The Protector

  The door swung open instantly. “My lady?” Otho’s surprised voice filtered into the hall. “What is it?”

  “Emperor Quintus commands your attention.”

  Quintus’s lips twitched, but the covers rustled again, banishing all amusement.

  Otho stepped up beside him. “What’s going on?”

  “Where is the lady?” Quintus asked without taking his eyes off the bed.

  The shadows shifted on the walls as Otho leaned back to see around the door frame and locate her whereabouts. “She’s almost to David and Seth’s door.”

  “Good.” Quintus pulled the gladius from the sheath on his belt and stepped deeper into the room. Otho followed, picking up a candle on the way to the bed. The ridge beneath the covers rippled. “What is it?” Otho asked.

  “I believe it’s one of the snakes our host collects.” Quintus raised his gladius and sank the blade through the pelt and into the creature’s thick flesh. The serpent thrashed and hissed. Quintus slashed again, hitting his mark a second time. Blood oozed into the covering. Finally, the reptile stopped twitching.

  “The balcony doors are closed,” Otho pointed out. “The snake couldn’t have found its way in here by accident.”

  A deadly calm came over Quintus. “No, I highly doubt it was an accident.”

  “Another assassination attempt, then,” Otho surmised. “Do you think the serpent’s poisonous?”

  “Drusus prizes no other kind according to widow Leonia.” He pulled the short sword free of the carcass and wiped the blade clean on the pillow.

  “Are you going to tell her about this?”

  “I’d rather not, but I must. She needs to know exactly what her heir is capable of.”

  Otho eased back the pelt and lifted the candle.

  Rage spread through Quintus like venom. Snakes weren’t his specialty, but as a boy he’d learned the most dangerous types. Judging by the ‘horn’ on the viper’s snout and the wavy pattern of light and dark scales, the adder was one of the most lethal in all of Italy.

  “I’m going to get Drusus,” Quintus said through clenched teeth.

  Otho stopped him. “I think Rufus and I need to find him. We want him to explain how this happened. In the mood you’re in, he might not live long enough to make it up here.”

  Quintus agreed with a curt nod. Otho left. His breathing heavy, Quintus focused on the bloodied adder twisted across the sleeping couch. Its milky white belly glowed in the dim light. As long and thick as Quintus’s arm, the snake wasn’t yet full-grown, but that didn’t make it any less deadly. What if Adiona had returned to her room on her own and pulled back the cover? What if she’d climbed into bed without investigating beforehand? One strike from the serpent and he would have lost her.

  Twin knives of panic and pain sliced through him. His stomach swirled sickly. The prospect of losing Adiona filled him with a white-hot terror that threatened his reason.

  He focused on the serpent, but Drusus’s face loomed in his mind’s eye. A bonfire of fury ignited inside him. He’d never yearned to kill anyone until that moment. Quintus yanked the pelts over the snake. Now fully convinced Drusus was behind a plot to harm Adiona, he closed his eyes and prayed for restraint. Without the Lord’s intervention Drusus’s hours were numbered.

  Drusus’s protests rang from the hallway long before Otho and Rufus shoved the squirming drunk across the threshold. Glassy inebriated eyes struggled to focus on Quintus. “What’s the meaning of this, slave?” Drusus demanded thickly. “How dare you snatch me from my wife’s fu…funeral.”

  Anger vibrated through Quintus in waves. Drusus’s miserable life hung by an unraveling thread. “How dare you?” he asked with deceptive calm. He ripped back the pelts, exposing the dead serpent.

  Drusus blanched and moaned, “What have you done to my baby?” He sank to his knees by the bed, grasping the viper and clutching the scaly tail to his chest.

  Disgusted by a man who wept over a dead reptile, yet shed not a tear for his late wife, Quintus grabbed Drusus by the scruff of his neck and yanked him to his feet. He caught him up by the front of his tunic and slammed him against the wall. “You miserable cur!” he growled. “You’d best thank my God I don’t end your useless existence.”

  “My baby, my precious baby!” Drusus continued to sob. His eyes closed, his head rocked back and forth like a rattle.

  Vaguely aware of David’s voice calling Adiona in the hallway, Quintus drew back his fist. “Cease your sniveling!”

  Drusus continued to whine inconsolably.

  “Why are you yowling like a cat with its tail on fire, Drusus?” Adiona breezed into the chamber, David close on her heels. Seeing the byplay, she stopped in the center of the room, a quizzical expression pleating her elegant features. “Quintus? What are you doing? What’s going on?”

  “You!” Drusus squealed through the chokehold Quintus held on his throat. His bug-eyed gaze settled on Adiona, vivid with accusation. “You’re responsible for this tragedy! Have you seen what your minions did to my little one?”

  “What are you talking about?” she snapped, offended by his censure. “What tragedy?”

  Otho stepped forward. “My lady—”

  “What is that?” Adiona interrupted as she peered through the half-light toward her bed. She took a curious step forward.

  “Don’t!” Quintus groaned. He shoved Drusus over to Otho and reached for Adiona, but it was too late. She’d seen the snake. She looked to Quintus with dawning horror, her lovely face pale as moonlight. “Is that—?”

  “My baby,” Drusus wailed. “They’ve murdered her.”

  She shrank back, her eyes bright with appalled disgust. She closed her eyes and pressed a hand over her quivering mouth.

  Quintus moved forward, compelled to comfort her. “My lady—”

  “Wait!” She stretched out her palm to warn him off. “Come no closer. I fear I’m going to retch.”

  “What are you going to do about this?” Drusus complained. “Your slaves have murder—”

  “Silence!” She pressed trembling fingers to her temples. The ring she wore glistened like black fire in the candles’ glow. She eased her hands back to her sides and looked to Quintus with troubled eyes. “Tell me what happened.”

  He related the details in a flat voice as he fought to contain his fury toward Drusus. “Noooo! He’s a vicious liar. I’m not guilty!” Her heir fell to the floor before her, his arms around her legs, his head bent and pressed to her knees. “I’m innocent, my lady! I swear I’d never harm you! Never, never!”

  Quintus lunged forward. He grabbed Drusus by the hair and slid his knife along the swine’s throat. “Release her or you’re dead.”

  “Quintus, stop!” Adiona gasped.

  He ignored her and pressed the blade tighter. A fine line of blood trickled down Drusus’s fleshy neck.

  Drusus let her go. Quintus removed the knife and Drusus fell forward, facedown on the tiled floor by her feet. “I didn’t do it, I didn’t!” he sobbed in a pathetic crescendo.

  “That’s enough!” Quintus ordered his men to take Drusus to his own chamber. “Don’t let him out of your sight. We have yet to learn his accomplices.”

  Trapped in appalled stasis, Adiona wasn’t sure if the room was shaking or if she was trembling so hard it just seemed to be. Drusus’s cries for mercy came to her as though she were under water. From the moment Quintus explained the situation, she’d been unable to take her eyes off the adder on her bed or form a coherent sentence.

  Questions rolled through her mind in malignant waves. What if Quintus hadn’t been there to see the creature? What if she’d blown out the candles and crawled into bed…?

  She shivered as a smoke-tinged draft from the hall brushed across her skin. Only vaguely aware of Drusus being dragged from the chamber, she marveled at her own gullibility. How had she misjudged her heir to such an extent? She believed him witless, not murderous. Now, it seemed, she was the fool.

  “Adiona.” Qui
ntus placed himself between her and the adder. The bronzed column of his throat, the width of his broad shoulders and muscled chest filled her line of vision like a mountain of reliability and strength. He took her hands in his, banishing the insidious chill overtaking her with the warmth of his touch. “Come with me, my lady.”

  Still in shock, she allowed him to lead her to a sitting room downstairs. He closed the door, muffling the music and laughter of the funeral guests.

  “I wish someone would send them on their way,” she murmured. “It’s the middle of the night. Their behavior is a mockery of Octavia’s sedate nature.”

  “I’ll see to it.” He turned to do her bidding.

  “No.” She grabbed his hand. “Please…don’t leave me.”

  Without question, he guided her to a cushioned seat near the window. He knelt before her on the tiled floor, his long fingers grasping the armrests on either side of her chair. “I’m taking you from here at first light.”

  “No—”

  “Yes.” He placed his index finger over her lips. “Listen to me. We’re leaving at first light. I’d take you from here sooner, but the roads at night are as dangerous as this house. At least here, I know who some of our enemies are.”

  Her thoughts were becoming clearer due to Quintus’s calming influence. “I’m not yet convinced Drusus is part of the plot.”

  His intense green eyes flared with disbelief, but he didn’t belittle her. “Why not?”

  “Instinct.”

  “Adiona—”

  “He prizes his serpents. I don’t think he’d risk the adder’s life.”

  “Unless he reasons he can purchase a new one with the fortune your death will drop in his lap.”

  “My will—”

  “Magistrates and lawyers are more easily bought than snakes,” he said flatly. “Once you’re dead, your will can be rewritten and forged for the right amount of coin.”

  She nodded in resignation.

  “Tell me this,” he said, dragging an impatient hand through his hair. “Do the terms of your will change if you wed and have children of your own?”

  “Yes, but…that won’t happen.”

  His jaw clenched. “You can’t know that for certain.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “How old are you?”

  “None of your business.”

  He seemed to do a quick summation in his head. “Based on what you told me of your life, I’ll say you’re three and twenty.”

  She nodded begrudgingly. “Yes, I’m twenty-three. Old enough to decide for myself that I’ll never marry again.”

  “Never is a word that carries the weight of eternity with it and few things last that long.”

  “Perhaps not, but my decision will stand.” For her, marriage was too frightening to contemplate. Her husband had condemned her as a waste of a woman. He’d abused her for her failure to tempt him to the marriage bed, let alone give him the son he’d purchased her to bear.

  As a child bride, she’d believed him because she had no one to teach her differently. Now, a woman full-grown, she understood Crassus was the animal who deserved to be caged, not her. But that knowledge did not erase the scars she carried inside or silence the constant voice that whispered she was worthless and intrinsically undesirable.

  “Stubborn,” Quintus said under his breath. “But consider Drusus believed you were betrothed. You won’t convince me a man of his ilk would simply let his inheritance slip through his fingers.”

  He had a point and it was sharp as a knife. “What do you propose we do?”

  “I’m sending David and Seth to Rome with a message for Caros informing him what’s happened here. On swift horses they can be there by tomorrow night to request reinforcements. Otho and Rufus will stay here to guard Drusus.”

  “And you and I?” she asked.

  “I’m taking you home.”

  “Home? How will I be safer in Rome?”

  “We’re not going to Rome,” he clarified. “I told you I have a villa farther down the coast. We can be there in a matter of hours. No one will know you’re there or be able to guess your whereabouts. I’m certain you’ll be safe while we learn the depths of Drusus’s treachery.”

  “Your brother will be there?”

  He nodded. “I’m hopeful.”

  She bit her lower lip as she mulled over his plan. If he found his brother, he’d have the chance to lay hold of his fortune. With his wealth restored, he’d purchase his freedom and her value to him would end.

  He’ll leave me for certain.

  The thought stung like acid on thin skin. “Do you promise you’ll see me safely back to Rome…even if you find your brother?”

  “Of course,” he said, eyeing her closely. “I told you I’ll stay with you until you no longer need me.”

  She forced herself to smile. She didn’t doubt his sincerity at the moment, but she had no illusions, either. Life had taught her vows were easily made and even more easily broken. Intentions shifted like the breeze blowing through the open window. People did what they wanted.

  Naturally, Quintus wanted his life back. His freedom was precious. Why stay a slave to a woman with nothing of value to offer? He didn’t need her fortune and he’d made it clear in the hospital he didn’t want her body. Given the option of regaining his freedom or remaining with her, why wouldn’t he choose gold over dross?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Just as Quintus insisted, he and Adiona sailed from Neopolis at sunrise. The short voyage offered splendid views of the southern coast. A narrow ribbon of white beach separated the azure sea from the jagged mountain peaks that stretched toward an equally blue sky. Colorful villages fanned out along the mountain face only to fade into terraced groves of citrus and olive trees. Wildflowers in bright hues of yellow, orange and fuchsia added a riot of color to the sun-dappled greenery of the lush valleys.

  At Quintus’s direction, the hired captain steered the sailboat into a private cove and docked at a long pier constructed of a series of cement arches.

  The pier led to the beach and a winding set of stairs cut into the mountainside. The villa at the end of the stairs halfway up the mountain was nothing short of magnificent. Constructed of stone with marble columns, arched doors, and balconies overlooking the sea, the palatial residence seemed carved from its surroundings.

  “This is all yours?” Adiona asked as Quintus lifted her from the boat. The villa rivaled any of her properties and surpassed most.

  “It was,” he said impassively, taking their satchels from the captain and slinging them over his shoulder. “Now it belongs to my brother.”

  Sensing unease in Quintus, Adiona hooked her arm with his as they walked up the pier. He raised his eyebrow at her familiarity. “What?” she asked innocently.

  “I’m still a slave,” he said. “At the marriage fete last Friday you said you’d be embarrassed to be seen touching me.”

  “Yes, well, things have changed.”

  “Why?” he asked with a dubious smile. “Because you know I’m rich?”

  Because I love you, she thought, looking up into his gleaming green eyes. “Of course, it’s because you’re rich. Why else?”

  His expression soured. “At least you’re honest.”

  A flock of birds landed on the beach, running to and fro in time to the gentle melody of the surf. A cool breeze tempered the warmth of the sun on her face. Adiona wished she knew how to tell him how much she cared for him. How he’d brought her heart to life. But love was new to her experience and although Quintus no longer seemed to despise her, he’d made no declaration of any softer emotions, either. Riddled with frustration and lacking enough bravado on this one particular subject to simply state her piece, she said the first thing that came to mind. “You don’t seem happy to be here, Quintus.”

  “I’m…pleased.” He led her across the short stretch of beach between the pier and the steps. “In fact, it’s the first time I’ve felt like myself in months.”

 
“Then why the dour expression?” she asked as they started up the stairs.

  “Something is wrong, though I’m not sure what.”

  “Do you think my enemies—?”

  “No, no,” he said, quick to reassure her. “You’re safe here.”

  The higher they rose on the steps, the stronger the wind. The slave’s garb she’d donned as a disguise before leaving Neopolis fluttered like a sail in a storm. She clasped the whipping tendrils of her hair back with her hand. “Then what’s troubling you? All looks well. The villa is beautiful.”

  “Normally, this cove is alive with activity. Boats are docked up and down the pier. People coming and going. A phalanx of servants would have met me on the beach when I arrived…now, the place is deserted.”

  “How many slaves did you keep?” she asked, thinking how strange and difficult his loss of status must have been for a proud man like Quintus. Judging by the grandiose villa before her, a winter residence at most, he must have relinquished an even greater fortune for his beliefs than she’d realized. A part of him must regret his decision. How could he not?

  On the sail to Neopolis, he’d spoken of earning riches as if it were a game, but obtaining wealth was more than a trivial pursuit. She worked incessantly to maintain her fortune and place in society because money and position meant safety and security in a world that offered too little of either.

  “I stopped keeping slaves not long after I became a believer in the Way.”

  Her forehead puckered at the odd notion. “Why?”

  They reached the top of the stairs. A brick terrace covered the expanse between the villa’s wide front steps and the intricately carved stone railing that provided a protective barrier from the cliff’s edge.

  “When I studied our texts, I realized God loves and sees everyone as equals.”

  “Even slaves?” she asked, intrigued enough by the novel idea to drag her eyes from the awe-inspiring view of the sea and mountainous cliffs that formed the cove. “What about women?”

  “Yes. Slaves and women, too,” he said.

  Perplexed, she tried to internalize the concept of equality as they crossed the terrace and mounted the villa’s front steps. In truth, she’d never heard such a radical notion. All of society thought females were on par with chattel. A woman’s value was defined by the honor she brought to her father through the status of her marriage and the number of children she bore for her husband.