She lifted her chin, meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry for waking you, but I thought you would want to know of the situation.”
“You were right.” His gaze grew faraway, and he glanced at the door through which Cassandra had left. “I often wondered if my mother was once in Cassandra’s position.” An edge of vulnerability roughened his voice.
Crispina sensed he was confessing something hidden, something he’d never spoken about to anyone before. She took a moment before replying, wanting to take the appropriate care with her words, as if handling a glass cup that had been blown too thin. “Do you mean…your father…?”
“I have never brought myself to ask her,” Aelius said. “And she has never volunteered it.”
“Even as a child, you never asked?”
He shook his head, gaze downcast.
Crispina absorbed this in silence. She couldn’t imagine having the self-control to avoid such a crucial question. A new layer of respect for him settled atop the foundation of regard that had already been built.
Aelius continued, “In truth, I think I never asked because I knew the answer.” His jaw tightened, and he sat on the bed with his back to her, shoulders tense. “My mother spent a great deal of time behind closed doors with our master. I never asked her because I couldn’t bear knowing for certain every time she looked at me, she would see a ghost of violence that had been done to her.”
Crispina recalled Horatia’s questions about Aelius’s father, the hypothesis he could have been the son of their former master…and the grim reality of what Gaia might have been forced to endure. Her heart twisted, and she felt an urge to go to Aelius, attempt to comfort him despite her ineptitude, but a deep guilt held her back. After all, she’d been aware her father and ex-husband had taken liberties with their slaves and she’d turned a blind eye to it. She’d never found it as abhorrent as it seemed now. Her past nonchalance left a bitter taste in her mouth.
“I’m sorry.” Her words came out in an unsteady murmur. “Your mother loves you very much. Anyone can see that.”
“I know. That’s why I promised myself I would never ask her to tell me. That part of our lives is behind us. I don’t need to know who my father is.” He turned toward her and gave her a wry smile. “That must sound so strange to you, who can trace your lineage back to the founding of the city.”
Admiration bloomed in her chest. All her life, she’d been raised to think that family and ancestry were everything. The patrician class to which Crispina belonged traced their lineage back to the first hundred senators chosen by Romulus at the city’s founding. Crispina had always been taught that being a member of such a family was the highest possible honor, and maintaining the purity of their bloodlines was of the utmost importance.
In her lessons, she had been forced to memorize her family’s genealogy going back centuries. Yet Aelius was striving for success without even knowing for sure who his father was.
“I suppose you’re a direct descendent of Romulus?” Aelius continued, joking.
“No, but my father will tie himself in knots to claim ancestry from Aeneas,” Crispina said.
His mouth curved in a warm smile, then opened in a yawn. “May we return to bed?”
Crispina nodded. She blew out the lamp and slid into her side of the bed. Aelius said nothing further, and soon the deep, even sound of his breathing filled the room.
She envied his ability to return to sleep. Her mind was still too active, coming to terms with the feeling of something shifting, changing, remolding between them. Now, they were no longer just two people being cordial to each other for the sake of a marriage. They were co-conspirators in this scheme to reunite Cassandra with her lover.Partners. The seed of something new was growing, and Crispina wondered if she’d be able to uproot it when the time came.
Chapter 11
By the next afternoon, Ajax had succeeded in bringing home Cassandra’s lover, Taurus. Aelius did not relish purchasing another slave, but in this situation, it was the right thing to do.
Crispina and his mother joined him in the atrium to greet the new member of their household. Taurus, a freckle-faced young man clothed in a plain linen tunic, fell to his knees before Aelius and grasped his hand to kiss it in a formal gesture of supplication and gratitude. “Thank you, sir, for your generosity and kindness.”
Aelius helped him to his feet. “You are very welcome here.”
Taurus bowed to Crispina and Gaia in turn, then retreated to clasp Cassandra’s hand, casting her a look of naked adoration. She smiled up at him.
“I wondered if you might tell us any more about the circumstances that led to your departure from your former master,” Aelius said. “Cassandra wasn’t able to give us the full story.”
Taurus shifted from foot to foot. “I’m very sorry, sir, but I can’t say. But I will swear on the life of my unborn child I did no wrong.”
That was rather mysterious, but Aelius assumed the young man had a good reason for holding his tongue, so he let it be. “Very well. Cassandra can show you around, and you can settle in.”
Cassandra and Taurus bowed to them once more, then left the atrium.
Gaia looked at Crispina with an approving gaze. “You did very well, dear.”
A flush brightened Crispina’s pale cheeks. “Thank you.”
His mother went to go work on some weaving, and Crispina accompanied her to help. Aelius stared after his wife for a moment. She had impressed him last night. Ladies of her station were raised to barely consider slaves as human, yet she’d gone out of her way to help Cassandra. Especially with a pregnancy involved: Aelius could easily imagine that another woman with Crispina’s challenges would have turned spiteful and jealous. Perhaps there was more to his new wife than her chilly exterior suggested. Perhaps they were better suited than he could ever have expected.
