The Protector (16 page)

I
t would have taken less strength to move a mountain, but somehow Quintus managed to break the kiss and set Adiona away from him. His breathing ragged, he fought the need to drag her back into his arms.

Adiona’s eyes fluttered open. In a blink, her wistful gaze changed to one of confusion. “Did I do something wrong?”

Desperate for greater distance between him and temptation, he sidestepped her, careful not to fall back into the pool, although a plunge in the cold water might be good for him.

“No,” he choked. “You did nothing wrong. I did.”

“What do you mean?”

He raked his fingers through his hair. Her scent of cinnamon and sea air teased his senses. Every instinct he possessed clamored with a riotous need to claim her as his own. “I shouldn’t have touched you.”

“
I
kissed you,” she said. “You’ve rejected me often enough. I should have saved us both this uncomfortable situation and just accepted you don’t want me.”

His gaze shot to her face. What game was she playing
at?
Want
was a ridiculous, tepid feeling when compared to how much he
craved
her.

“I understand.” She took a step backward. “I really do.”

Was she insane?

“I know it’s not your fault,” she whispered.

His eyes narrowed as he considered her. By now he understood her well enough to sense when there was a deeper meaning behind her words. “What isn’t my fault?”

She locked her arms around her waist defensively. She looked away, her cheeks darkening with color. “You don’t find me appealing.”

“Appealing?”
he choked on a humorless laugh. He closed his eyes, unable to get himself under control when the sight of her called to him like a mirage after months of exile in a desert. “I find you
more
than appealing, Adiona. You are without a doubt the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. How can you possibly think otherwise?”

She bit her lower lip. Indecision clouded her expression. Her eyes seemed to glisten in the shifting green light of the grotto. “You pushed me away. Just as my husband did.”

“Your husband was an old man. Was he blind, too? I can’t imagine any man with breath in his lungs not willing to give up his right arm to have you.”

She stared at him, her bewildered eyes wide and genuinely amazed. He thought he saw her tremble, but it might have been the filtered light rippling over her skin.

She crossed to the bench and sat down without her usual grace, pondering him as though he were on trial. “Then why…?”

“Because you’re not mine. Because I’m
not
your husband. I don’t have the right to claim you no matter how much I’d like to.”

“How does marriage enter into this? Everyone I know does whatever he likes, with whomever, whenever the mood strikes.”

He could imagine. The social circle she inhabited was notorious for its vice and she was notorious within that social circle. “That may be, but I’m a Christian.”

“And Christians don’t believe in passion?”

“Adiona,” he said, “If you were mine, you’d have
no
reason to doubt my ardor for you.”

Her eyes rounded and her lips formed a silent “Oh.”

“Then you do want me?”

He sighed. “Yes, I’d have to be dead not to, but I want to live by my God’s standards even more, no matter how difficult that may be.”

She ducked her head and studied her clenched hands in her lap. She cleared her throat. “You said whatever happened in this grotto, you won’t think ill of me because of it.”

“Of course, I won’t think badly of you.”

“You might. You don’t know the truth about me.”

“Whatever you may or may not have done, it’s in the past. I’m not proud of every action or decision I’ve made, either.”

Looking at him, she tilted her head, a wan smile curving her lips. “I don’t know how you do it, but you make me
want
to tell you things I’ve never told anyone.”

Quintus suspected it was the Spirit in him that drew her.

“I trust you like I’ve never trusted another person. If I tell you something, will you vow to take my secret to your grave?”

Keenly interested in learning every detail she was willing to share about herself, he nodded. “You have my word, Adiona. To the grave.”

She glanced away, seeming to accept his promise. “You asked me why my husband paid a fortune to wed me. Crassus was almost sixty and childless. He told my father I was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen and my youth assured him many sons. He disgusted me, but at twelve years old what was I to do but accept my fate and my father’s commands?”

Her profile was tense and pale. “On our wedding night, Crassus refused to consummate our vows. I was glad until…later.”

She released a shaky breath. “He called me a witch and a deceiver. He accused me of putting a spell on him. He claimed I’d beguiled him into marriage to steal his fortune, but the spell had ended when I didn’t…excite him in our marriage bed.”

Quintus worked at keeping his face emotionless, but rage brewed inside him. The old goat was broken. Rather than accept responsibility for his failure as a man he’d blamed an innocent child.

“He cursed me as a useless woman and said that I deserved to be punished like the dog I was for tricking him.”

A red haze clouded Quintus’s vision. The man deserved to be tortured. Slowly and by intensifying degrees. “The cage?”

She nodded, her throat working. “He left me there for days at a time, whenever the fancy took him. His slaves weren’t allowed to scar or touch me. You see, he didn’t want to have his ornament marred,” she said bitterly. “But he encouraged them in all other manner of cruelty against me.”

Quintus ached to take her in his arms, but he hesitated in case she stopped talking.

Her eyes slid closed and her chin quivered. She rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “They heckled me, spat on me, poked me with sticks. Rotten food was left out to draw rats. After that first night I learned not to scream because my fear made Crassus laugh…and laugh.”

She covered her ears with her palms, her face pinched with remembered agony. Unable to keep himself from comforting her, Quintus crossed the grotto’s sandy floor. Sitting down on the bench beside her, he drew her against his side and waited patiently while she decided whether to continue.

Countless moments passed before she spoke. “I tried to escape—once.”

His arm tightened around her narrow shoulders. He didn’t need her to elaborate. “When Crassus
finally
died, men swarmed to me like vultures all vying for the carcass of my husband’s fortune. Because Crassus had no children and hadn’t declared an heir, they assumed he’d leave his money to me. They tried to woo me into marriage with honeyed words and gifts like I was a simpleton unable to see through their designs. When the lawyers read Crassus’s will, I learned he left every
denari
to the son of one of his friends.

“In the end, I bribed the lawyers to rewrite the will with me as sole beneficiary. I learned then I needed to protect myself or I might end up another man’s whipping post. Frankly, I’d have rather drunk poison than allow one of those pigs to touch me.”

“I understand,” Quintus said over the pain lodged in his throat. The knowledge of her suffering tormented him. It was no wonder she hated men and refused to
remarry. She’d had no decent male examples. Instead of protecting her, her father had betrayed her into the hands of a madman. And the madman hadn’t only abused her body, he’d wounded her to the depths of her soul. Quintus didn’t doubt her beauty and wealth had made her the target of every fortune hunter from Rome to Dalmatia. No wonder she’d adopted the facade of an iron she-wolf, impervious to the hunters’ arrows. A flesh-and-blood woman could bleed.

“I’m proud of you, my lady.”

“
Proud
of me?” She pulled away and looked up at him, her slim body stiff with disbelief. “How can you be when my whole life is a sham?”

“Explain,” he said, leery of taking her thoughts for granted. She didn’t think like other women. Each time he imagined he understood her, she proved him wrong.

“I’m a fraud. Even Caros, my most trusted confidant, doesn’t know the whole truth about me. He knows I had a bad marriage, but no more. All of Rome believes I’m a wealthy widow when the truth is, I don’t qualify to wear the
stola
of a married woman and the money isn’t rightfully mine.”

He stood and gathered her hands in his, drawing her to her feet. “I’m proud of you because you’re strong. Another woman who suffered as you have may have turned into a dormouse, but you, you’re a lioness. You survived. After what I’ve lived through these past months, strength is something I appreciate. All the while, you stayed kind—”

“Kind? That’s not the description people usually use when discussing me.”

He grinned. “It’s true you do a fine job of hiding it. But your care for Octavia and her children prove your
sweetness and fidelity. As does your friendship with Caros. In fact, now that I think about it—”

“What?” she asked.

“I recall something Pelonia told me. A couple of months ago, before she and Caros wed, they were separated. As I remember it, he walked around like a man on the edge of dying.”

“Yes, he was rather pathetic,” she agreed.

He laughed. “Then you just
happened
to host a party for Pelonia’s newly wedded cousin, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” She fidgeted with her
stola.

Assured all the rumors had been false and that she and Caros had never been more than friends, his smile grew wider. “The party wasn’t for her cousin, was it? It was an excuse to draw Caros and Pelonia back together.”

Her mouth tightened. “
Someone
had to help them.” She rolled her eyes. “All that drama was better suited for the stage.”

He chuckled. “Once again you prove my point.” He brushed his fingertip across her soft cheek, loving her more with each crash of the waves outside the grotto. “As for the money, if having it bothers you, return it to its rightful owner.”

Her brow arched. “It doesn’t bother me
that
much. Even if it did, Crassus’s heir and his two remaining sons died in Herculaneum after Vesuvius erupted two years ago.”

“Then find people in need you can bless. Think of the orphans on Rome’s streets whose lives would be forever changed if they had a benefactress to provide them with basic necessities and education.”

Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “Yes,” she said. “I’d very much like to help children. Ease their suffering
if possible. Perhaps…perhaps you could ask your God to show us a way to bring that about.”

“I’ll be happy to ask Him, but I’m certain He’d love to hear from you, as well.”

A knock on Adiona’s bedroom door woke her from a sound sleep. The angle of the sun streaming through the open shutters signaled the time as midmorning. She usually rose at first light, a habit left over from her marriage because Crassus always slept late.

Another light knock. “Who is it?” she called, raising her arms above her head to stretch her tight muscles.

“Bernice, my lady. Shall I come back?”

“No, just a moment.” Adiona pushed off the warm silk bedcovers and pulled a
palla
around her shoulders before answering the door.

Bernice, a young woman no more than a handful of years older than Adiona, waited on the threshold with a basket of cloth in her arms. “Were you sleeping, my lady? I’m sorry. You’re always awake before the rest of us.”

“Yes, I slept overlong today.”

“I hope you’re not falling ill.”

“No, I feel fit. Quite good, actually.”

Pleased, Bernice smiled. She indicated the basket on her hip. “Master Quintus asked me to bring these to you. They’re tunics the females of his family left here over the years for guests to use. Some of them may be too short, but I told him there might be a few long enough for your height. Even if there aren’t, no one here will care if your ankles show.” She colored. “I mean, that is, if you don’t mind, my lady.”

Adiona grinned. “Thank you. You can put the basket on the table. I’ll look through them after I wash.”

Bernice did as she was told and went back to the door. “I made cinnamon rolls this morning. You seemed to enjoy them a few days ago when you first arrived. I thought you might like some more.”

“I did,” Adiona said, brushing her hand over the soft cotton lying on top of the basket. “I have a friend in Rome whose cook is famous for his cinnamon rolls. Truth to tell, yours are even better.”

Bernice blushed and beamed. “Thank you, my lady! The secret is the date paste I put in them. Most people just use the cinnamon and let the honey add all the sweetness, but the dates
and
honey, now that’s the trick.”

Adiona grinned, pleased that her compliment made the other woman happy.

“Shall I bring some up here for you?” Bernice asked. “Or do you want me to leave them on the breakfast table in the garden?”

“Where is Quin…your master?”

“He’s in his office.”

“Ah, then leave the rolls in the garden, I think. I’ll be down soon.”

Once Bernice left, Adiona searched through the basket of tunics. How thoughtful of Quintus to realize she’d like a change from the few garments she’d brought along with her. She chose one off the top, shook it out and raised the neckline to her throat to test the length. Too short. She repeated the process, noting that all the tunics were made of the softest cotton, silk or fine linen. Each was embroidered with masterful detail.

By the time she reached the bottom of the basket, she’d found three of the tunics were long enough, while a handful of others would do.

After she’d washed, she donned a white tunic with blue embroidery around the neck, wrists and hem. There
was little to do for her hair except brush it out and pin it back from her face with the wooden combs she’d brought with her from Rome.

Downstairs, she made her way to the villa’s central garden. Dense shrubbery and trees filled the open-air courtyard with a rainbow of exotic fruit: red pomegranates, orange tangerines, bright yellow lemons, green limes and purple figs. Tall date palms reached to the sky from the middle of the rectangular space, surrounding a mosaic-tiled fountain.