his choice of words. What did he mean? What bride? What did that have to do with being blackmailed by the enemy?

The raucous background din faded, replaced by a dull buzzing that filled her ears and echoed inside her skull. “Your bride?” He was telling her
about his wife
?

It hadn’t even occurred to her he was married. At first because he was nothing but her enemy and such things were of no account. But later, when he became more to her than merely the bastard Gaul, it should have crossed her mind. Yet still it hadn’t.

“I knew her as a child. We grew up together. She was the daughter of one of our slaves.” His gaze pinned Morwyn to her seat. Not that she was capable of moving. Even her tongue felt paralyzed. “A slave herself.” And again bitterness tinged his words.

Her face blazed. Thank the gods for the dim lighting so he couldn’t see. It was no great revelation, not truly, to know he was married. Doubtless he’d left her back in Gaul while he followed the Legions. And like so many barbarians he thought nothing of taking other women whenever the urge took him.

As he had taken her. And even that she could understand because it was the way of the world, even if it wasn’t her world. But what she couldn’t understand was the depth of tortured anguish glinting in his eyes, thundering behind his words.

He was not merely married. He clearly adored his wife.

It shouldn’t hurt, but it did. And she had a terrifying notion as to why.

Because she cared for him.

“A slave.” Her lips were stiff, her tongue swollen, and the words rolled from her as heavy as rocks. She didn’t care if the bitch was a Gallic princess. The only thought that pulsed through her mind was the knowledge her Gaul loved the foreign whore.

“The Druids forbade our union.” He twisted the stem of the goblet between thumb and forefinger. “Despite the fact that by then I’d secured her freedom.”

Morwyn drained her wine, and the liquid scalded her still empty stomach. Her Gaul, despite his claim, must possess more than a mere drop of noble blood. Of course the Druids would forbid such a match. When it came to the nobility, they liked to keep the bloodlines pure. At least, that had been her experience in the past, and why should it be so different in Gaul?

“Naturally, you defied them.” She couldn’t pretend a lightness she didn’t feel, and the words sounded harsh, as if she condemned him as had his Druids.

She did condemn him. But not for the same reasons.

“Naturally.” His tone was dry and his eyes bored into her as if he suddenly noticed her discomposure. She gritted her teeth, regulated her breath. No matter how she felt, she wouldn’t let him see that his revelations touched her. In another day or so she would leave him forever. His marital status did not matter.

“Morwyn.” He reached across the table and trailed one finger along the line of her jaw. It took considerable willpower not to jerk back from his touch. “I didn’t think
you’d
be so disapproving.” To her disbelief there was a trace of censure in his tone as if her reaction somehow disappointed him in a fundamental way.

“Why do you care for my approval or not?” The words were out before she could prevent them. He would have to be dead not to realize she was wounded by his confidence. The knowledge scraped along her nerve endings and she straightened, severing their connection. “I fail to see why you think I should be interested in the—the daily habits of your wife.”

He pulled back to his side of the table, his face hardening into the impenetrable mask she’d not seen for days. “You’re right. It’s nothing to you.”

A sense of injustice bubbled deep in her gut, curdling the wine, spiraling through her blood. How dared he take offense? Was she a cheap whore who offered a man relief not only with sex but a false sympathy for him to pour out his sins in hopes of being forgiven?

She stabbed a piece of meat onto her knife with deadly precision. “I only wonder, since you’re so besotted, that you didn’t bring her with you. It’s not as if lodgings aren’t plentiful.” She tore the meat from her knife. It tasted of ashes.

The silence screamed between them. She refused to look at him and concentrated on her lukewarm stew. The thought of eating it turned her stomach. But not as much as the thought of sharing the Gaul’s bed this night when he would doubtless, once again, be thinking of his wife as he took
her
.

She knew she could refuse him. Perhaps she would. And her heart remained heavy within her breast.

“You misunderstand.” His voice was emotionless. He may have been discussing the weather or the quality of their meal. “My wife died six years ago.”

The grisly meat lodged in her throat and she choked. Tears prickled her eyes and she grabbed the amphora and took a long swallow straight from the source.

Gods. She flicked him a glance over the amphora and saw he was staring at her dispassionately. As if their growing closeness over the last few days had never occurred.

Shame burned through her at the cruel thoughts she’d leveled against his wife. It was one thing to curse the living. Quite another to curse those who were continuing their journeys.

She swallowed around the scraped flesh of her throat. Druids were not taught to apologize to outsiders when in the wrong. Because Druids were so very rarely in the wrong.

But then, she’d turned her back on her Druidry. And this was the result.

She risked another glance. He was no longer looking at her but instead finishing his stew as if nothing untoward had passed between them. Her sweaty fingers ached around the knife and she placed it on the table before surreptitiously wiping her hands on the lap of her gown.

“I regret your loss.” She stared at her plate, unable to look at him in case he dismissed her condolence as false. “I thought . . . I had the impression she was waiting for you back in Gaul.”

He didn’t answer. Finally she could no longer bear the silence and looked up. He was regarding her but his expression was unreadable. Even his eyes appeared emotionless.

It was intolerable that she was in the position of having to defend herself before him. Why did she feel as if she were on trial? In a vague, insubstantial crevice of her mind she wondered why she felt the overpowering need to explain herself. What did it matter if he’d misunderstood her flash of anger?

Wasn’t it better for him to assume his choice of wife disgusted her rather than the unpalatable truth that she had been
jealous
?

Yes. And her upbringing had impressed upon her the importance of choosing wisely when it came to marriage and the creation of children. To fall in love with a slave was unfortunate. To marry her inconceivable. But despite the years of indoctrination it hadn’t been, and wasn’t, condemnation that pounded through her heart at his revelation.

“No.” His voice was still even. “She no longer waits for me. The Druids took care of that.”

Her fingers dug into her thighs as horrifying scenarios flashed through her mind. Druids weren’t violent by nature—Aeron had been a shocking anomaly—but retribution when their laws were violated was harsh and unforgiving.

“What did they do?” Her whisper was scarcely audible. Before the invasion, had one of their nobles so blatantly disregarded the laws on matrimony, he would have been punished if he’d refused to recant. Exile was always a popular choice. But they would never have killed the woman. Not unless there was more to this than her Gaul was telling.

“It’s more a question of what they didn’t do.” He took the amphora and shared the remainder of the wine between their goblets. “When her life hung in the balance they chose to heal me instead of saving her. And for that I will never forgive them.”

Bren caught the look of horror that flashed across Morwyn’s face and downed half the goblet in one swallow. What the fuck was he doing, telling her about his personal life?

He’d buried that life and lost his last sliver of self-respect three years ago when he’d taken on Dunmacos’s identity. And he hadn’t spoken of Eryn for even longer.

But something about this night had loosened his tongue. He’d wanted to confide, to ease the poison in his soul. His unexpected freedom from the Legion, and the rush of relief and pleasure that had filled his chest when Morwyn returned to the lodgings, had obviously addled his brain. Corrupted his well-honed sense of survival.

She’d been repelled. As had the majority of his kin. What else had he expected? Morwyn might attempt to pass herself off as a trader. And she may well have spent years as a slave of a Roman. But he was convinced she possessed the blood of nobility.