I ignored the side glance from my grandfather.
“I did.” I kept my expression blank, my voice cavalier. “I’m surprised you let her outside of her cage.”
“She’s free to go anywhere she wants in the city, provided she has her bodyguards.”
And she wears her muzzle like a dog.
“But I was surprised to hear you were in the Aventine,” he added accusingly.
Fuck.
“Is it common for you to mingle with the plebs?” Valerius continued, his dark eyes narrowed like a serpent’s.
“Not at all. But the common folk there have better remedies and potions.” I held his hard gaze.
“And what remedies were you seeking?”
“Perhaps it wasn’t a remedy. Perhaps it was a poison.”
Silence stretched. There was movement at my elbow. “Trajan, whydon’t you take a walk around the room. There’s an issue I’d like to discuss with Consul Valerius.”
Without another word, I stepped past Valerius, but he caught my arm in an iron grip.
“I saw the way you looked at her at my house,” he seethed, his canines elongating. “Don’t think to covet what is mine.”
“Perhaps she won’t be yours much longer.”
“What do you mean by that?” he spat.
“Trajan.”Grandfather snapped my name in warning. “Remember your place.”
The consul was my superior in the senate house, even though my family and lineage far outranked him in society. My grandfather couldn’t care less about Valerius’s station, but losing my temper would only draw unwanted attention from the emperor.
Pulling my arm from his grip, I bowed my head, willing my blood to cool. “Forgive me, Consul. I’ve had too much to drink. I meant nothing by it.”
With as much reserve I could muster, I walked away, noting only a few had turned their heads at the small disturbance. One of them was Fausta Ovidius, who was standing and chatting with Agrippa. The one I’d heard speaking to Lela from her litter on the street. What a nice coincidence.
I strolled over to them, where a male in a jewel-blue skirt—Appius’s house colors—held a tray of honey-drizzled dates.
“Salve, Agrippa. I didn’t see you arrive. Good to see you, Fausta. Beautiful and elegant as always.”
“Why, thank you, Trajan,” she crooned, wearing a one-shouldered silvery-black stola that hugged her beautiful frame. “I was asking Agrippa here how Appius seems to have the finest-looking slaves in all of Rome.”
“Does he?” I glanced around, noting his many male slaves movingabout the room. They were all muscular men with sleek dark hair and handsome features. They wore blue silk skirts, revealing their bronzed chests and shoulders, which were dusted with blue and gold glitter, enhancing their physiques.
“Simply look at them.” She scoffed with a feminine laugh. “Imustknow his secret.”
“Not much of a secret,” I added. “They’re Macedonian. I believe he paid a hefty price for them.”
I also knew that he bought them specifically for their strength and prowess as warriors before they were defeated on General Sabinus’s last campaign there. He was preparing, gathering strong warriors to his household.
“I see why.” She ogled the one still holding a tray at her right as she took a date and chewed it seductively.
“Perhaps Agrippa here can keep you apprised if Scippio’s campaign in Macedonia bears any fruit.”
“Why are we back in Macedonia?” Fausta asked in that docile, empty-headed way of vapid females.
The fact was, Fausta was neither docile nor empty-headed. When her second husband died of some mysterious illness, she became the wealthiest woman in Rome. No one knew how either of her husbands actually died—both suddenly and without specifically identified causes. Now she owned and ran the most prosperous grain import and export business in all of Rome.
