Читать книгу: «The Roman’s Revenge»

CHAPTER 1

Ostia – Port of Rome, Italy – June AD 80

“Magia, calm yourself, please. You will make yourself ill.”

“Ill? Of course I am ill, I am sick to the stomach. How could he do this to us? He can’t make me go. I refuse to go. I won’t go I tell you. He can kill me, I don’t care.”

Livia worried her bottom lip, her insides churning with tension as she realised Magia was on the verge of hysteria, and had been ever since they had boarded the ship just over an hour ago. Although she had tried to calm her, nothing seemed to help, and it was fast proving a futile exercise, as every time she said something it just seemed to make her tire-woman even more agitated.

In a fit of panic she cast her eyes around the deck, trying to find someone who might be able to help. But there was no one. Everybody was far too busy loading up, and preparing the mighty trireme for its long journey to Alexandria. A journey she, and Magia, had only found out that morning they would both be making. Breaking her gaze away from the busy scene before her, she tried once more to calm the old woman.

Lifting her hand, she placed it on Magia’s arm in a gesture of comfort, and lowered her voice, as if she were talking to a young child, and not a woman old enough to be her grandmother. “Magia, please try to understand if there was anything, anything, I could have done to stop this, then I would have. But Flavius decreed it, and I had no choice. You, of all people should be able to understand that. Now let us go down to our cabin and rest awhile. It has been a long, tiring day.”

If anything, the words seemed to inflame Magia even further, and she slapped Livia’s hand away, her eyes wild with rage. Under normal circumstances, Magia, a slave, would have been flogged for striking her mistress; but Livia realised these weren’t normal circumstances, so she chose to ignore the outburst. But as she stood there feeling utterly helpless, she wished with all her heart she could do something about the mess the two of them found themselves in.

Metellus could see the old woman was clearly upset and angry about something, as she gesticulated and shouted at the young woman who was on the receiving end of her tirade. And the young woman seemed powerless to do anything about it, if the anxious expression on her face was anything to go by.

He couldn’t make out what the woman was saying, the noise from the dock side, as well as on board the trireme was deafening as the ship was loaded for its imminent departure. But he was intrigued nonetheless, and he moved away from the stack of wooden crates which partially obscured him, and leaned against one of the wooden masts on the open deck. Crossing his arms over his muscular chest, he deliberately relaxed his stance, made his face expressionless and watched the exchange between the two women.

He knew who they were of course. News of the arrival of the beautiful patrician, and her tire-woman, had spread around the ship like wild-fire. The fact she was also the daughter of a Senator – although he didn’t know which one yet – had heightened the gossip even more; and as he watched them, he couldn’t help but wonder why on earth she was on her way to Alexandria. The gossip had been remarkably lacking on that score!

As he watched her, he had to acknowledge the sailors hadn’t exaggerated her beauty. She was indeed one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, and he felt his body harden in response. She was enough to steal any man’s breath away with her pale skin, clear and unblemished and unadorned by the powders and paints so often favoured by the rich women of Rome. His eyes were drawn to the rich mahogany of her hair which was a perfect foil for her wide spaced hazel eyes.

His gaze moved over her small straight nose, down to the fullness of her lips. Lips so tempting, he had to fight the urge to walk over to her and taste their sweetness, regardless of the older woman standing there shouting at her.

Reluctantly he tore his gaze from her face, and took his fill of her tall slim body, the thick silk of her stola unable to disguise the fullness of her breasts, and the irrational thought of how well they would fit together flashed into his mind as temptation clawed at him like a hungry beast. Something inside him jolted into life, feelings long supressed came to the fore, and he had the powerful urge to go over to her and kiss her anguish away. He imagined her without clothing. Naked. Writhing beneath him, her back arched in wanton abandonment, the ultimate in temptation, and he felt desire slam into him – hard.

As he watched her take the brunt of her tire-woman’s verbal attack her small white teeth worried her lower lip, and a frown appeared, a frown which momentarily spoilt the perfection of her heart shaped face. She stiffened, her back ramrod straight as she listened to the older woman, shaking her head at something the woman was saying, and Metellus’s eyes were drawn once more to the thickness of her hair, swept upwards off her face, so the abundant waves swung backwards and forwards across the slimness of her back. He wanted to wrap his hands in its thickness, test the weight of it, pull her forward and…

Metellus shook his head, annoyed with himself, and his wayward thoughts. There was no place for a woman like her in his life. Not yet anyway. Not until he’d had the revenge he had sought, and planned, for years now. Fifteen long years in fact, ever since his father had been arrested and taken away in the dead of night by Nero’s Praetorian Guard. And as he remembered that fateful night, his hand lifted subconsciously, rubbing the thin scar which marred his left cheek.

He’d been nine years old when he had been awoken by the shouting and screaming coming from inside the main part of their villa. Running out of his bedroom, into the atrium, he saw his father being clamped in irons by four burly soldiers. Furious, he’d charged at them, demanding his father’s release, but his strength had been futile against the sheer strength and number of the guards surrounding his father. Instead, he’d been thrown across the room like a rabid dog, where he’d hit his face against a sharp edge of one of the many marble statutes that lined the atrium. He’d been knocked unconscious, and the only thing he had to show for his attempt at trying to save his father was the scar.

A loud scream jolted Metellus out of his dark thoughts, and his eyes widened in surprise when he saw the old woman rush past him, her hand holding her cheek, a red mark clearly visible. It was obvious the patrician had slapped her, and bemused, his eyes swivelled from the tire-woman who was running towards the open hatch, and the sanctuary of the cabins below, back to where the younger woman stood.

He saw the glaze of shock in her eyes, as she stood there unmoving, until she finally blinked and refocused on the present. It was only then that her magnificent hazel eyes focused on him, seeing him for the first time as he stared at her.

Their eyes locked, the force of her gaze as powerful as a punch in the stomach, and for several long moments they looked at each other. He lowered his eyes to her mouth, saw the trembling of her bottom lip, and had to fight the urge to stride over and kiss her senseless. There was something about this woman that pulled at him, tested his resolve and demanded that he do something…anything…

Instead he raised an enquiring eyebrow. It had the desired result, when he saw hot colour suffuse her cheeks as she realised he had seen everything that had happened between her, and her tire-woman. Her eyelids fluttered, before she looked away, but not before he saw disbelief cloud her expression, as if she couldn’t quite take in what had just happened between them.

But then, as if she couldn’t control herself, her eyes once more sought his, as if she were unable, unwilling, to look away. She blinked several times, before her gaze lowered, taking in his tall muscular build, weighing him up as if he were a slave to be bought in the local market. When she realised what she was doing, her eyes snapped back to his, and this time she was bold enough to meet his gaze face on, her expression challenging.

Metellus took the challenge she offered, and stepped forward, closing the distance between them. Immediately he saw the boldness of her gaze disappear, to be replaced by uncertainty, fear even, her face losing all colour as she stiffened.

“May I be of assistance? Your slave seems…troubled,” he said, unable to keep the mocking tone out of his voice, as he came to stand next to her, so close, that her delicate scent, the slightest hint of roses, and something else, teased his nostrils and he felt his body harden once more. He watched, as hot colour once again surged into her face, and her magnificent eyes fell from his.

“No. No thank you. She will be fine once we set sail,” the woman said, her words stiff, brittle, refusing to meet his gaze. Then she turned her back on him, effectively dismissing him.

Metellus grunted to himself. What had he expected? True to form the woman had dismissed him out of hand. But he didn’t expect anything different. A patrician wouldn’t have looked twice at him, dressed as he was in a coarse, threadbare tunic of dark green. He would be beneath the likes of her. Spoilt, and feted, daughters of Senators did not mingle with men who worked on-board a ship.

Metellus frowned. Although he knew her to be the daughter of a Senator, equally she could also be married. An irrational burst of jealousy hit him as he contemplated the thought of her with another man. Annoyed with himself, and his fanciful musings, Metellus stiffened, and with one last look at the woman’s rigid back he walked away.

Livia gripped the wooden railings, staring sightlessly down at the busy dockside, her stomach clenching in anguish before she closed her eyes in mortification. Was he still watching her? She dare not turn around for fear of encountering his mocking gaze once again. Go away, she wanted to shout. Leave me be. Can’t you see I want to be left alone? To lick my wounds in peace.

The day had been an unremitting nightmare so far; and after Magia’s hysterical outburst a few minutes ago, the fact that a complete stranger had seen her slap her, had been the final straw.

Livia shivered as a gust of wind blew in off the sea. She wasn’t exactly pleased about being here either. If she had been told yesterday, that the gods had decreed she would have to board a ship at Ostia harbour, and set sail to Alexandria to marry a man she loathed, she would have thought they were jesting.

But the gods hadn’t been jesting. She really was here waiting for the trireme to set sail for the Egyptian city, and she was on her way to marry a man she had once threatened to kill if he laid his fat, sweaty hands on her person ever again.

She bit back tears which were in imminent danger of falling. She had to be strong – for both of them. There was no point in her becoming hysterical like Magia. But she couldn’t blame her tire-woman; the poor woman was elderly, and fully deserved to live out her days in relative peace in Rome, not find herself on the way to an unknown city, and an unknown land, halfway across the Empire. But like Livia, she had been given no choice. Livia’s brother – her half-brother actually – Flavius had seen to that - again!

This was the second time Flavius had meddled in her life, had effectively sold her to the highest bidder. The first time had been nearly four years ago when Livia had just turned sixteen. Flavius had been instrumental in persuading their father that a marriage between her, and the elderly Senator Faustus Grattus Galvus, would increase their father’s standing in the Senate. Livia, being a woman with no worth apart from her body, had had no choice, no matter how much she had protested at the time, and within a week she had found herself married to a man old enough to be her grandfather.

She shuddered, blocking out that period of her life which had made her so unhappy. And now, it was as if history were repeating itself, but instead of being a young girl of sixteen, she was a widow of twenty, on her way to marry another rich and powerful man for no other reason than to increase the political standing of the Drusii in the cutthroat arena of the Senate. Flavius, having reached the age of twenty-eight had recently been appointed quaestor, and was doing everything in his power to work his way up to gaining a place in the Senate, knowing full well that competition for the coveted seats was fierce. If it meant marrying his sister off to the highest bidder then so be it…

Naïvely, she had thought that her second marriage could have been a love match, someone she could have chosen rather than the men of her family, but that had been a foolish dream; a dream which would never have been allowed to happen as she well knew now.

She shook her head. She didn’t want to think about what lay ahead. Opening her eyes, she spent a few more minutes staring sightlessly ahead, until she risked turning to where the man had been watching her. Thankfully, he had gone, and the breath she hadn’t even realised she had been holding, hissed out of her lungs in relief.

The stranger had unsettled her. Not because he had seen her slap Magia. It had been the only way she could stop the older woman from becoming so hysterical, that she was fast becoming a danger to herself. No, it had been the mocking expression in his grey eyes as he watched her, judged her, and found her wanting, that had grated on her already stretched nerves. Maybe, if he knew what she had endured today, he might not have judged her so badly.

But if she were also honest with herself, he had also unsettled her in the only way a man could. Never in all her twenty years had one man made such an impact on her in such a short space of time, and she wondered who he was.

Slave? No, not a slave, for a slave wouldn’t have been so bold as to approach her; and a slave definitely wouldn’t have looked at her with desire in his eyes as he had done…and he wouldn’t have looked at her as if he’d wanted to devour her.

No definitely not a slave. She didn’t even think he was liberti either. Again a freedman wouldn’t have been as bold as he’d been, she was sure of that. That only left merchant or sailor. She favoured sailor, as his threadbare tunic and powerful body were evidence of a life of hard work, whereas merchants tended to be rich older men, content to let others do the hard work.

Livia shivered as she remembered the few brief moments their eyes had met, and the words he’d spoken to her. His voice had been a low husky rasp which had sent tremors of desire through her. She had never felt such an attraction to a man before. It had been visceral and instantaneous and she had been acutely aware of the height and power of his body.

And although he was big, he carried muscle rather than excess flesh, and he carried it well.

Very well indeed. She could see the many hours spent working on the ship had honed his body to the peak of physical perfection, if the width of his shoulders were anything to go by. His skin was a deep golden bronze, testimony to his work outside. His hair, a deep dark brown, almost black like a raven’s wing, had lifted with the breeze which blew in off the sea, and Livia had wanted nothing more than to run her fingers through it and feel the strength of him as she pulled him into her arms…

She had to acknowledge he was one of the most physically perfect specimens of manhood she’d ever seen. He even rivalled the gladiators she had seen perform in Rome’s arenas.

Mesmerised by his physical beauty, her eyes had been drawn to the one thing that marred his perfection – a scar which ran across his left cheek up into the hairline of his dark brown hair. But even the scar didn’t detract from the handsomeness of his face, rather it added to it, giving him a hardened, tough look which made her heart beat faster. Temptation had clawed at her, a powerful urge, that made her want to step forward and reach out her hand to stroke the hard planes of his face, to feel the strength of his body for herself.

But she hadn’t of course. Dutiful daughters, and half-sisters, of one of Rome’s most powerful families didn’t do rebellious things like that. To do so would be to ruin her, and her family’s reputations. And the reputation, and standing of the Drusii amongst Rome’s elite, was the one thing which had been drummed into Livia from the moment she had been born.

So she shook her fanciful thoughts away. Thinking about handsome men, and how their bodies would feel against hers as they kissed her, was the thinking of young, foolish girls. And Livia was anything but foolish. Livia was practical, and dutiful, which was why she was on-board this ship, and on her way to marry someone she detested.

But for a moment she could dream couldn’t she?