The Protector (18 page)

“As the oldest son, it was Quintus’s responsibility to marry well and for connections. Our father saw the agreement as ideal and agreed without discussion. The union combined the families’ fortunes, ended a century-old rivalry, plus my debt was erased in the bargain. Faustina was beautiful and cultured. On the surface, she seemed the kind of woman a man like Quintus could grow to love.”

“I see,” Adiona said, jealous even when she knew there was no need to be.

“Quintus doesn’t speak ill of anyone,” Lucius continued, warming to his subject. “You won’t ever hear him complain about the shrew, but there’s never been a more vain or selfish woman since time began. Faustina spent every waking hour chasing her own pleasures. She was always attending some party or hosting one. After Fabius was born, it got worse. For months she abandoned them both for an opium pipe. Quintus tried to help her. She refused. He prayed for her for a long time, but she scorned his God and turned to other men just to prove she wanted nothing to do with his new religion. The whole situation was intolerable. He was going to divorce her. Even his Christian texts said he had the right to. But the Fates removed the choice from his hand.”

Dread began to rise in Adiona. She didn’t want to hear the rest, but a driving need to better understand Quintus compelled her to listen.

“Normally, Quintus took his son everywhere, but he had unavoidable business in a nearby town and Fabius had a stomachache. Not wanting to tire the boy or make him more ill, Quintus left him with the nursemaid. Faustina was gone with friends as usual. After that no
one knows for sure what happened except that Faustina returned and dismissed the maid. Somehow the child ended up by himself in the street.

“When Quintus returned the next morning, his son was dead. Faustina had killed herself out of guilt or so she claimed in the missive she left.”

Adiona wiped tears from her cheeks. Her chest ached for Quintus and the pain he’d suffered. In a different way, he’d been abused in his marriage just as she had been in hers. No wonder he seemed to understand her plight.

“Who reported him to the authorities?” she asked, her throat tight.

“None of us know for certain. I suspect it was Faustina’s brother, although I have no proof. He’s petty enough to see it as a way of regaining some of his sister’s honor if he can paint Quintus as a villain.”

“What will happen if Quintus returns to Amiternum?”

“I don’t know. Truth to tell, I don’t know why he was arrested in the first place.”

“Because he’s a Christian, or so I thought,” she said, confused.

“He was. I suppose every Christian lives with a sword over his head, but what I meant is, I don’t understand why he happened to be arrested at that precise moment in time. He’d never hidden his beliefs and there was no purge going on in the region. He’d been a respected merchant for years. After Quintus’s arrest, I went to the magistrate, but he refused to even see me.”

Adiona frowned. She’d never heard of a magistrate refusing an audience with a prominent family. “Perhaps he was honest and not open to bribery?”

“Hardly. If anything, he knew of Quintus’s scruples and thought bribery wasn’t an option,” he scorned. “But
that argument fails to make sense.
I
was doing the negotiating. From past…incidents, the magistrate knew money wasn’t a concern of mine when I go after something I want.”

Bernice returned to collect the dinner dishes.

Adiona moved to the window in need of air. Her fingers clutched the wet marble windowsill as she searched the blackness for any sign of Quintus’s return.

Bernice joined her. “He’ll be all right, my lady. Master Quintus is wise and I’m certain he’s stopped in a nearby town. He’ll come home first thing in the morning.”

“I hope you’re right,” Adiona said, her chin quivering.

Hours passed. Adiona prayed, uncertain if Quintus’s God heard her, but she had to try.

Lucius sighed. “Would you care to play a game of cards or dice to pass the time?”

She stopped pacing and pinned him with a glare rife with impatience.

“All right, all right,” he said, his hands raised in self-defense. “I just thought I’d ask.”

“Yes, well, don’t.”

Lamplight flickered across his discomforted features. “If anything happens to Quintus, I swear I’ll make amends.”

“And how will you do that?” The man-child wasn’t worth one of Quintus’s sandal laces. “Your brother is unique among men. The finest there is. If he dies…” Her voice broke. She closed her eyes until she calmed herself enough to speak. “If he dies there will be no amends great enough to make up for his loss.”

Somewhere in the house a door opened and closed. “Adiona!”

She stilled. Her heart stopped. Quintus’s voice.

“Adiona, where are you?” he called.

“We’re in your office,” Lucius yelled. He jumped to his feet, seeming to understand she’d lost the ability to answer.

Laughing, Lucius flew across the tiled floor and out into the entryway. Adiona listened to the brothers’ joyful reunion.

“Where is my guest?” she heard Quintus ask.

“She’s been prowling in your office since the storm began.”

Hearing footsteps on the tiles, she tried to compose herself. She sat down in her chair and affected an air of serenity. But the sight of Quintus on the threshold flooded her with sweet relief. Before she knew what she was doing, she jumped from her seat and ran to him.

He caught her around the waist, and up off the floor, his arms tight as a sail’s lashing. “I guess you did miss me,” he murmured against her hair.

He smelled of salt and the sea. He was soaking wet and freezing cold, but her heart had never been warmer toward him. “Not at all,” she said, hugging him fiercely.

“I’m glad.” He laughed and buried his face in the curve of her throat. “I didn’t miss you, either.”

Lucius pushed passed them. “Liars, the both of you.”

Quintus and Adiona ignored him. “I prayed to your God He’d return you to me,” she whispered.

He tilted her face up to his. The firelight made his skin appear a burnished bronze. He searched her face. “You prayed for me?”

She nodded. “The storm. I was so worried you wouldn’t come back.”

“I promised I’d be here tonight.”

“I know.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to his chest. “That’s why I didn’t give up hope. You always tell the truth.”

A short time later, Quintus headed to his room to change his tunic. Warm and dry, he returned to the office. Still marveling that Adiona had prayed for him, he thanked the Lord for the work He was doing in her life.

He took his place behind the large desk. Adiona and Lucius sat across from him.

“So, brother.” Lucius spoke first. “Where have you been? Your woman here has been beside herself with worry and I haven’t been too calm, either.”

Quintus’s gaze drifted back to Adiona’s exquisite face. The lamp’s glow caressed her smooth skin and soft features. A blush stained her cheeks. The storm had sent his boat into the rocks. He’d barely made it to shore before walking several miles through a mountain pass to get back to her. Had he guessed the sweetness of her reaction to his return, he would have run. Barefoot. Over broken glass.

“Once I learned you’d been released, I started back,” he explained. “The storm hit without much warning and I had a little trouble with my boat about five miles south of here.”

“Hmm…” Lucius said. “Let me translate, my lady. When Quintus says he had ‘a little trouble’ it means the boat either capsized, sank or hit the rocks—”

Adiona gasped. Her anxious gaze roved over Quintus. “Is that true?”

Quintus glared at his brother. “It hit the rocks.”

White as chalk, she jumped to her feet. “Are you hurt? You looked fit when you arrived, but—”

“I’m fine,” he said, basking in her concern. “Truly.”

She dropped back into the chair, her relief unconcealed. “How did you get back with no boat? You’re not a fish. You couldn’t have swum.”

“He must have walked,” Lucius guessed.

Her eyes flared. “You walked? In this rain? How?”

“It’s a simple matter,” Lucius injected drily. “You place one foot in front of the other.”

“Just ignore him,” Quintus told her. “I do all the time.”

“Gladly.” She didn’t take her eyes from Quintus. “Now tell me how you walked here. I thought the cove was only accessible by sea.”

“No. There’s a mountain pass similar to the one that took us to the grotto.”

“You took her to the grotto?” Lucius whistled between his teeth. “You must be madly in lo—”

“Quiet!” Quintus commanded. “Better yet, leave us. I’ll speak to you later.”

“Fine. I know when I’m not wanted.” Lucius chuckled all the way out the door, for once doing as he was told without making a fuss.

“I’m sorry,” he said once Lucius left. “My brother can be a bit much.”

“I don’t care about him,” she dismissed. “I care about you and the danger you faced tonight. Why didn’t you stay somewhere you’d be safe? Don’t you know by now that if anything happened to you, I’d…?”

“You’d what, lioness?”

I’d never recover.
She swallowed thickly. “I’d be sad, naturally.”

He eased back in his seat. “That’s good to know.”

The sound of pouring rain filled the quiet. Thunder rolled overhead. Nervous energy danced between them.
She rose from her chair and closed the shutters, eager to break the tension. There was so much to say, so many emotions to confess, but she didn’t know how.

She turned and fell into a ravaging gaze of green fire. Her mouth ran dry and her knees grew weak. She felt consumed.

Quintus blinked. The emotion raging in his eyes disappeared as though it never existed. Bereft and breathless from the loss, she wondered if she’d imagined his intensity toward her or if she’d simply wished it were so.

“A messenger brought those scrolls soon after you left this morning,” she murmured in need of defensive measures.

He reached for the rolls of parchment and studied the seals with interest. He frowned. “They’re from Caros,” he said, breaking the blob of wax. “This one’s addressed to both of us.”

His deft fingers unrolled the scroll and he scanned the message. His expression darkened with each word. “I think you should sit down.”

Intrigued and anxious, she sat in one of the chairs before the desk. “What’s happened?”

“It seems your assassin has been apprehended.”

“
What?
Who?”

“Someone named Salonius Roscius—”

“Salonius? I don’t believe it.”

“Wait. He’s the married fortune hunter you told me of in Neopolis.”

Numb with shock, she nodded. “The last time I spoke to him was the night of Caros and Pelonia’s fete. He delivered the message from Drusus concerning Octavia’s illness.”

“How convenient. He planned to be the last person to see you alive.”

Nausea swirled in her stomach. “How was he discovered?”

“Caros didn’t give details. I imagine one of his or your steward’s spies uncovered the lout.”

“I suppose now we have to return to Rome.”

“Yes.” He rolled up the scroll. “Your testimony is needed to press charges and prepare for a trial.”

She knew her assassin’s capture should make her happy or bring her relief, but anger bubbled inside her instead. Salonius and his murderous plans infuriated her, but the unfairness of having Quintus in her life only to lose him was a cruelty that burned her with impotent rage.

“Congratulations.” She strove for an even tone despite the hard lump of grief in her throat. “You’re a free man now.”

He set down the scroll and rounded the desk. She didn’t understand the tension in his body or his less-than-gratified expression.

“Are you releasing me, then?”

She knew Quintus was a man of specifics who always kept his word. He wanted a clear declaration that she no longer needed him. But if she had her way, she’d never let him go. “Yes, our agreement is finished. I have no further use for you.”

“Is that so?” he asked, the sharp edge of his voice undisguised. “Have you grown wings all of a sudden that you can fly back to Rome?”

Why was he angry? She was the one being abandoned. “If you’d be kind enough to hire a boat for me, I’d appreciate it. Once I’m in Neopolis I can make my own way home.”

He raked his fingers through his hair. “No. That’s not an option. You’ll have to put up with me a few more days. I’ll see you safely back to Rome myself.”

The reprieve ushered in a swell of hope. He wasn’t leaving her yet. “If you insist on accompanying me, who am I to argue?”

He eyed her dubiously. “I appreciate your wisdom.”

She snorted and stood. “Then if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go pack my satchel.”

Without waiting for his answer, she turned and left the office, his gaze burning a hole in her back.

“D
o you wish to go home?” Quintus asked Adiona as Rome’s massive gate came into view. “Or do you prefer to visit Caros and Pelonia at the
ludus
first?”

“The
ludus,
” she said, keeping her eyes on the crowded road ahead of them. Quintus’s imminent departure loomed closer with each beat of the horses’ hooves.

She’d spent the last three days since they’d left the villa trying to wean herself from the pleasure of being able to look at him whenever she wanted. So far, the experiment had proven a catastrophe, but failure wasn’t an option. She had to be strong. She had no choice. Quintus was leaving her. She’d be an
idiota
to pretend otherwise. Trying to convince him to stay wasn’t possible when his son’s funeral rites were in question. All that was left for her to do was get used to being alone again.

The press of travelers slowed their progress to a halt. The journey back to the capital had been uneventful with a stop in Neopolis to collect the gladiators Caros left to guard Drusus. Her heir had been relieved, and too self-satisfied for her liking, to have his innocence confirmed. And even though Adiona was sad not to see Drusus’s
daughters, she’d been delighted to learn the girls would be living with their grandmother indefinitely.

In Ostia, the group stayed with Joseph’s family at the
tabernae
for a night. She and Quintus had checked on Onesimus’s recovery. His wounds were healing, but the young gladiator remained bedridden—and much fussed over by Josephina.

At a fork in the road, the group followed a path that circled the city, rather than taking the direct route inside Rome’s massive walls.

The good mood of the gladiators rose the closer they came to the
ludus.
Clearly, the men were as happy to be home as Adiona was miserable.

All too soon, they arrived at the
Ludus Maximus.
Guards opened the heavy iron gates. Caros and Pelonia joined them in the courtyard before Quintus had time to help Adiona down from her horse.

Once Adiona touched the ground, Caros snatched her up in a tight embrace. “Thank God you’re back safe. You and your prickly ways have been missed.”

She hugged him back, holding on a moment longer than necessary when she saw Quintus’s eyes narrow on the exchange.

Pelonia linked arms with Adiona and walked her through the peach orchard back to the main house. “I’m happy you’ve returned to us, as well,” Pelonia said. “We’ve been sorely worried about you.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, embarrassed but touched by her friends’ concern, especially Pelonia’s because the two of them had not started on the best of terms. “Quintus protected me well.”

“I’m sure he
did.
” Pelonia grinned. “He’s the type of man who excels at all he attempts.”

“True. He’s exceptional in every way.” Noticing
Pelonia’s pleased smirk, she hastened to add, “What I mean is, his quick thinking saved me several times from certain danger.”

“That’s what I thought you meant,” Pelonia said, leading Adiona to a guest room where a basin of water awaited. After she’d washed off the travel dust, Adiona returned to the sitting room to find Pelonia. The splash of the fountains in the inner courtyard flowed through the large, airy chamber. “Have you eaten?” Pelonia asked. “Are you thirsty?”

Adiona asked for water, but declined food. She and Quintus had breakfasted on fresh bread and cheese before leaving the
tabernae
at sunrise. The noonday meal wasn’t due for at least another hour.

“I must say,” Pelonia began once the two of them were comfortably seated, “Caros and I were surprised when the messenger announced you and Quintus were arriving together this morning. After Quintus sent his slave’s price last week, we assumed you’d hired a new guard and Quintus had headed directly for Amiternum.”

“What do you mean he sent the money last week?” Adiona’s brow pleated with confusion. “His freedom was to be compensation for guarding me.”

“That’s what I thought as well, but… I’m sorry, I think I’ve spoken out of turn.”

A servant entered the sitting room with a tray of rolls and the cups of water Pelonia ordered. Setting the refreshments on a low table in front of the couch where the women were seated, the girl left at the same time Quintus and Caros strode through the door.

Adiona rose to her feet. “Quintus, I need to speak with you. Right now, if you please.”

Quintus frowned. “All right. Just a moment. Let me say goodbye to Pelonia. I’ll be leaving soon.”

Winded by the punch of pain the announcement brought, she started blindly for the garden.

“Wait, Adiona,” Caros said. “There’s been a development. You need to sit down.”

She did as he said. “What’s happened?”

“Salonius. He’s dead.”

“How?” she asked, only half-interested in the worm’s demise when she had so few moments left with Quintus. “Was he killed in prison?”

“Trying to escape,” Caros clarified.

“Good riddance.” Adiona glanced at Quintus who was watching her intently. She stood and turned for the garden, needing fresh air to clear her head. “Quintus, I’ll be outside when you’re finished here.”

Aware of the silence she left behind, she reached the courtyard and sat heavily on a carved stone bench near the largest fountain. She rubbed her upper arms to ward off the chill. The peaceful flow of the water did nothing to soothe her misery as she listened to the renewed camaraderie and muted laughter of Caros, Pelonia and Quintus saying their farewells.

Grief pressed down on her like a slab of marble. How could anyone laugh when the occasion of Quintus leaving warranted sackcloth and ashes? Didn’t Caros and Pelonia realize Quintus might never return? Hot tears scratched the back of her eyes and her head throbbed with tension.

Quintus’s strong presence alerted her of his arrival in the garden even before she heard his sandals on the floor tiles behind her. Force of habit warned her to brace herself, to hide her true feelings behind a glib facade, but sadness drained her of the will to pretend all was well. “Adiona?”

She stood and faced him. “Quintus.”

“Are you truly as indifferent to Salonius’s death as you seem?”

“Should I be upset the man who tried to kill me is dead?”

“You have a tendency to blame yourself for others’ actions against you. I want to make certain you know this business with Salonius is his doing, not yours.”

She nodded. Unable to look at him when tears clouded her vision, she developed a sudden interest in the knotted end of her leather belt. Never in her life had anyone understood her or cared for her like Quintus did.

And now he’s leaving.

“Why do you wish to speak to me?” he asked when she stayed quiet for several long moments.

A breeze rustled the trees in the garden and brought a faint hint of smoke. She cleared her throat. “Why did you send funds to Caros to buy your freedom?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“Not true.” She lifted her gaze back to his face. “Guarding me was supposed to ensure your liberty. How did you afford it? Lucius admitted he squandered your family’s fortune.”

“You may have noticed my brother talks too much.”

“All right,” she said, irritated by the distance he wedged between them, but unwilling to drop the matter. “Perhaps it’s not my concern, but I’d like to know. Did Caros refuse to honor his promise?”

“Of course not.”

“I see.”

His eyes narrowed. “What do you see, Adiona?”

“That your pride is threatened.”

“Explain.”

She was surprised he didn’t disagree with her outright. “You don’t want the return of your freedom tied to me
in any way. You’re afraid that by accepting the bargain, I’ll have some future hold on you and you won’t take the risk.”

“Your mind is a wonder,” he said. “But here is the truth, if you must know it. My brother spent most of the gold I gave him in Amiternum, but that was merely a portion of my wealth. Once I reached my villa the situation was better than I expected. I had written to Lucius to tell him of the money I had stored there, but he never received my letters. With the gold still in the villa, money was no longer an issue. I sent the funds I owed Caros because I wanted him to know I was protecting you by
choice,
not because I had no other way to earn my freedom.”

“You
chose
to stay with me when you could have gone to your son?” she asked, unable to fathom the idea when she knew how much he loved his child.

He moved closer. His large palms cupped her shoulders. “Adiona, you think I fear some future hold you might have on me, but you’re wrong. Although I tried to deny it, your hold on me began the first moment I saw you and it’s grown tenfold every day since. When my life was at its most ugly, the Lord brought you to me and filled it with your beauty. There isn’t a day that passes when I don’t thank Him for you or an hour that goes by when I don’t think how special you are to me.”

Quintus was too honest for her not to believe him. The last seeds of shame and fear her husband implanted in her shriveled up at the roots and died under the force of Quintus’s high regard.

Tears blurred her vision and slipped down her cheeks. She locked her arms around his waist and pressed against his chest. For years she’d taught herself to ignore pain, but this was an agony beyond anything she’d endured,
as though her heart were being removed from her chest while she watched. “I can’t bear for you to leave me.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and held her tight. “You know I must. Fabius—”

“I know,” she said over the rock of pain lodged in her throat. “Just promise you’ll come back to me.”

He lifted her chin and gently brushed the tears from under her eyes before touching her lips with a kiss.

“I won’t make a promise I’m not certain I can keep. I don’t plan to court trouble, but I still don’t know who reported me to the authorities.”

She placed her hand over his mouth, unable to consider him being rearrested or worse. “Please, stop,” she begged.

He brushed his lips across her palm and kissed the tip of each of her fingers. “I have to go, lioness. Amiternum is a ten-day journey from here. I want to get a head start before night falls.”

A thousand things to say bubbled to her lips, but silence lingered as she watched him stride through the arched doorway, her heart going with him.

Adiona glanced at the sundial of her villa’s private garden. It was almost noon, not that the hour made much difference when each moment was as empty as the next.

In the twelve days since she’d returned to Rome, she’d grown to hate the copper timepiece. More often than she cared to count, she’d been tempted to have it removed and melted down. A just punishment for mocking her with the reminder of how long Quintus had been gone.

Not that she needed a reminder when even the weather seemed to mourn his absence. The early January rains
brought shorter days and longer nights filled with a cold, depressing dampness that seeped into the bones.
“Domina?”

Adiona looked up from the sundial to find her steward, Felix, wringing his hands near a pot of winter crocus a short distance in front of her. Lost in thoughts of Quintus, she hadn’t heard the older man’s approach. “
Domina,
I’m sorry to trouble you, but Claudia Arvina is at the door. I thought I’d best ask if you want to see her before I send her away.”

“Yes, send the spider back to her web,” she said, thinking of the last time she’d spoken with Claudia and the woman’s glee over Quintus’s near-death in the arena.

“As you wish,
Domina.
” Felix was almost to the edge of the garden when Adiona called him back. The other matrons usually respected her long-established perimeter of privacy. If Claudia intruded without an invitation, there might be an emergency.

Adiona met Claudia in a large reception room near the front of the villa. “Thank the gods it’s warm in here,” Claudia said, handing Felix her
palla.
“The north winds have blown in early this year. I thought I’d freeze waiting on your doorstep.”

“I don’t think the gods deserve the credit,” Adiona said, trying to ignore the other woman’s sickly sweet perfume. “Whoever the genius was that invented the hypocaust deserves your thanks. Without the hot water running beneath the floor and the steam rising between the walls, we’d all need to head south for the winter.”

A maid entered the room with a tray of fruit and cups of warm lemon water.

“What brings you here, Claudia?” Adiona asked once the matron lowered her rotund form into a chair near one of the shuttered windows. “I trust all is well.”

Claudia sipped water from a rare blue glass cup. “That’s for you to tell me. You’ve been gone for weeks. Rumors are running rampant about you, yet there’s been nary a word from your camp to refute them.” The spider peered over the rim at Adiona. “Isn’t it about time you cleared the air? It wouldn’t be prudent to let people think you’ve gone soft.”

Adiona arched an eyebrow. She didn’t need advice from her rival. Her steward kept spies all over the city to keep her informed of Rome’s current events and latest scandals, but she found she lacked the interest to care about matters that now seemed trivial. “What gossip do you mean, Claudia?”

“Well,” she said, setting down her cup. “There’s a full-blown scandal about you and Salonius Roscius. He told everyone you were on the cusp of agreeing to wed him.”

“Lying mongrel,” Adiona snorted, making no attempt to hide her disgust for the man who’d conspired to murder her. “As if I’d be desperate enough to wed that flea-bitten hound.”

“That’s what
I
told everyone,” Claudia said in a commiserative tone that belied the calculation in her eyes. “You’ve made it clear you’ll
never
remarry. And since I saw how enamored you were with that gladiator in the arena, I knew love wasn’t clouding your vision enough to draw you to Salonius.”

Schooling her features to betray none of her inner turmoil, Adiona sat back in her chair. The gossip concerning Salonius was an irritant much like the incessant buzzing of a fly, but if anyone spoke an ill word about Quintus she refused to be held responsible for her actions.