The Lion and the Lark (19 page)

     “I’m sure you can feel that welt too.”

     “Why are you discouraging me?  I thought you wanted me to succeed at this.”

     “I do.  But I don’t want you to get hurt.”

     “Are you saying you think I can’t do it?  Ever?”

     Brettix sighed and tried to explain.  “No.  I admire perseverance as much as anyone, but often it can be better to take time away from something when...”

      “You think I can’t do it.  Ever,” Lucia interrupted him, eyeing him narrowly.

     “You are going to break your neck!” he exploded, his patience at an end.  “I don’t want to have to go to your father and tell him that his daughter was thrown from her horse and now can’t move!”

     “So you’re arguing with me about this because you’re afraid of my father?” she said maddeningly.

     Brettix stared at her.  “Don’t bait me, Lucia.”

     “Are you going to help me, or not?”

     “I’ll help you.  Get up on the horse,” Brettix said shortly, his mouth a grim line.

     He watched as she mounted and cantered around the ring, calling instructions to her as she gradually picked up speed.  Her form was perfect, her air confident, and he saw as she approached the jump that she was going to make it.  Stella hoisted her forelegs smartly and the animal and the girl flew through the air and over the obstacle, landing as lightly as a new snowfall on grassy ground.

     Brettix felt a surge of pride so intense it was like the first time he had made the same jump.  He grinned as Lucia let out a whoop, vaulted off the horse and ran straight to him.  Brettix hoisted her into the air and whirled her in a circle, laughing.

     “I knew it,” Lucia crowed.  “I knew it would happen today!”

     “You were right,” he exulted with her as he set her on her feet, his arms still around her.  “I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

     Lucia looked up at him.  “I’ve had a wonderful teacher.”

     “Do you really think so?” Brettix asked, sobering.  “At times I thought I’ve been too severe with you.”

     She reached up to touch his cheek.  “You got results,” she said softly, running her finger through his beard and then across his mouth.  His lips parted almost involuntarily as she touched his tongue experimentally, then stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.  He turned his head and caught her mouth with his.

    He pulled her closer, slipping one long arm around her waist and drawing her against his body.  His lips took hers more hungrily as Lucia wound her arms around his neck, hanging on him while his tongue probed hers.  She could feel the tension increasing in his large frame as he made an involuntary sound of pleasure and straddled her.  He ran his hands down her back caressingly and forced her into the cradle of his hips.

     Time stood still.  The hissing of the snow past the open door, the rustling of the horses, the sighing of the winter wind: all sounds were lost in the hectic pace of their own breathing as they stood locked together, lost in the magic of a first embrace.  When Brettix finally released her Lucia looked up at him and started to speak, then fell silent as the guard’s gray shadow loomed across the doorway.

     “I have to go now,” she said loudly, pointing to the door with one hand and putting her finger to her lips with the other.  “Thanks for today.  I’ll see you next nundina here at noon.”

     Brettix nodded to indicate that he understood.

     Lucia grabbed her cloak.  “Goodbye,” she called, and ran lightly out of the paddock, her long hair flying behind her.

     Brettix stood looking after her, wanting to stop her, afraid of what would happen if he did.

     His stunning burst of fierce need had taken him by surprise.  He had known that he was attracted to her, but when her felt her yielding and womanly in his arms it was almost impossible to hold back and be sensible.  Only the faintest, distant call of who he was and where he was had kept him from losing his head.

     He felt like a hypocrite.  He had chastised his sister for desiring her Roman husband, and he was no better.  And he knew he had to handle Lucia carefully.  Her budding sexuality was fragile and her confidence shaky; he could strike a heavy blow to both by behaving clumsily.

     But he wanted her, and he knew from her response that she wanted him too.  Their unspoken mutual attraction had flowered suddenly and leapt into the open with one kiss, and now he could not ignore it any longer.

     What was he going to do?

     Claudius listened carefully, but he heard nothing.  Bronwen and Maeve had left him alone, unusual in itself, and he planned to take advantage of his solitude to take a walk.  He had not been on his feet since the night he was attacked, and he could feel his leg muscles turning to eel jelly.  He threw off his lap robe and stood gingerly, closing his eyes as the room spun around him.  When it steadied he let go of the chair and took a tentative step, his calves protesting mightily.  He took another, then another, and he was walking around the room determinedly when the door opened and Bronwen stopped short on the threshold.

     “What are you doing?” she demanded.

     “I’m walking,” he said shortly.  “And don’t try to stop me or I’ll thrash you.”

     Bronwen sighed and watched him pace past her.  He finally stopped and looked out the window.

     “I want to go outside,” he said.

     “Claudius, the snow is as high as my waist out there...”

     “Just to the portico.  The servants have already cleared that, haven’t they?”

     Bronwen was silent.

     He turned to look at her.  “Well?”

     “Claudius, this is not a good idea,” Bronwen said slowly, as if speaking to someone with arrested mental development.

     “You don’t have to come with me,” he replied, pulling his uniform cloak over the tunic and trousers he wore.

     “Of course I’m going to come with you,” she snapped.  “Do you think I’d take a chance on you falling?”

     He was moving past the chair on which his cloak lad lain when he saw the courier pouch which had been hidden beneath it.

     “How long has that been there?” he asked Bronwen sharply, pointing at it.

     She shrugged, affecting an air of indifference.  “I don’t know.  Since you were hurt, I guess.”

     He looked at her for a long moment, then said, “Let’s go.”

     “Just let me get my wrap,” she said, slipping into the hall and to the room next door, where she had slept since Claudius’ illness.  Her heart was pounding as she put on her boots and donned the hooded, ankle length cloak the Iceni had adopted from the Gauls.

     Had Claudius forgotten the pouch until he saw it just now, or did he know something?  His impassive expression had given her no information at all, so she returned to him, trying to put the incident out of her mind for the moment.

     “Ready?” he said.

     She gave him her arm and he stared at it.

     “I’m not blind,” he said shortly.

     Bronwen withdrew her arm and they walked, slowly, through the hall to the back of the house and out onto the covered porch, the timber roof of which sagged beneath its load of snow.  Claudius inhaled deeply as Bronwen closed the double doors behind them.

     “Fresh air,” he said with satisfaction.  “It seems such a long time since I smelled it.”

     “Do you want to sit down?” Bronwen asked, indicating the stone bench with its carved images of Ferrina and Anna Perenna, the Roman agricultural goddesses.

     “I want to stand up,” he replied, looking across the open space to the small stable behind the house.

     “How do you feel?”

     “Much better now that I am out of that bedroom,” he answered fervently.

     Bronwen watched him as he scooped up a handful of snow and ran it through his fingers.  He made a strange figure in his native clothes with his uniform cloak, the badge of Roman authority, tossed carelessly over his shoulders. 

     “At least I got to see this miracle,” he said softly, as if talking to himself.

     “Snow?”

     He nodded.  “Caesar described it in the journals from his campaigns in Gaul and I could never imagine it.  Crystals of rainwater?  It seemed impossible.”

     “Aren’t there mountains in Spain?  You must have seen some snow there.”

     “I was never in the mountains.  Hannibal described snow too, and so vividly I always wanted to see it.”  He looked over at her and smiled.  “It is beautiful, isn’t it?”

     “Seen through your eyes, it is.  I’m so accustomed to it that I give it little thought, except as a winter problem that makes travel impossible and

exposure a hazard.”

     “And you’ve never seen Rome,” he said quietly.

     “Is it wonderful?” Bronwen asked wistfully, forgetting for the moment that she hated its inhabitants.  She had never seen a big city; like many country people she burned with curiosity about a way of life she had heard described but could only imagine.

     “It’s as different from Britain as it could possibly be.  Not wild and open like this, but hemmed in with public buildings and crowded with all different types of people from all over the world.  It’s noisy and dusty and bustling; this kind of stillness and serenity is impossible to obtain anywhere in the city.”

     “Was your wife from Rome too?”

     He looked at her.  “How did you know I was married?  I never told you that.”

     “When you were sick you...talked.”

     “Out of my head?” he asked.

     She nodded.

     “What did I say?”

     “Enough for me to know that she died after having a baby.  I’m so sorry.”

     He looked down at his hands.  “It was five years ago.”

     “And the baby?”

     “Dead too.”

     “Even Romans are mortal,” she murmured.

     “Her health was always fragile and she developed a fever after the birth.  The baby was born much too soon and the best physicians couldn’t save him.”

     “What was she like?” Bronwen asked, feeling a fierce stab of envy for the dead woman who had shared his life and culture in a way that she never could.

     “Very gentle, loving.  She was the daughter of a noble house and had been raised to be the perfect upper class wife.  She was sweet and submissive...”

     “Not like me,” Bronwen said, thinking out loud.

     “No, not like you,” he agreed, laughing.

     “Thank you,” she said dryly.

     “You have other qualities,” he said, still smiling.

     “Yes?  Tell me more.”

     “Courage, loyalty, alluring beauty,” he observed quietly, not smiling now, lifting a silken lock of her hair from her shoulder and then letting it fall back.

     Bronwen felt a lump growing in her throat.  Why was he talking like this now, when it was too late?  Was it his acceptance of the hopelessness of their situation that was making him open up to her?

     “Wasn’t your wife pretty?” Bronwen asked him.

     “Yes, in the traditional Roman way.”

     “Again, not like me.”

     “No, more like me,” he said, and laughed again.

     “What do you mean?”

     “We were often taken for brother and sister by people who didn’t know us,” he said.

     “Then she must have been very pretty indeed,” Bronwen said softly, not looking at him.

     He stared at her, watching as she shivered when a chill wind blew, sending a shower of snow from the roof to the ground.  He tucked the shawl closer about her shoulders and said quietly, “You don’t hate me any more, do you?”

     She shook her head mutely, still unable to meet his gaze, her throat tight with unshed tears.

     “Is that because I nearly died?”

     “No.”

     “Because you know I’ll be gone soon?”

     “How soon?” she asked.

     “Next nundina, probably.  There’s a supply caravan going south to Londinium and I will most likely go with them.”

     Nundina was market day, less than a week away.

     He tilted her chin up with his fingertip.  “You may not miss me, but you must promise you won’t forget me,” he said.

     I’ll miss you, she thought, but said, “Claudius, we should go back inside.  It’s too cold out here, it can’t be good for you.”

     He turned obediently and followed her back into the house, where they found Maeve looking for them.

     “There you are,” she said to Bronwen.  “General Scipio is here to see the master.”

     “Scipio?” Claudius asked.

     Bronwen nodded.

     “I’ll see him in the tablinum, and tell her to bring us some wine immediately.”

     Bronwen gave the instructions and then watched Claudius go, wondering what her life would be like when he had left it for good.