Bee Among the Clover (298 page)

M
ARCUS stared out of the window down into the gardens that had belonged to his mother. Most of the leaves had fallen from the trees since he’d been here, but there wasn’t much to see anyway. They’d only been kept up enough to keep them from running riot, since she’d returned to Rome so many years before.

He sighed and turned away from the window, going back to his desk, which was cluttered with papers. There was so much to see to before he sold the villa and took passage back home. It would be at least spring before he could manage it. His father’s sudden death had thrown everything into disarray, and the steward his mother had appointed had been ineffective.

The former slave picked up a report and tried to bend his mind to it, but as happened when he wasn’t consciously keeping the memories at bay, thoughts of Aron entered his mind. He missed him with a crushing desperation. He was constantly second-guessing himself. He was wrong. He had to have been. Aron wouldn’t have kept him a slave after he promised to free him, especially not after seeing what it had done to him and knowing how much he longed to be free. But try as he might, he couldn’t come up with one single reason why Aron would’ve waited. He’d had dozens of opportunities to free him, and he hadn’t.

Time after time, Marcus considered sending out a small search party to find Aron and deliver him a message, or to ask him to come to Londinium to talk. They could work things out. He knew Aron must be frantic with worry over him, as well as angry and heartsick. It made him writhe with guilt. But he didn’t know how to find him. He had no idea where Aron was heading, only that it wasn’t back home to his parents. Mayhap a clean break was better after all, or was that just the coward in him talking?

Marcus found himself drifting back to the window without conscious thought, running a hand through his shorn hair. It felt strange. He’d always considered the long locks another sign of his slavery. He’d hated it at first. His family didn’t grow their hair out, but Wulfgar had refused to allow him to cut it. It’d been one of the first things Marcus had done once he arrived here. Only now, he wasn’t sure he liked it. He kept picturing how disappointed Aron would be if he saw, and it reminded him of his lover running his fingers through it or playing with the ends.

He was a fool, torturing himself with thoughts of Aron, memories that wouldn’t fade. He told himself in time he’d forget and not miss Aron so much. He wouldn’t think of him and his smile or his touch, his laughter. Surely someday, it wouldn’t hurt so badly that it made it difficult to draw a breath. Somehow, though, he couldn’t quite convince himself.

Marcus worried about Aron too. Not knowing where he was, if he was safe, if he was happy and healthy. Aron had a temper, and Marcus knew his abandonment would’ve wounded Aron’s pride, which would in turn spark his temper. He prayed the former thrall wouldn’t do anything foolish, but he didn’t know for sure, and not knowing destroyed any possible chance of putting Aron in his past.

Marcus was adrift, and it angered him. He shouldn’t feel this way. He’d spent the last five years imagining the glory of being free, and now that he had his freedom, he still felt chained. Chained to the memories, to the pain, to the aching emptiness in his heart that, deep inside, he feared would never go away. Freedom wasn’t what he’d dreamed it would be.

And that brought Marcus back to thoughts of Aron again. He wondered if liberty with Aron by his side would’ve been the beautiful experience he’d fantasized about. He frowned and shook his head.

He had to stop this. It was getting him nowhere. Aron had lied to him. He hadn’t trusted Marcus to stay and had sought to keep him bound by slavery rather than be true to his word. He hadn’t believed in him when he said he’d never leave. If Aron had given him a choice, he would’ve stayed. And that, he thought, was what hurt the most.

Because it wasn’t love, not the love he’d thought they shared. And thinking that Aron hadn’t truly loved him as he’d claimed hurt worse than any other pain he’d ever experienced. He just wanted to go home to Rome where things were familiar, where he could heal and find a way to live, really live, without Aron. This island held to many painful and wonderful memories.

Marcus gave up on the idea of getting any more work done this morning. It was useless. He couldn’t get his mind away from the past. He left his room, taking his cloak with him. Mayhap if he went for a ride, the chilly early winter air would clear his mind. The groomsman knew his habits well and had his horse saddled in no time.

The former slave thundered out of the gate, heading for the hills behind the villa. He was tired of the askance looks he received from his retainers. The mantle of authority he wore as his father’s son did not fit him well, and he was always hesitant about giving orders. How different he was from the arrogant youth who’d sneaked out of there so many years before.

He pulled rein at the top of one of the hills, giving his horse a chance to recover, patting her neck absently. The truth was, he had never belonged at Wulfgar’s, and now he longer seemed to belong in his father’s world. In fact, the only time in the last few years he’d ever had that blessed secure feeling was when he was in Aron’s arms. And he was never going to have that again.

Mayhap they were both fools.
“The question is, did you ever ask, Marcus?”
The feminine voice coming out of nowhere startled Marcus, and he

jerked in the saddle, staring at the woman a few paces away. He would have sworn he was alone and couldn’t understand how he’d missed her, with her vivid red hair and aura of power.

He was about to apologize, though for what he wasn’t certain, when realization struck him. She had spoken his name, and though something about her tickled his memory, he knew he’d never seen her before. “Do I know you?” he asked.

The woman took several steps closer. “We met once, but you, I’m afraid, were in no condition to remember.” The smile she gave him was mischievous, and when Marcus looked in her eyes, he got the impression of her being far older than her years. She spoke again. “I do, however, know someone who claims to be rather close to you. The gods know, he’s been brooding and become rather useless to me.”

Marcus frowned, sliding down off his horse, and gave her a wary look. “I don’t understand. You speak in riddles.”
The woman laughed. “Of course I do. But I’m here to clear up a riddle, not create new ones. Your Aron belongs to me, Marcus. Now do you see how I know you?”
Marcus’s heart stopped, and then joy raced through him. She knew where Aron was; she could take him to him. He couldn’t be far. And then her other words pierced through the euphoria.
“What do you mean, he belongs to you?” His heart sank as he realized Aron must’ve moved on without him. She was a beautiful woman and probably offered a lot fewer complications than he did. He had no one to blame but himself, though it did nothing to stop his bitter surge of jealousy.
The woman shook her head, exasperation written clear on her face. “How can two clearly intelligent men continue to make such asinine assumptions? I don’t own your Aron’s heart. That is your sole province, but in every other respect, he’s my slave. He gave his solemn oath to serve me for however long I require.”
Recognition tickled the back of Marcus’s mind again, but he pushed it aside. “No. Aron would never agree.” He started to turn away, preparing to swing on his horse. This woman was mad and had been sent to torment him.
“Not even to save your life?”
The soft question froze Marcus in his tracks. He looked over his shoulder at her, his face draining of color. Aron would to save him, he had no doubt. Dimly, he remembered a cessation of pain and fever that had once racked his body, a miracle that had left him whole, without even a scar to mar his skin. There had been a strange woman, one who’d almost seemed inhuman at first. “Who are you?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
The woman’s smile was whimsical, and she stepped closer. “I’m Cate.” Marcus remembered Aron mentioning her, how she’d helped him. It made no sense, but he read the absolute truth in her eyes. “Aron asked me to save you, and the price I demanded of him in return was his life. He paid it willingly.”
Marcus laid a hand on his saddle horn, trying to steady his dizziness. Aron had enslaved himself? When even being a thrall had chafed him so? Marcus couldn’t deny what she was saying; it resonated within him. Despite how much Aron hated submitting to someone else’s authority, he was the kind of man to make such a sacrifice.
“Are you a witch?” How else could she have healed him as she had? He hadn’t let himself think about it before, but he knew he’d been dying. The fever and infection should have killed him, but he’d awoken healthy and with the scar on his thigh gone.
Cate rolled her eyes. “You’re as bad as Aron. No, I’m not a witch. I’m something else. It matters not, and if you want to be with your Aron again, you’ll stop asking questions and start listening to the answers instead.”
Marcus swallowed hard, shaking his head. “Even if it were possible to reunite with Aron, he won’t forgive me for running. And I cannot live as his slave, not to him.” His anger and confusion made him lash out, at Aron, at her. “Damn him, why would he agree? He was free! And how can you ask such a thing of him? He spoke of you as a friend.”
Cate snorted. “You were free, too, and yet you continue to punish yourself and him.”
Marcus glared at her. “You know nothing. I was never free. He promised he would and never held true to his word!” Even as he said it, the words tasted wrong in his mouth. The idea of Aron breaking a vow was unnatural. However, he’d broken his oath to Wulfgar…. Marcus shouted in frustration, in disgust. His thoughts would not cease running in circles, first condemning Aron, then defending him. He was losing his mind. This strange woman’s sudden appearance proved it.
Cate crossed her arms over her chest and gave Marcus an arch look, as if she was reading his mind. “No, I believe he said you’d be free when the two of you left Wulfgar’s. You’ve left Wulfgar’s, haven’t you?”
Marcus stared at her in incomprehension. Cate sighed. “Aron never said the words, Marcus, because he didn’t know he needed to. In his mind, you both were free the instant you left Wulfgar’s hall, just as he’d promised you would be.”
Marcus continued to stare, shaking his head. No. It couldn’t be that simple. If it were, then, sweet Jesu, he’d made the worst mistake in his life. It meant he’d walked away from Aron, run from him for no reason. He’d hurt Aron, forced him to go alone into a captivity he’d taken to save his life.
Marcus ran an agitated hand through his shorn hair, trying to make sense of his tangled emotions and thoughts. His enslavement to Aron had meant so little to the former thrall, beyond a chance to keep him safe. Aron had tried to tell him so on a number of occasions, but since it’d loomed so large in Marcus’s own mind, he couldn’t hear what Aron was saying, only focus on his actions. A part of him wanted to be furious at Aron’s cavalier dismissal of a condition of Marcus’s life that had loomed over him for five years, but mostly he wanted to find Aron and beg his forgiveness for striking out at him when there’d been no cause to do so. Even worse, he’d given Aron no chance to defend himself, and he was the one who was supposed to love him above all else.
Why hadn’t Aron told him of this bargain he’d made? It made no sense. Did Aron not think he would understand the sacrifice he’d made? No, he knew how Marcus would be distraught that Aron had made it on his behalf. His anger blazed hot as he glared down at Cate. “What manner of a woman demands such a price in return for her aid?” It wasn’t right. “Free him. Aron doesn’t deserve this.” His voice was harsh with the fury he could barely contain.
“His freedom or lack thereof is entirely in your hands, Marcus Atellus,” she said.
Marcus’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, and a bolt of primal fear stabbed his gut. He drew his lip into his mouth. Sweet Jesu, what if she asked for his freedom in return? His emotions warred, but love of Aron won out over the terror. He turned away, squaring his jaw, pushing aside his fear of her answer. “How so?”
“Go to the marketplace at noon today and you’ll see your Aron again.”
Marcus drew in a breath to demand more answers and spun around. Cate was gone. He blinked and looked around, trying to find a sign of her, but it was as if she never existed. For a moment, he doubted his sanity. He looked up at the sky and saw it was not long until noon. He scrambled back onto his horse, kneeing it into a gallop toward the villa. If there was a chance he might be able to see Aron again, he had to take it.