‘Because I don’t talk about my father. If you want to know more, then ask someone else. Half the legion could tell you.’
‘I don’t want someone else to tell me. I want you to do it! I’ve just told you everything about my mother. Why can’t you do the same?’
‘Because he dishonoured my family!’
‘Our family now! Mine and yours and Julia’s, too! And did he really dishonour it? Or was that just according to Rome?’ She narrowed her eyes scornfully. ‘You know the similarity between us, Marius? We’ve both been told that our pasts are shameful, something we ought to hide, but the difference is that you actually believe it! I don’t. Yes, I should have told you about my mother before, but now that I have, I’m glad of it. I don’t want to hide her away any more! I’m the daughter of a Caledonian slave, but she was a good woman, a better person than most Romans I’ve met. I’ve never been ashamed of her. I could never be ashamed of someone I loved, no matter how many insults are hurled at me, but you’re so deeply enslaved to the Empire that it never occurs to you that Rome might be wrong!’
‘I said I don’t talk about him!’
‘Do you really think that Rome is so perfect? Do you think that fools like Scaevola should be allowed to rule just because of who their fathers are? Was your father any worse than him?’ She stormed up to face him. ‘Even if he was, it doesn’t reflect upon you!’
‘If you can say that, then you really aren’t Roman.’
‘Then maybe I don’t want to be Roman!’ She shoved him hard in the chest, the words bursting out of her in a frenzy. ‘Maybe I’d prefer to be Caledonian!’
‘Exactly.’ His tone was brutal. ‘Which is why I can’t trust you.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Marius stormed out of the villa and along the Via Praetoria,
mind whirling as if there were some kind of tempest raging inside his head. He’d asked her for the truth and she’d given it, more than he’d ever imagined, so much that he’d had to get out, to get some space to think, to absorb everything she’d told him and then work out exactly how he felt about it.
More than anything, he was furious. How could she have kept such a secret from him, now of all times, just when he’d thought they’d been getting closer? Just when he’d thought... He stopped the thought in its tracks. He wasn’t going to think it, wasn’t going to acknowledge any feeling for her at all when he was so furious.
Ironically, however, it wasn’t her story itself that enraged him, or at least not her part in it. When she’d told him about her marriage, he’d felt angry enough at her half-brother and first husband that he could cheerfully have wrung both their necks, though towards her he’d felt only sympathy. That and a strong desire to gather her up in his arms. The truth about her mother didn’t horrify him in the way she’d seemed to expect either. The fact that she was half-Caledonian didn’t bother him. Even the fact that her mother had been a slave didn’t bother him, although he knew many Romans would regard it as something to be ashamed of. The fact that she’d been keeping secrets from him definitely did bother him.
Yet even then he could understand it. Much as he resented her not telling him, he could see why she hadn’t. She was right—everything had happened quickly and she’d had Julia to think about. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to protect her daughter and after everything she’d been through he could appreciate her lack of trust. And she’d certainly been acting strangely on the evening of their arrival in Cilurnum. Maybe she had been trying to tell him something then... Now that he thought about it, he’d actually discouraged her from doing so.
No, he conceded, he wasn’t furious with her for either the details of her past or for not telling him. Both of those he could deal with. He wasn’t even upset with her admission about freeing the prisoner if she could. Under the circumstances, he couldn’t blame her. Imprisoning her in the villa, too, was only common sense, but lack of trust still wasn’t the root of his anger. No, that was something else...something that his mind instinctively shied away from, but that, for once, he couldn’t deny. It was the dent to his pride, the idea that she might have married him simply because of who his father was, that infuriated him, as if her secret would be safe with the son of a dishonoured soldier, a man who couldn’t be blackmailed because he couldn’t sink any lower.
Deep down, however, he knew even that was unfair. There had been an attraction between them from the start, a bond she’d called it—a word that seemed to describe perfectly what he’d felt, too. Despite everything, he believed that she’d wanted to marry him, a claim that might have warmed his heart the day before, but now left him cold. He believed that she was sorry. He even believed that his father had had nothing to do with her decision to marry him. But the very thought of his father had, as usual, made him see red.
Besides, it wasn’t true that he couldn’t be blackmailed. He did have something to lose, something he’d wanted and worked towards for the past thirteen years. Despite his recent, reckless behaviour, he still wanted to become Senior Centurion. It was the only way to redeem his honour after his father’s disgrace, the thing he wanted most in the world, or so he’d thought. He’d jeopardised that ambition simply by gambling with Scaevola in the first place and now the truth about her past could destroy it completely. She had the potential to bring disgrace on him, too, in some eyes at least. How could she have let him risk so much?
On the other hand, she hadn’t forced him to gamble—she hadn’t even known about the game of tabula—and, as much as he resented the accusation, he hadn’t exactly been open with her either. He’d hardly told her anything about his father at all. How was she supposed to know how badly his father’s disgrace had tainted his life or how much he needed to redeem his own honour?
His father’s disgrace... His own honour... He stopped abruptly, as if he’d just walked into a wall, standing stock-still and staring sightlessly ahead. Once upon a time it had been both of their honours that he’d set out to restore. Since when had it become just his? Since when had he stopped including his father in his ambitions and become ashamed of him instead?
It was raining again, he realised absently, heavily enough that pellets of water were dripping from his hair into his face. He hadn’t even noticed when he’d stepped outside. In truth, he barely felt it now, though he was almost soaked to the skin. Anyone looking at him would think he was mad.
Perhaps he was. He felt mad suddenly, Livia’s words pursuing him out into the open air, refusing to let him run away, demanding his attention. He’d gone to accuse her and she’d accused him right back—of hypocrisy, of putting Rome ahead of his father, of being enslaved to the Empire. And the worst of it was that she was right.
I could never be ashamed of someone I loved!
Those were the words that had really made him furious, the accusation that had sent him charging out of the villa and into the elements, fleeing the sudden onslaught of guilt. Now he couldn’t escape it as a flurry of memories came back to him, the impressions of a thirteen-year-old boy listening to his father’s dying words. He’d loved his father then, deeply and fiercely, only somehow over the years he’d forgotten it. He’d joined the army seeking redemption and yet at some point he’d let single-minded ambition and purpose take over from emotion, even from love. He’d let anger and bitterness get the better of him, allowing himself to be swayed by the opinions of others until finally he’d come to believe that his father really had betrayed and abandoned him. He’d become ashamed of someone he’d loved, someone he hadn’t realised he still loved, and he hadn’t even known it until Livia had told him. Was he going to turn on her now, too, like he had his father? Like her husband had on her?
He tipped his head back, letting the rain splash over his face as if it were some kind of cleansing force. Livia was right—they were similar. He knew how it felt to be torn between two conflicting loyalties as well. Deep inside, he’d always been just as divided as she was, torn between love for his father and loyalty to the Empire he’d sworn to serve.
Love and loyalty, two things that ought to go hand in hand, but which life seemed to have made very complicated all of a sudden. He couldn’t think of a worse time to start questioning his loyalty to Rome, on the very eve of a Caledonian rebellion, but now that he’d finally come to his senses, it was too late to go back. He’d do his duty to the Empire, would stay loyal to his oath of allegiance, but if he had to choose then he chose her, the woman he suddenly realised he loved—he’d been a fool not to see it before—the woman he wanted more than any ambition. Which meant, if they were going to have any kind of future together, there was only one thing he could do.
He turned his feet in the direction of the prison, gripped with a new sense of urgency.
‘Open the cell!’ he bellowed ahead to the guard.
‘Sir?’
‘Release him.’