I cannot help the way my body reacts to this man, she cursed to herself.
The afternoon sun slanted through the tall windows of the schoolroom as dust motes danced in the chalky air. Ambrose began to pace, his boots striking the floorboards with the rhythmic, heavy cadence of a general’s march.
“You must understand, boys,” he began. “The history books do not portray the true nature of it all. They speak of annexation and expansion as if Rome were merely a gardener tending a plot of land. It was bloody, and gruesome, and muddy?—”
“We love mud!” The boys called in unison as they looked at their uncle with wide eyes.
He turned at the corner of the room as he went on, his shadow stretching long and jagged across the leather spines of the encyclopedia sets along the walls.
“Oh, and the legions. They were a machine of bone and iron. They didn’t just conquer,” he rasped, his cerulean eyes flashing with an intensity that made the air in the room feel thin. “They consumed. They took the language, the gods, and the very gold from the teeth of the fallen. By the time Caesar turned his eyes back toward Rome, he wasn’t just a general. He was a man who had tasted the blood of half of Europe and found himself still hungry.”
“Wow,” the boys said, again in unison.
Imogen watched him, her own breath hitching. She had expected a dry recitation of dates and treaties, but Ambrose spoke with such passion as if he had stood in the mud of Gaul himself. He crossed the room in three long strides and opened a heavy, leather-bound atlas from the shelf, thudding it down onto the mahogany table.
“Look here,” he commanded, though the edge in his voice was more invitation than order.
Imogen moved closer to the Duke as the boys hovered over the tome from the other side of the table. The heat radiating between the two was palpable, a physical weight that pulled at her as she found herself inching as close as she dared.
Focus, Imogen!She told herself as she leaned over the table, her eyes landing on the map.
It was a complex web of crimson ink, faded vellum, and Latin annotations that looked like ancient scars. It was beautiful, reminding her of a happier time with her own father when he had shown her something similar.
“He stood here,” Ambrose whispered, leaning down so his shoulder was inches from hers, snapping Imogen back to the moment. “On the banks of a stream so insignificant the maps barely gave it a name.”
“The Rubicon,” Imogen whispered.
“Clever woman,” Ambrose whispered back, so low it only touched her ears.
“The point of no return.”
“Yes, Miss Lewis.”
She reached out, her fingernail tracing the narrow, blue squiggle that marked the boundary between a province and a revolution.
As her finger found the mark, the slight shift in her stance caused her bare forearm to brush against the heavy, dark wool of his sleeve.
The contact jolted through her marrow, a sudden, violent spark that made the oxygen vanish from her lungs in one fell swoop. She didn’t pull away.
She could not.
Beside her, Ambrose’s hand, which had been resting flat against the mahogany, spasmed. His knuckles went white, his fingers digging into the wood as if he were trying to anchor himself against a physical blow or a sudden, dizzying height. Luckily, the boys were too focused on the pages to notice.
Imogen felt Ambrose hold his breath. In the periphery of her vision, she saw the heavy vein in his neck pulsing, thick and rapid. He was trapped in that narrow, dangerous territory between the map and the heat they dared not give in to.
“Did he know? I wonder.” Imogen asked, her voice trembling as she looked up at him. “Did he know he was destroying the Republic for a selfish whim?”
She found Ambrose already looking at her. He wasn’t looking at the map, and she knew he wasn’t thinking of Rome. He was watching her lips move. His expression was stripped bare of its iron-clad reserve. For a single, fleeting second, he looked soft, unguarded. He was almost a man who was starving and had just found a feast he wasn’t allowed to touch.
He feels it too.
The air between them vibrated, for a time Imogen could not quantify, with the unspoken. It was a tension so thick, it felt as though the smallest word would shatter the glass in the windows. She held her lips tight together.
Then, the shutter slammed closed.
Get a hold of yourself, Ambrose,he swore to himself.The iron mask of the Duke must be put back into place.
He caught himself then. He straightened, his jaw tightening until the bone stood out in sharp relief as he stroked his full beard. He wrenched his gaze away, staring toward the window.
