“Of course. I’ll wait in the entry hall.”
She left the room. Trajan’s expression was grave and solemn. He didn’t move, his posture stiff and unyielding. I knew in that moment,he didn’t want to leave me. Not because I was his property, but because he cared for me.
That sinking, lovely realization had me moving closer to stand before him. Reaching up, I did something I’d been wanting to do for some time. I cupped his face and felt the bristles of his trim beard, lightly moving my fingers of one hand across his brow.
His expression softened, but he still didn’t speak. There was pain in his gaze. I’d know. Pain was a familiar companion of mine. And yet I loathed seeing it on him.
“Thank you, Trajan.” I let my palms rest on his broad chest. “For everything you’ve done for me.”
For saving me, protecting me, allowing me to know intimacy in that one kiss we shared could be sweet and lovely again.
Trajan was a man of many words. He never lacked them. Until now.
He lifted his hands and cupped my face gently, brushing a thumb across the crest of one cheek. Then he bent his head and brushed the softest featherlight kiss against my lips.
He whispered, voice trembling, “Goodbye.”
Then he stepped away and stormed from the room, leaving me with that one word.
I should’ve felt nothing at all, except relief and joy that I was leaving Rome. But that wasn’t what resonated in my bruised heart, rattling through my bones, down to my hollowed soul.
It was another familiar friend that soaked me through and through—loss.
XIXLELA
I awoke to the sound of birdsong. Disoriented, I sat up and looked around. It was a small, clean room with a table and pitcher for washing, a comb on the table, and a window with a view of a small flower garden. Realizing I wasn’t in Trajan’s bedchamber, a sinking sensation swept over me. Yet again, the tenderness around my heart ached, a bruise I feared would not heal.
Last night I’d been shown my room then left alone to wash, changeinto a clean tunic, and crawl into the small but comfortable bed. Now, moving to the window, I found the blue lark singing its tiny heart away. Then it flapped its wings and flew away. I watched then blinked away the tears that pooled in my eyes, wondering why the joy of a bird made me cry. Today, I would regain my freedom. There was no point in tears. There was no world where Trajan and I could be together.
Besides, I was a broken mess. A shell of a woman. That was the only reason I longed for the first man who gave me kindness and care. It had to be.
“Good morning.”
I turned from the window to find Fausta standing near the doorway.
“You slept late. It’s nearly noon.”
She was dressed in a modest black stola, her hair perfectly combed and coifed with long wavy curls hanging over one shoulder. She was a conundrum.
“Why do you do it? You have everything.”
She didn’t frown and look surprised by my question. Nor did she ask for clarification. She was an intelligent woman who knew exactly what I was thinking and wondering.
“I had everything,” she stated coolly. “I do not now.”
She walked into the room and looked out the window where her lovely flower garden bloomed.
“My first husband Titus was my mate. My one true love. We met when we were children. He’d always had a heart for those less fortunate. I remember how he’d take in stray dogs or kittens, while his mother scolded him for it. His capacity for love was so great.”
She swallowed hard as I watched her telling the story, her gaze distant, remembering.
“When we were first married, one of our servants became pregnant. She had a lover, another slave in a house down the street. But when her child was born, he was a dragon. She brought us the tiny bundle and handed him over to Titus, expecting him to do what Rome demanded of bastard-born dragons. Either slit his throat or ship him off to be raised by the lanistae of the gladiator pits in the outer posts of the empire. The young woman didn’t even beg to have her son spared.”
She heaved out a sigh, smiling to herself.
“Titus did none of those things. He promised her that her son would live and that he would send her to someone to raise him up well. And free. I didn’t understand why he’d take such a risk. Igniculus wasn’t emperor then, but the laws were still strict. We both worked together to smuggle the babe out of the city in the arms of a free woman we paid well.”
Fausta turned to me, her face glowing with a defiant sort of joy.
