The Warrior's Bride Prize. Jenni Fletcher
gave a curt nod, not trusting herself to speak as she turned and made her way hastily back to the carriage. She didn’t want to look at him any longer—him or any other man. All she wanted was to be left alone, to be a widow and mother, to find a place to belong and to raise her daughter in peace. Was that so much to ask?
Yes.
She knew the answer because Tarquinius had made it clear to her before she’d left Lindum. No matter what kind of man was waiting for her in Coria, she had to go ahead with the marriage. She had no freedom, no money and no choice. She had to do what her half-brother ordered or he’d cast her and Julia off from his protection for ever. She was heading for the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire, to the very border with her mother’s homeland—one of the many facts she was specifically forbidden to mention—to the place she’d spent her whole life wanting to see and now dreaded the sight of. There was no turning back and nowhere else to go. Worse than that, there wasn’t the slightest hope of escape.
What kind of man was Lucius Scaevola?
Marius waited until the woman had climbed back inside her carriage before storming to the front of the column, stamping his hobnailed boots so violently that it looked as if he were trying to hammer the cobbled road to pieces.
What kind of a man was he?
What the hell kind of question was that? What could he say of a nineteen-year-old wastrel who hadn’t even had the decency to come and greet his new bride himself? He knew what he ought to have said, what he was expected to say of a senior officer, but honour had prevented him from lying and now he had the uncomfortable suspicion that he’d only made her feel ten times more anxious than she clearly already was.
‘Anything to report?’ He fell into step beside Pulex, glaring ferociously.
‘No, sir.’ His Optio did a double take at the sight of him. ‘Something the matter, sir?’
‘No.’ He forced his jaw to relax. After all, his bad temper had nothing to do with his second-in-command. ‘Have you seen any signs of unrest? Anything out of the ordinary?’
‘Nothing, sir.’ Pulex shook his head. ‘Do you really think there’s something to worry about?’
‘I don’t know.’
Marius rubbed a hand across his forehead, trying to ease the band of tension that seemed to have settled there ever since the woman had mistaken him for her new husband. Such a trivial mistake shouldn’t have bothered him, especially since it had been addressed and dealt with. There was certainly no need to still be thinking about it when there were bigger, far bigger, matters at hand.
A Caledonian rebellion, for a start.
Not that anyone believed him. Quite the opposite—most of the Roman officers in Coria thought he was being alarmist, but then they treated the local Briton tribes with contempt and dismissed any rumours that came from them. Now that Septimius Severus had been declared Emperor and the bulk of the British garrison had returned from fighting in Gaul, most simply assumed that the threat from the northern tribes had gone and the wall was invincible again.
Marius wasn’t so sure. He’d been sent back to Britannia earlier than most, three years before when a distracted Rome had started to take the threat to its northern borders seriously again. He knew what the tribes were capable of, knew that the wall had been breached on more than one occasion, with mile-castles burned down and even a few forts destroyed. The idea of a lasting peace was still fragile. During the past decade the tribes had not only learned that Rome wasn’t infallible, but they’d discovered exactly where its weaknesses lay—and there were still sections of the wall that needed repair and reinforcements.
‘All we can do is stay alert.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Pulex gestured towards the carriage. ‘What was all that about?’
The band around Marius’s head tightened again. ‘She wanted to talk about Scaevola. She’s worried about meeting him.’
‘She ought to be. You have to pity the woman.’
Marius made a non-committal sound, fixing his gaze on the horizon with a scowl. Pity wasn’t exactly the emotion he’d been feeling, though he supposed it was one among many. On the whole, however, his mind, not to mention his body, had been governed by a far different emotion, one that was still making him feel too hot beneath his mail shirt and armour.
To say that he’d been caught by surprise was an understatement. He hadn’t wanted to be there in the first place, regarding the whole mission as a waste of both time and resources, but he’d expected a girl, not a woman, and especially not one who was quite so stunningly beautiful, albeit not in a conventional or fashionable way. Her face was too round, her forehead too wide, her nose and cheeks dotted with clusters of tiny brown freckles, but there was something mesmerising about her none the less, an inner radiance accompanied by an air of sadness that gave her face a deeper beauty than that of any other woman he’d ever come across. She’d seemed strong and yet vulnerable at the same time, the proud tilt of her head putting him in mind of an empress, a woman he might feel honoured to serve. His first thought upon seeing her was that Scaevola was the luckiest dog this side of the Tiber.
As for her hair... He’d seen red hair before, of course, though nothing quite so resplendent. If he didn’t know better he would have thought she was Caledonian. Trailing over a bosom that had raised his temperature by a few more painful degrees, it had looked like some kind of lustrous dawn-kissed waterfall, rippling with amber lights. He’d been acutely aware of her womanly figure, too, all the curves and contours barely disguised by a tight-fitting, silken stola, though he’d tried his hardest not to look, losing himself in the depths of her luminous blue-green eyes instead while he’d tried to pull himself back together. Surely no more than a minute could have passed while he’d simply stood and stared, though it had been long enough for her to come to a mistaken assumption about his identity.
What on earth had caused her to jump to such a ludicrous conclusion? Annoyance warred with self-recrimination. She might have asked who he was before simply assuming! But then it had been an easy mistake, especially for someone who didn’t know anything about her betrothed, as she clearly didn’t. And of course she’d assumed that the man who’d come to greet her, not to mention one who’d stared at her quite so openly, was the man she was going to marry! It had been a natural misunderstanding, though one that might have been avoided if only he’d introduced himself sooner. If only he hadn’t been rendered temporarily speechless at the sight of her. Now he wasn’t sure who he was angrier with, himself or Scaevola, but it was no wonder she’d looked so flushed and self-conscious. He could hardly have behaved any more inappropriately!
Perhaps that explained why he’d felt unable to refuse when she’d asked to march alongside him. Granting such a request was against protocol, not to mention his own better judgement, but he’d agreed anyway, distracted by the mention of her legs and the realisation that he wanted, very much, to see them. When she’d tugged her stola up around her calves he’d felt an almost overpowering urge to glance downwards. Besides, he’d been impressed by the fact that she hadn’t simply run away after her mistake. Embarrassed though she’d been, she’d stayed anyway, asking her questions about Scaevola with an air of quiet determination. Clearly she was no shy and retiring Roman maiden, even if he’d been unable to give her the answers she’d wanted. Even his attempt at consolation had failed. Damn it all, he knew how to address a whole cohort of soldiers, to send men into battle when necessary, but he’d been unable to offer comfort to one woman!
He quickened the marching pace, muttering a series of increasingly vehement denunciations against Lucius Scaevola under his breath. He was the one who ought to have come to greet her—she was his bride, after all! Albeit an unwanted one, if the look on that good-for-nothing’s face as they’d passed on the steps of the Legate’s