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‘He didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘I know. I wasn’t angry with him, at least not at first. I was angry at Rome, at the Tribune who’d punished him when he’d been doing the right thing. I hated Rome back then.’
‘But...’ Her brow creased. ‘I don’t understand. If you hated Rome, then why did you join the army?’
‘Because I was young and alone. I wanted to belong somewhere, to redeem our family name, too. I thought that if I could reclaim my father’s position then it would prove that he hadn’t been the one in the wrong after all. I kept his sword, this sword, to remind me of that purpose.’
He reached a hand to his belt and sighed. ‘But people treated me as if I were the traitor, as if I were responsible for his crime, and then I turned against him, too. I felt as though he’d abandoned me, as if he’d put his men ahead of me and left me to fend for myself, having to face all the insults and beatings on my own. I started to believe all the things they said about him, that he’d been foolhardy and stubborn. I started to believe that I ought to be ashamed.’ He shook his head. ‘I still wanted to become Senior Centurion, but I forgot why I wanted it in the first place. I forgot that I was doing it for him as well as for me. I had a choice between him and Rome and I chose Rome. I betrayed him, not the other way round.’
‘You’re being too hard on yourself. You were young.’ She stood up in front of him. ‘How do you feel about him now?’
‘Now I feel the way I did when I was a boy. I loved him and he loved me. He would never have betrayed me. He only ever tried to do what was right. I see that now, thanks to you.’ He lifted a hand tentatively to her cheek, gently caressing the skin with the backs of his knuckles, half-expecting her to flinch. ‘I might have been a slave of Rome, but you set me free.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘Are you?’ She didn’t look it with her brow still furrowed. ‘Livia, what is it?’
‘You said that the Tribune who condemned him was a man like Scaevola. Is that why you married me? Revenge? Is that why you played that game of tabula?’
He cupped her cheek in his palm as he took a few seconds to consider the idea properly. Nerva had asked him the same thing. Had revenge been a part of it? Had he been mistaken in his motives there, too? No, this time he was certain. As much as he’d enjoyed defeating the Tribune, that hadn’t been the reason he’d played.
She put a hand on his arm before he could answer. ‘It’s all right. I understand and I’m sorry about your father, truly. For what it’s worth, I think he was an honourable man. He did the right thing, even if Rome didn’t think so, and you’re a good man, too. Whatever the reason you married me, you saved me from Scaevola and Tarquinius and I’m grateful. I’m only sorry that I’ve made life even harder for you.’
‘You haven’t...’
‘I have.’ Her fingers tightened. ‘You made an enemy of a senior officer just to protect me. You put your career at risk and if anyone finds out about my mother then you’ll have an even harder time becoming Senior Centurion. That’s what you need to do, to fulfil your ambition for your father’s sake. Julia and I can go away and live somewhere else—’
‘No!’ he interrupted her fiercely. ‘I don’t want you to go away. I thought I was angry because I risked my career for you, but you made me realise how worthless that ambition was, at least in the way I was pursuing it, without emotion, without love. I won’t let ambition rule my life any more. If I become Senior Centurion, then I’ll do it the way I want to do it, as the man I want to be, my father’s son. Your husband, too, if you’ll still have me? And I don’t want you to deny who you are or lie about who your mother was either.’
‘Do you mean it?’ Her eyes were bright with emotion.
‘Yes. I lost my way before, but I won’t do it again. I think I always knew it deep down. That’s why I risked my sword for you, because I knew some things were more important. I knew that you were more important. You still are. That game had nothing to do with revenge, Livia. I played because I couldn’t stand the thought of Scaevola laying so much as a finger on you.’
‘You didn’t want him to touch me?’ Her voice sounded faintly husky.
‘I didn’t want any other man to touch you. I wanted to be the one to do that.’
‘But I thought...’ She licked her lips, as if she felt the need to moisten them. ‘On our wedding night, you didn’t...and then the other night...’
‘On our wedding night, you needed time with your daughter. The other night you seemed tense and I didn’t want to force you into anything.’ He raised both hands to her face this time, cradling it gently between his fingers. ‘It wasn’t that I didn’t want you.’
‘So you do want me?’
He leaned closer, sensing rather than seeing her sway towards him, too. ‘I want you as much as I did the first time I saw you, more than any woman I’ve ever met. Whatever our reasons for marrying, whatever our loyalties, you were right—there is a bond between us. We belong with each other and I want you, Livia. Now.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
A swell of desire surged through her body, building in heat and strength as it went. Livia closed her eyes, swept up in the feeling. His words made her feel warm inside, too. There was a sense of rightness to them, as if this truly was the place she belonged, not outside on a wall between two enemies, but here in the arms of a man who understood how it felt not to belong.
She skimmed her fingers across his chest, amazed as always by its breadth, and for a moment her thoughts skittered back to Julius. He’d been reasonably tall and well built, but nothing like this... She pushed the thought aside. She didn’t want to think about her first husband, not now. The only man she wanted to think about was the one standing in front of her. No, she corrected, she didn’t want to think at all. She only
wanted to feel.
‘Livia?’ Marius’s voice was a low rumble, a vibration she seemed to feel in every part of her body. ‘If you don’t want me, tell me now.’
She didn’t answer, flexing her fingers by way of response. He didn’t ask again, taking a step back to pull off his mail shirt before wrapping his hands around her waist and hauling her against him again, so close that she could feel the strong pulse of his heartbeat pounding against her breast. Her own pulse fluttered faster to meet it, as if they were beating a rhythm together, one body already.
She lifted her face and then his lips fell upon hers, meeting them with an intensity equal to her own. His tongue slipped inside her mouth, tasting and sucking and stroking as his hands explored her body, trailing their way down the long column of her back and over the curve of her bottom, drawing her ever closer towards him.
