Another question occurred to him. “What was your name before?”
“Lethaea. But my mother liked to call me Lea, so when Lucullus was trying to come up with a better one, I suggested Penthesilea.” She grinned. “I also liked the thought of being named after an Amazon queen.”
Now he understood why those closest to her called her by the shortened name; it wasn’t just the convenience of an abbreviation, but Lea was her true name, the name her mother had called her. It gave him a greater sense of who she truly was: Penthesilea was the celebrated gladiator, but Lea was the real woman beneath.
“My turn to ask a question.” She splayed her fingers on his chest. “Do you prefer men or women?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Right now, I prefer you.” His desires had never seemed to rely on something so banal as someone’s sex.
She chuckled, then slipped out of his arms and sat up, body extending into a luxurious stretch. The movement drew his attention straight to her full, soft breasts, and for a moment he wanted nothing more than to pull her back down to the bed and lose himself with her.
But he couldn’t succumb to such pleasures. Morning was dawning. Lea would need to get back to the ludus before she was missed.
He, too, had things to attend to. The early morning hours were often his most productive, as Gaius tended to sleep late into the day. Today, Kallias wanted to check on one of the cook’s assistants suffering from a tooth abscess, as well as a washerwoman who’d come down with a severe headache yesterday.
Lea seemed of a similar mind, for she left the bed and found her dress, tugging it over her head. He did the same with his discarded tunic.
She combed a hand through her long hair. “I don’t suppose you know how to braid?”
“Of course I do. Sit.” He pointed to a corner of the bed, then sat behind her and sifted his fingers through her locks, separating them into three sections. He moved slower than necessary as he wove together the sections. Once this was done, she’d leave and this blissful interlude would be over.
“I almost forgot, I had another question,” she said as he braided.
“Yes?”
“You said something last night. In Greek. I didn’t know what it meant.”
His hands paused their plaiting motions, and he thought back to the words they’d shared. Much of the evening was a lust-filled haze. “Philé emé?” He flushed, suddenly grateful that she was in front of him and couldn’t see his face.
“What does it mean?”
He returned his focus to braiding her hair. “It’s just an endearment. Like…sweetheart.” It was more than that, but something held him back from revealing the truly accurate translation.
My beloved.
Last night, he’d uttered it without thinking, but this morning, it felt…weighty. Intimidating. It whispered of a commitment he couldn’t make.
It told him he was falling in love with her.
His hands stuttered to a halt in the midst of braiding.
He’d had lovers before, of course, but those affairs had begun and ended with little fuss, born out of a desire to find a reprieve from the oppressive restrictions of his life. It had been easy to keep his emotions safely in check, knowing there was no future in any of it.
Abruptly, he remembered that day he’d met Sextus’s parents, his bittersweet jealousy at their rapport, their care for each other. That was what he wanted: someone he could belong to in a way that had nothing to do with ownership.
But the timing was all wrong.
In his current life, he’d always be beholden to the emperor first. Anyone else would have to come second. He couldn’t love Lea as she deserved until his circumstances changed.
He forced his fingers to resume braiding.
“That’s nice,” she said as he secured the end of the braid with the leather strip she handed him. At least the endearment pleased her, even if it didn’t quite mean what she thought it did.
A touch of guilt plagued him at the dissimulation; after all, just last night they’d promised not to lie to each other. But it wasn’treallya lie. Sweetheart was an acceptable translation, and it was of little consequence.
Once they were both dressed and presentable, he walked her to one of the back exits to the palace, manned by a single bored guard who barely spared them a glance. Kallias walked through the door with her, then pressed a kiss to the back of her hand, unable to let her go just yet. “If I were to find my way to your ludus one evening, perhaps Thursday…do you think I’d be admitted?”
She smiled. “I’ll let our guard know to open the gate for any handsome physicians that might wander by.”
