The Roman’s Revenge. Caroline Storer

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       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 СКАЧАТЬ