The Protector (8 page)

“Did you mean what you said last night?” she asked,
determined to learn the truth. Having been burned by life so many times in the past, she found it difficult to believe a truce had miraculously formed between them. “You’ll stay with me until I send you away?”

His jaw clenched, leaving her to suspect he regretted his vow. “I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep.”

A chill in the air caused her to shiver. He stepped forward, lifted her cloak off the back of the chair and draped it around her shoulders.

He was so close that she smelled the clean, masculine scent of his body and the tinge of smoke on his tunic. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and soak in the heat of his skin. She wondered if he felt the connection between them the same as she did, then brushed away the notion, certain she was just deluding herself.

She turned away, desperate to regain her concentration. “I think you’re a rarity—an honorable man—so I’m asking you for the truth.”

“You’ll have it. I assure you I don’t lie.”

Facing him, she nodded, choosing to believe him. “What I want to know is
why
you added to your vow. You’re already bound to Caros to protect me until my assassins are captured. If you want your freedom as much as I’ve been led to believe, why promise to stay until
I
release you?”

“Simple, my lady. You need me.”

She frowned. He was wrong. She’d spent too many years proving her independence in a world filled with predators bent on ripping her apart. “I don’t
need
anyone.”

He shrugged. “I disagree.”

“Don’t be condescending, Quintus. If you had an
inkling
of what I’ve survived, you’d realize there’s nothing I can’t handle myself.”

His dark eyebrow arched. “Like you handle being alone in the dark?”

Already embarrassed that he knew about her debility, she felt ambushed. “It’s not the dark I fear, you wretched man! It’s…”

She bit her lower lip. He stepped closer. “It’s what, my lady? What do you fear?”

Infuriated by the pity in his eyes, she glanced away.

“You can tell me,” he said, his deep voice soft and gentle.

“Why?” Her gaze darted back to his. “So you can use my vulnerability against me?”

“How would I use the knowledge against you? I’d never seek to harm you.”

“You think your insults in the hospital brought me no pain?” she scoffed. “I assure you being called a razor-tongued she-cat hurt my feelings.”

He jerked as though she’d slapped him. Dark color stained his high cheekbones. “Adiona, I—”

A knock sounded on the door frame. They both turned to find Rufus standing in the open portal. Eyes averted, the young gladiator tugged at his right ear. It was easy to see he’d drawn the short straw when the decision was made to interrupt them. “I beg your pardon. Falco sent me to ask how much longer you think you’ll be. He made porridge. It’s growing cold.”

“We won’t be much longer,” Quintus said tersely. “The rest of you eat and prepare for the day’s travel. The lady and I will have something once we’ve started on the road.”

Adiona watched Rufus disappear, mortified to realize she’d forgotten the other guards were right outside.
Rufus’s awkward behavior made it plain they’d overheard every word between her and Quintus.

She crossed to the table and rummaged through her satchel, humiliated to realize her private fears were exposed to men who were virtual strangers.

Quintus stood across the table from her, his hands fisted by his sides. “I want to apologize for what I said in the hospital—”

“Don’t bother.” She pasted on a disinterested smile and forced herself to look at him while inside she was bleeding. “Your opinion of me is no worse than a hundred other men’s. I admit I found your honesty a bit harsh at the time, but I’ve since recovered. In truth, most people compliment me to my face, then weave lies behind my back. In a way it was almost refreshing to learn your true thoughts straight from your own lips.”

He raked his fingers through his thick black hair. Sensing a war raged inside him, she longed to soothe the strands back into place and give him peace. But the table between them might as well have been a brick wall she had no idea how to breach.

His intense green eyes studied her face until she wished to flee. What was he looking for…or worse, what did he see
in
her when he examined her that closely? Using a dismissive tactic she’d learned long ago, she pulled one of the long wool garments from her satchel and injected ice into her voice. “Go along, Quintus. As you know, a murderer may be on my trail. I’d hate to give him the chance to catch me just because you’d rather stand there gaping.”

U
nused to being dismissed like the slave he’d become, Quintus burned with the need to smash something. Always quick to anger, he’d become more temperate since believing in the Way, but without Divine assistance, Adiona’s mercurial behavior was bound to ruin the progress he’d made.

He passed Onesimus in the hall. With a curt order for the younger guard to see Adiona safely to the coach, he left the inn to find Falco and his other two men.

Outside, it was no longer first light, but still early. A heavy gray sky promised rain. Cook fires dotted the wheel-rutted field between the inn’s small front garden and the Ostian road. The usual morning aromas of bread and fish mingled with the stench of oxen and horses as travelers from all walks of life readied themselves for their day’s journey.

Searching for anyone who looked dangerous or out of place, Quintus dragged in deep breaths of cold air, berating himself. From the moment he’d entered Adiona’s chamber, he’d been at a sore disadvantage. He usually had more time to steel himself for the ravaging effect she played on his senses. But soft, warm and fresh from
her slumber, she was a vision, a devastating temptress even a eunuch couldn’t ignore.

And he was no eunuch. He was a healthy man who’d spent the past five months denying he craved the impetuous beauty the same as food and air.

He prayed for more strength. He didn’t want to sin in deed or in his thoughts, but Adiona was as much a test to his self-control as she was to his patience.

Discovering Falco had set up a makeshift camp by positioning the coach under a protective copse of olive trees, he set out across the muddy field.

Adiona’s tormented visage flashed across his mind’s eye. He groaned inwardly. He had much to learn about the widow, but he hoped he was beginning to understand her, if only a little. The squabble in her room had been enlightening, shedding a light on the source of her terror as well as her past.

He suspected she’d revealed more of her inner self than she intended. Her reminder of his insults in the hospital was a measure of just how much he’d hurt her. He regretted his harsh assessment and the pain his careless words had caused. She claimed not to want an apology, but somehow he’d convince her he was sorry to the depths of his marrow.

Seeing the way she retreated behind a wall of ice when she felt threatened, he no longer believed she was a shallow vixen, but a tender woman of deep, tormented depths.

But who had hurt her? A husband? A lover? Whoever the mongrel was deserved to be whipped.

He spotted Falco sitting on a campstool near the back wheel of the coach. A few paces away, a black iron pot hung from a tripod over a stone circle of dying embers.

As Quintus approached, the titan jumped to his feet
and offered a greeting. “Is all well? Before he and Rufus left to fetch bread, Otho said you and the lady were sparring.”

“Everything is fine,” Quintus said more sharply than he intended. He went to the wagon and began to assess its safety.

Falco stood and crossed to the fire. “It looks like we’re in for a downpour today.”

Quintus studied the stormy gray sky that matched his mood to perfection. “Excellent,” he said drily. “All we need is rain to slow us down.”

“You know,” Falco said, not bothering to hide his amusement. “I warned you when you came to me about this mission that woman wasn’t going to be easy. Truth to tell, I wasn’t surprised to learn someone wants to kill the shrew.”

“Why?” As always, the need to defend Adiona rose to the fore. “I’ll grant you she’s not meek or pliant, but from what I know of her, she’s far from evil.”

“She’s worse.” Falco stirred the pot. “She’s the kind of woman who worms her way into a man’s soul, then eats away at him little by little until there’s nothing left except a hollow core.”

Quintus opened the
raeda’
s back door and frowned. “So you think her assassin might be a rejected admirer?”

The snaggle-toothed gladiator scrubbed his bald head. “It’s a possibility I’d consider. I’ve seen Her Highness parade around the
ludus
for years. She never once acknowledged the broken-hearted fools she left in her wake.”

Quintus checked the seals on the water casks as he considered Falco’s theory. “The widow’s not to blame for any man’s reaction to her.”

“Perhaps not, but her face and form are a lure few men can or want to resist.”

Suffering from his own bout of attraction to Adiona, Quintus rubbed the bunched muscles at the base of his neck.

“Given what she did to her husband,” Falco continued, “the Fates might be amused to see that haughty wench brought down by a man she considered beneath her.”

Quintus resisted asking about Adiona’s husband, just as he refused to acknowledge the pinch of jealousy he experienced when he thought of her belonging to someone else.

“Word is she poisoned the poor fool she married—a good and honorable man,” Falco said without prompting. “Then she bribed his lawyers to help her lay claim to his fortune.”

“Enough of your gossip, Falco. I don’t believe Adiona is capable of murder.”

“I think she is,” Falco disagreed mulishly. He took the iron pot from its hook and used a large wooden spoon to scoop the ruined porridge into the embers. “From all accounts, she has a heart made of brass. Even insults the master on occasion. I don’t know why he puts up with it.”

“From what I can tell, she and Caros are good friends.”

“Yes,
very
good friends if what the men say is true.”

“Falco, do you hear yourself? How can you say Adiona hates men on one hand, then paint her as a soon-to-be adulteress with the other?”

“Adiona?” Falco tipped his head to one side, his eyes narrowing. “Since when are you on a first-name basis with the woman?”

“I’m not.” Quintus waved away the slip. “Caros is happily married and—”

“That doesn’t mean she’s given up on having him. For all we know she may have planned that attack in the street to regain his notice and his sympathy.”

“Don’t be insane.” Quintus yanked on the rope tightening the wagon’s canvas roof into place. He’d sought to choose intelligent as well as able-bodied men to guard Adiona. Falco was able enough, but to suspect the woman of planning her own assault was madness. He’d seen her directly after the attack. Her terror had been too real to be a hoax.

Even so, he couldn’t dismiss the idea that Adiona wanted Caros for herself. He’d heard similar rumors among his own troupe since the first week of his arrival at the
ludus.
Her flirtation with Quintus had abruptly ended once Caros left for Umbria. If it wasn’t the
lanista
she sought, why stop visiting the school? Alexius and the other trainers knew her well. No one cared to deny her entrance if she chose to attend the practice sessions.

He looked up from checking one of the back wheels to find Adiona and Onesimus crossing the open field. His pulse quickened. Even dressed in a slave’s garb of gray wool, her head covered with a cloak she’d formed into a cowl, she embodied the grace and bearing of a queen…or a siren.

He forced himself to look away just to prove he possessed the ability, but her presence was a magnet stronger than his will.

His gaze slid back to find she’d stopped several paces from the coach. A gust of wind pushed back the cowl to reveal her flawless features and the yellowed bruise on her smooth cheek. The scrapes were healing and her
soft black hair was held back from her face with wooden combs.

Eager to get her out of the open, he wiped the mud from his hands with a rag, tossed it into a wooden bucket and started forward.

Her sudden deathlike stillness warned him of impending trouble. Her eyes were riveted to the
raeda’
s open back door as if it were a trap waiting to be a sprung or a snake about to strike. She seemed swept up in another place and time, a living statue with a strand of hair blowing like a glossy banner in the wind.

Quintus’s long strides swallowed the distance to her side. “My lady, what is it?”

“I…I can’t get in the coach.”

He took her icy hand in his. “You’re trembling.”

She tried to pull away, but he held firm. Glancing over his shoulder, he located the source of alarm. The
raeda
was an ordinary vehicle as far as he could tell, a bit tattered in places, but not a monstrosity. “Why does the coach distress you? Whatever it is, tell me. I’ll fix it for you.”

“It’s so small, so
confined,
” she rasped. Her lovely face was pale, her full lips pinched into a colorless line. She tugged the cowl back into place, hiding. “The torture. I remember…I remember it all too well.”

Torture?
His chest tightened with compassion as the mist clouding the situation began to clear. He should have known no simple fear of the dark had the power to intimidate a spirited woman like his lioness.

He led her to one of the olive trees, snapping up a campstool on the way. Once she was settled, he ordered his men to turn their backs and keep watch over their small makeshift camp.

Certain the men were close enough to provide
protection but out of earshot, he knelt before Adiona, one bare knee sinking into the layer of cool, damp leaves by her feet.

Breathing in the scent of cinnamon she favored, he took her hand, expecting her to flinch away. She held steady, her fingers bloodless from the tightness of her grip.

In that moment, the last sparks of anger he’d brought with him from her room died away, smothered by his need to soothe her. “My lady, you know you have to ride in the coach. There’s no help for it.”

“I
can’t.
” Her whole body quivered like the tree’s slender branches overhead.

“It’s not my intent to be cruel, but you must be aware you’ll be safer out of sight. Not one of us will harm you, but out in the open you’re an easy target if your enemy chooses to make a move.”

“I’d rather be dead than locked away again.” Her throat worked convulsively. “If I ride all the way to Ostia in that prison, I may keep my life, but I will
lose
my mind.”

Convinced this was no display of temper or manipulative fit of feminine dramatics, Quintus weighed their options. Her previous reactions to being confined tipped the scale. “I’ll take you back to Rome.”

“Rome?” She sprang to her feet. “No! Octavia
needs
me.”

He stood, calmly brushing sprigs of debris from his knee. “If you won’t take shelter in the coach, then you’ll have to ride with me on the driver’s seat. Rome is two hours away. Ostia is ten. If you refuse to be hidden, you’re going to be exposed for the shortest possible time.”

Her brows puckered with the arguments forming in her head. She began to pace. With each hectic step, the
long wool tunic whipped around her shapely ankles and the straps of her plain leather sandals.

“Adiona, I won’t debate this with you. I promised Caros—and you—I’d see you safely to Neopolis. If you won’t let me do what I know to protect you, I’ll return you to Caros and
he
can try to keep you out of danger.”

“No. I won’t be dictated to by a slave.” She lifted her chin. “Neither does Caros make my choices for me. No man does.”

“Perhaps one should if this is the kind of rash decision you make on your own.”

Her shoulders straightened. “I’m not rash. I’m determined.”

“You’re as stubborn as a goat.”

“You would know. After all, like recognizes like.”

An involuntary smile tugged at his lips, but he promptly squelched it. The situation was too serious to find humor in any of it. “Woman, you are in danger. You must see reason.”

“I’m not unreasonable. If you had ever experienced the death of a loved one—”

“Say no more. You know
nothing
about me.” The death of his son was a bottomless well of grief in his chest, an open sore that refused to heal. “I’m acquainted with death as well as the next man.”

“Then how can you deny my plea?”

“I’m willing to shoulder your anger, but I won’t have your blood on my hands.”

“You’ll either do as I tell you or you can return to Rome on your own.” She made a wide, sweeping gesture. “You chose these other guards. They can see me safely to my heir.”

“You know I won’t leave you here.”

She shrugged. “It’s your choice.”

“I made my choice before we left Rome.”

“Yes, and since you want your freedom
so
badly, I suggest you see me as far as Ostia. If it’s any consolation, I won’t burden you much longer. I already planned to send you back to Caros before my ship sailed.”

Incredulous, he gripped her shoulders, barely suppressing the need to shake some sense into her. Fury fueled by a pain he didn’t understand wrestled with his disbelief for supremacy inside him. He opened his mouth, ready to lay down the law, to inform her that
she
was in
his
care, not the other way around. But her horrified expression sent a wave of shame crashing over him. After years of learning to control his temper, he’d acted like a baited badger most of the morning.

“Release me.” She slapped his hands away, her voice thick with equal measures of indignation and panic.

He let go of her instantly, dazed by his aggressive reaction when he could neither comprehend nor explain it.

Her color high, Adiona backed away until she bumped into the campstool he’d placed beside the tree trunk. He watched, fascinated, as she struggled to replace her fear with her favored mask of frigid disdain.

“Don’t hide away from me,” he said, silently promising to earn her trust. “I don’t want you to be afraid.”

Indecision notched her brows. Dark clouds rolled across the early-morning sky. “I’m always afraid,” she admitted so softly he thought he’d misheard.

Her honesty surprised him, considering his behavior. “But you weren’t afraid of me until now, were you?”

Her silent affirmation cut him to his core.

“Adiona, you must believe me,” he said, his voice ragged with repentance. “I will
never
harm you no matter what happens between us.”