Crispina woke to an unusual coolness across her chest. She opened her eyes. Her skin was bare, the blanket bunched around her waist. Memories of last night flooded back.Aelius. Naked. Gods, theIliad.Heat rushed to her cheeks.
She glanced over at Aelius. During the night, they had returned to their usual sleeping arrangements, each person neatly contained in their own half of the bed.
Crispina hesitated, then inched closer. His warmth beckoned her, an inexorable pull that induced her to lay her head on his shoulder and stretch a tentative hand across his chest. Her body relaxed into his, like putting on a pair of well-fitting shoes.
He stirred. Not wanting to wake him, Crispina moved away, but his arm curled out to hold her to him. He mumbled something in her ear, but his voice was too heavy with sleep to make it out. His intentions became clearer when his lips found her neck and his hand her breast. She arched into his touch, an echo of the desire she’d felt last night suffusing her.
He rolled on top of her, his weight pressing her into the bed. The night’s rest had certainly restored him, and she felt stiffness bumping at her hip.
“I want you,” he growled in her ear, his voice scratchy but clearer now.
Though she only wanted to surrender to the pleasure she now knew he could give her, her body tensed. She put a hand on his chest. “I…I don’t think…” She tried to find the words to articulate the reason why she didn’t want to give in.
Aelius moved off of her, giving her a questioning look.
She glanced away, unable to meet his gaze. “I enjoyed what we did last night,” she said. “But I don’t wish to…to…”
“You don’t wish to do it again?”
She shook her head hastily. “I do. But nothing…further.” Sex led to disappointment and resentment, and she couldn’t bear that from him.
He gave a slow nod and mercifully didn’t press for further explanation. They dressed in silence. After breakfast, Aelius disappeared into his study, and Crispina left the house to meet Horatia at the baths. It was one of the days reserved for women to bathe, and Horatia was apparently desperate to get out of the house now she’d had the baby.
“Donotlook at me,” Horatia snapped as they shed their clothes in the warm changing room. “I grow more hideous with each child.”
Crispina focused on removing her own clothing. “I’m sure nothing of the sort is true.”
Horatia wrapped a towel around herself and sat on a bench while Crispina finished changing. “You must cherish all ofthat.” She gestured to Crispina’s body. “At least you will never have to see it stretched and distorted by some ungrateful little creature.”
“Mm.” Crispina tucked a towel beneath her arms, pulling it tight around her chest. “Let’s go.” They proceeded into a hot, darkened room containing a circular pool. Steam rose off the surface of the water. Hushed voices from two other women sounded from the opposite side of the pool.
Crispina and Horatia shed their towels, laying them on benches at the perimeter of the room, and stepped into the warm water. Crispina kept her eyes carefully averted from Horatia’s body until her friend was submerged up to her neck. Crispina sank into the water with a sigh. Its warmth reminded her of Aelius’s hands on her last night. She rested her back against the edge of the pool and leaned her head on the stone rim with a smile.
Water rippled as Horatia swam near. “Was I presumptuous with my comment earlier?”
Crispina opened her eyes. “Pardon?”
“You’re glowing. Is there some news?”
“Oh.” Crispina shook her head. “Not that sort of news. But…” She moved closer to Horatia and lowered her voice. “There were some developments last night.”
Horatia’s eyebrows lifted, her eyes sparking with interest. “Do tell.”
Crispina provided a rough outline of what had and hadn’t taken place last night. She left out their debasement of Homer’s poetry; she feared she would forever associate the destruction of Troy with Aelius’s nimble fingers.
Horatia looked befuddled. “But why on earth wouldn’t you let him bed you, if he was that good already?”
Crispina blushed. Her mind turned to the tangle of reasons why she had pushed Aelius away this morning. “I know it seems silly. But I couldn’t help feeling that if we were to lie together and I didn’t conceive, he would truly realize how broken I am. He would resent me.” She had spent years seeing the disdain and bitterness on Memmius’s face every time he looked at her. She couldn’t suffer that from Aelius, not even in their temporary marriage.
“But he knows already.”
“It’s one thing to know, intellectually, that something is amiss. It’s another to lie with a woman time after time with no result. It’s easier this way. Safer.” There was another reason lingering in the back of her mind she didn’t dare speak aloud, a tiny seed of hope that she couldn’t help clinging to. Maybe, just maybe, if she were to lie with Aelius, a child would result. Maybe the problem wasn’t hers, but her former husband’s.
But she had been disappointed too many times, and she couldn’t bear it again. For as long as she kept Aelius at arm’s length, she could keep that little spark of hope alive. But once it was extinguished, she would have nothing. Even though she didn’t long for a child, something in her still yearned to prove she could do it, this basic thing that every other woman seemed to be able to achieve without even trying.
“I suppose I can understand,” Horatia said. “In any case, there are plenty of things you can do to enjoy each other.”
Crispina found herself eager to absorb Horatia’s knowledge of these matters. “Such as?”
