Love's Blazing Ecstasy (38 page)

He had so many questions to ask her. How had she escaped the carnage? Why had Brenna said she had been killed by Severus? What was she doing here? Yet he could not seem to begin to form coherent thoughts or think of the right words.  All he could do was to feel happiness engulf him like a tide.

The sight and smell and touch of her was intoxicating. His eyes feasted on her beauty. “I much preferred your hair flying about your shoulders,” he whispered, reaching out for her and pulling out the pins. She did not cringe from his hands, merely stood like a woman carved in stone. In an instant he had removed the false curls. Her own blond hair cascaded like a silken waterfall across her shoulders, and he remembered the first time he had seen her—his goddess.

Wynne could read the desire in his eyes. “No!” she gasped evading his arms, her voice full of apprehension. It was just as she had feared.  She was reacting to him with a desire that was as natural as breathing, a yearning that was beyond her control—fool that she was.

Valerian drew back in alarm, not foreseeing this reaction. “Wynne, what is it?”

She shuddered.  “I can’t abide your touch,” she answered.

Her words were like a sword piercing through him.  “What?” he exclaimed, all his dreams shattered.

She turned her back to him, no longer able to meet his eyes without crying
. “Please leave me alone,” she whispered, reaching up to brush the moisture from her eyes.

“Oh, Wynne. You
do
think I betrayed you, don’t you?” with shaking voice he told her what had happened, how Severus had tricked him, how he had wanted peace with her people, had sought to avoid bloodshed. He told her how he had searched for her that fateful day, only to be captured by Severus and brought back a prisoner.

“I did not want to see your people slaughtered. You must believe that, Wynne,” he pleaded. “I had no idea that Severus planned an attack on the village.”

She wished that she could believe him, yet she had been tricked once before and it had cost her dearly. “You are a liar!” she spat at him. “Like all Romans. I hate you and all your kind.”

“Oh, Wynne…Wynne…” he groaned. “Do you really hate me so much?” He gently ran his fingers up and down her arm, meaning for his touch to be healing, but his fingers had a will of their own and somehow reached out to caress her soft breast.

Against her will her body responded to his touch. A warm tingling swept over her, a fierce stirring of desire at his nearness. In spite of all that had happened, she still desired him. But she couldn’t let him make love to her!  No, she must not.  In her panic she reached out and slapped his face.

“You are no better than Severus,” she said scornfully. “All you know is forcing your will upon a woman. Lust, not love, guides your hand!”

“Severus. What has he to do with you and me?” he asked in confusion. His hands were clenched helplessly at his side—powerless.  Then like the dawning of the day, he suddenly remembered why she was here. It as no coincidence, and not the will of the gods to reunite him with his much-loved Celtic lover. Wynne—his lover, his life, his own beloved, was the concubine of the tribune. More than her angry words, the truth of this knowledge nearly destroyed him.

“You…you are Severus’ concubine,” he said tonelessly, hoping against hope that she would deny it.

“Yes,” she answered, backing away farther from him, her back against the wall.

His eyes grew hard with jealousy and he sought to hurt her just as she had hurt him; to lash out at her, to wound her as he had been sorely wounded.

“I see. Then I won’t try to make love to you again, Wynne, ever again.” He could see her shiver and longed to comfort her, gather her into his arms, but the scorn in her eyes angered him even further.

“Then I am free to return to my room?” she breathed, her words striking him like a physical blow.

Wanting to hurt her too he said, “Yes. I have no desire for Severus’ leavings. You may go back to your room to dream about your aged lover!”

She started toward him then, wanting to tell him that Severus had never possessed her body, but before she had time to say anything, he hurled a further insult at her.

“No doubt many men have touched you since last you gave your body to me. I can see it in your eyes.”

His words stung her as they were meant to. It was as she thought: he would think her sullied by all those Roman hands. She tried to speak, to tell him of how she had hated being touched, how Edan had saved her, but all that would come forth from her mouth was a sob.

Valerian’s anger, disappointment and sorrow was like a sore that started to fester with his bitter words.  He remembered rumors he had heard about Severus’s concubine.  “How many Romans have you lain with since we parted? Ten or twenty? Have you earned your precious trinkets with your body?” He looked at the golden necklace as if it were a serpent wound around her neck.

“I have been enslaved. How can you say such things?” she wept, covering her face to shield it from his gaze. Did he not know that she had nearly been raped? Had he witnessed her shame that day without even lifting one finger to help her? How could he be so cruel now, to fling such harsh words in her face?

Jealousy had made Valerian deaf to her words as he reached out to take her arm. “Answer me!”

His brutal grasp brought back all the old fear Wynne had tried so hard to bury. Remembering the pain she had suffered, the ugliness of that day, she turned pale. All thoughts of revenge were gone now. She only sought to flee from the accusing look in his eyes.

“So now you are Severus’ concubine, quite an honor,” he said sarcastically, goaded on by her rejection of him and his own heartbreak at the thought of her bedding another man. “You talk like a Roman and now you look like a Roman whore with your painted face.”

She had wanted to taunt him by wearing lipstick and eye kohl, but now she was the one being taunted and she felt shamed.  “No!”  She put her hands over her ears.

Valerian raised his voice, forcing her to hear. “You even think like a Roman—just what you claim to hate. Oh, that you were still the girl that I remembered.”

Wynne could stand the scorn no longer. Turning, she fled the room, eyes brimming with tears. In his fury Valerian did not even try to follow her.

“You are right,” he said angrily. “The woman I once knew is dead.”

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Valerian awoke the next morning
sick with remorse for how he had behaved toward Wynne. It had been his jealousy which had spoken, that and his pride. “Is it any wonder she hates Romans, with all that has happened to her since seeing her people killed before her eyes,” he admonished himself.  He had to admit, though, that as deeply as his words must have wounded her, so had her refusal to believe him innocent of the atrocities committed that day.

I must give her time, time to learn to trust me again
, he thought. He loved Wynne, loved her strength of character, her pride, and her bravery. Damn his temper. He felt like a beast for acting as he had toward her just because she no longer loved him. But he would win her love again, he had to.

That Severus had been her lover was a torture to his heart. The thought of her perfectly formed body beneath that loathsome old man poisoned his thoughts and kept him from seeking her out. He needed time to sort things out in his mind and in his heart until he could wipe the images of Wynne and Severus in the throes of lovemaking out of his brain.

Wynne, too, was brokenhearted. She would never forget the disgust in his eyes when he thought her Severus’ lover. Why hadn’t she told him the truth? How many times had she been punished for refusing to caress Severus and give in to the vile things he asked of her? Had she somehow wanted to get revenge by wounding Valerian’s pride? Yes, she had wanted to hurt him and she had, but at the price of her own heartache.

Since their bitter words Wynne had kept to her room. It was not like her to be such a coward, and she knew she could not hide for the rest of her life in her sleeping chamber hidden among the pillows. She had to face Valerian sometime and that sometime might as well be today. Besides, it was her duty to see to the  running of the household.

Dressing in a pale green stola, her hair flowing free, her face unpainted, Wynne left her sleeping chamber for the
triclinium
, or formal dining room. If she found Valerian alone, she would ask him to explain again what had happened that terrible night and would confront him with the evidence surrounding her father’s death. She would let him know that she had not been the concubine of Severus but that she also would not be his whore either. She would tell him how much she once loved him, how her heart had been broken by his betrayal. Also she would tell him that she wanted to make her peace with him. More he could not ask of her.

Wynne stopped at the door to the dining room as she heard the sound of two male voices.

“How did you fare with your new slave?” she heard the older Roman ask. “Is she as passionate in bed as her actions suggest?”

“I don’t know…I…I haven’t bedded her yet,” came Valerian’s reply. An embarrassed silence followed.

“Haven’t made love to her yet? By Juno, were it me, I would have been between her legs the first night I was here, with or without her consent!” Again the voice of the general. “What ails you? Is it because you pine for the love of your betrothed in Rome? She is far away. You will soon tire of your empty bed.”

Wynne’s heart nearly stopped. Betrothed? So Severus had not lied to her about Valerian’s Roman lover. More deceit, more betrayal. How could she have hoped it might be otherwise?

Valerian spoke so softly that Wynne could not hear his answer, no matter how hard she tried. Was he telling the general how much he loved the Roman girl, how soft her skin was, how he loved to kiss and caress her ?

Lies. He told me he loved me and that he tried to find me, but he lied to me about that, as he has lied to me about everything else. She had been a fool to want to believe in love. Shedding tears of outrage and shame, she fled to the courtyard, where she paced until she was too exhausted to do anything but stand looking up at the sky wishing that she could fly like a dove away from here to freedom.

Sitting before the warm fire talking with Cassius, eating the last of their honey cake, and sipping the watered-down wine, Valerian continued his conversation. He needed the advice of a friend. He told him the story of his first meeting with the Celtic girl, of their love, of the death of her people, how he had been taken captive by Severus and had thought her dead. He was not aware that the woman he was talking about was crying her heart out right outside the walls of that very room.

“If you love her, you should forget about Severus,” Cassius advised. “I have little doubt that she was forced to bed him. Think you that she would desire that skinny old man? Why, I would be surprised if she got much joy out of their coupling.”

Valerian clutched his cup of wine tightly, enraged with himself. Of course Cassius was right. Wynne had most likely  been forced to share the tribune’s bed—but had there been any others? “I cannot help but wonder if she has bedded anyone else,” he said with a frown.

“And are you completely pure yourself, Valerian?” Cassius laughed. “Besides, the woman is a slave who cannot command her actions, not your wedded wife. If you are man enough and treat her right, to rule her with a firm hand, she will want no one else. Then when you tire of her you can sell her to someone else. In the meantime, forget about the past. It will only serve to torture you.”

“I don’t want her to be my slave. I want to free her, to marry her,” Valerian answered. Cassius was right about the past: already it had put a wedge between them.

“Free her and ruin a good thing?” Cassius roared his laughter. “Then she will put a ring in
your
nose, my dear friend. And as to marriage, I doubt that your father would approve such a thing. What value would there be in such a match? No. Bed her, but don’t wed her.”

“She has suffered enough shame already. She deserves freedom. She was never meant to be a slave.” Valerian said, defending his desires. “And as to marriage, I care not what my father will say.”

Cassius put up his hand to motion silence. “You are young and foolish, Valerian, but think on this. If you free her now, with her hating you as she does, thinking you guilty of the death of her people, how long will she stay here with you? An hour? A day? A week? Think, my friend, on that if you will.” This said, he stood up and walked to the doorway, leaving a disturbed Valerian behind him.

Deep in thought. Valerian had to admit the truth of the general’s words. He would eventually free Wynne, for the gods knew how much he owed her—his very life, as a matter of fact—but for now he would keep her tied to him as his slave until he could make her love him again.

Chapter Sixty

Never had Valerian been so tortured in his entire life as he was now, having Wynne beneath the same roof with him, without having her love. Time and again he sought her out with the determination of setting things right between them. He wanted to tell her that he was sorry, to tell her that he would never love anyone as he loved her, and that it did not matter that she had been forced to bed Severus. He had to make her believe once and for all that he had not been responsible for the slaughter of her people. But each time he approached her and had the chance to be alone with her to tell her all these things, she avoided him as a young deer avoids the archer, and with the same frightened look in her eyes.