Chapter 1

The Meeting

Unrest crackled in the air like static electricity. The soldiers forming the large column were stone-faced and serious. She was used to them being around her home on her father’s business, but they were usually more relaxed than this. Also, the column had ridden up to the house quickly, and the flecks of foam around the horses’ mouths told her that they’d been driven hard all the way from Rome.

Her heart almost stopped as they clattered in through the gate and immediately surrounded the house, as if to take over the property. The centurion leaped off his horse and sprang to her doorway, demanding, “Portia, come here immediately.” Centurions were always courteous and deferential in her presence so this brusque treatment was unprecedented and told her that something was wrong. Very wrong.

The centurion handed her her father’s ring, and told her, “There was no time for a written message. You recognize the ring as your father’s. This is so that you will believe me and the legitimacy of what I am about to tell you.”

The slender woman looked up into the face of the enormous, muscular centurion and saw in his deep brown eyes that she could trust him. She nodded and said, “Continue.”

“My name is Flavius and I have a message of great importance for you from your father. There have been some disturbances in the city and there is an element of danger for your safety. I have been dispatched by your father to make sure you are kept safe and to guard you until the danger has passed.”

She was not accustomed to having one speak so boldly to her but, as she looked at the ring in her hand, she knew it was her father’s ring and she believed his story. “How do you intend to proceed?” she asked.

Flavius informed her, “I plan to split my men, some inside the house and some outside.”

“I am not a military person and would be uncomfortable with soldiers in my home. Is it possible that the men could be all stationed outside? The military is not my way of life and the thought of seeing Rome’s fighting men in my home gives me alarm.”

She saw the steely resolve in his eyes and knew that this man was unaccustomed to having an order questioned but, since this was a senator’s daughter, he took pause to consider her request. Finally he said, “Your father personally gave me that order and it cannot be changed. Your protection is of the utmost concern to your father. I will agree to station the men outside but I insist on placing a well-trained centurion inside.”

With that, he strode towards the house with a self-confident swagger. She knew further discussion would be pointless and stepped aside to allow him entrance.

He immediately set about searching all the rooms and, once satisfied that there were no intruders present, he strode back through the entrance and quickly gave orders to his men to form defensive perimeters around the house. They knew exactly what to do and executed Flavius’ orders with military precision. These were men who understood training. They understood the life of the warrior. They went about their business knowing exactly what was expected of them. After all, Rome’s Praetorian Guard were the finest, fittest and best trained soldiers in the world.

Flavius returned, asking, “How many people are in this household, madam?”

“I have three ladies-in-waiting.”

“Then send them away. There is too much danger to allow them to stay.”

 “But why?” she asked. “They have always been faithful to me. They are my friends. You have nothing to fear from them. They are gently bred.”

Flavius retorted, “No matter how gently bred your ladies might be, there is always room for an assassin’s bribe. I have already given you one concession but I will not allow you to change that part of my plan. My duty to protect a senator’s daughter outweighs all other things.”

With mention of threats to her safety, fear welled up from deep within her soul and she shivered. Yet she knew she could trust this man. She knew she could put her heart in his hand and he would treat it gently, so she didn’t protest when a group of soldiers arrived to give her ladies safe escort back to Rome where they would be protected by other centurions in a special barracks set up under Flavius.

Even though there might be some danger afoot, she felt that this man had everything under control. Flavius was renown for his reliability and prowess as a soldier, so she acquiesced to his demands. Besides, if anything did happen to her, the fate that would await him was truly unthinkable. “I will do whatever you think is best,” she said, and he relaxed a little. As she looked up into his eyes, she saw his gentler side coexisting with the force of steel.

“You’re sure they will be safe?” she asked.

“Yes, I will protect them,” Flavius said.

She bid the three safe journey and they left, along with their laughter. The house was suddenly quiet. So quiet, in fact, that fear again welled up from the pit of her stomach and she shivered yet again. She was afraid because none of her friends were near. Her father neither. She had his ring, but that was all. Admittedly, she was home, but she felt as if that home had been taken from her, as if she was a stranger in it. Somehow everything in her life had changed in the last few minutes, and that scared her.

Sensing her fear, Flavius said, “I will make my bed in this room, right outside your doorway and no one will get through that outer door. My men are stationed on the perimeters and I will be here next to you, my lady.”

She looked around the huge sunless room and said, “This room is so large and dark and you would be so far away. I know that you will be there but can you move closer to my door so that I can see you through the doorway? Then if I wake up, I will know that you are there?”

As she spoke, Flavius’ trained eye noticed a slight, very slight, almost imperceptible, shudder in her shoulder, and it felt like a sword going through his heart. He suddenly realized that he’d been so intent in setting up his military command that he’d overlooked the fact that this slender, gentile woman, who lived a cloistered life with her three ladies-in-waiting, knew nothing of the ways of the military and was handling the situation with grace and aplomb. As he looked down at her, his eyes were filled with admiration and he felt that little shudder in her shoulder run through his whole body, which puzzled him. He knew about duty, courage and honor, and doing the will of Rome, but this gentle, sweet diminutive woman standing before him made him shudder, something that had never happened before, not even in the fiercest battle.

When he looked into her eyes, he saw the shudder again and felt it in his soul. “I will be there. You will see me. Have no fear, my men are protecting both of us. They know their jobs and will give their lives to protect you. I have personally trained them well. They are my own contingent. They understand exactly what is to be done, and why they are here. I will put my pallet by your door so that you can see me.”

As she heard those words, all the terror, known and unknown, seemed to wash out of her body, into the room and away from the villa. It was as if there was nothing in the night but perfume and flowers and the sounds of the mountains as they danced in the heart of Rome. She felt pure, cleansed and sun-drenched, and a strange sensation in her chest that she’d never had before. She felt protected, safe and comfortable. She didn’t always feel comfortable around people, which is why she’d taken up her home in the summer residence far from the crowds and politics of Rome. Out here, she felt comfortable with the sun and the quiet and the birds and the flowers.

And now suddenly, all these men surrounded her precious home, interrupting her household and sending away her friends. Just her and this man, this stranger who had burst into her life, a life forever changed. Tonight, he will be just outside my room, she thought, and I can look at him while he sleeps, see his amber curls in the moonlight. She had seen curls before, but they didn’t quite move her as did these curls.

As she prepared for bed, she thought, my heart seems to be beating a little bit faster and I don’t understand why. Puzzled, she extinguished the oil lamp and undressed. As she allowed her clothes to fall from her body to the floor, they made a slight rustle. Then she unbraided her hair so it fell down over her shoulders, almost covering her breasts, so that the nipples were barely exposed.

Through a gap in the night clouds, moonlight flooded in through the window, and Flavius marveled at Portia’s lithe moon-bathed body. As she slid under the cover, his pulse quickened as he admired the firm swell of her breasts, tipped by the brown nipples.

After a few minutes, a little shudder ran through her body and she thought, it must be because of the strange circumstances of the night. She realized that it wasn’t the fact that a hundred soldiers were camped out around the house, nor that her ladies had left. The strange circumstances were the curls she saw just outside her bedroom door.

The moonlight returned and revealed that below those curls was a man’s forehead furrowed in a deep frown. I wonder if he frowns a lot in his sleep, or if it has something to do with his helmet. That little line in his forehead is interesting. I wish there was enough light to see the ends of it. She knew it was there but couldn’t see the end of that line. Sighing, she pulled the cover up around her body. Somehow all of this seems strange, she thought. It must be because of all of those men around my house. Yes, that’s why I am feeling so strange.

Flavius was anything but asleep. He had noted that Portia had discreetly put the lamp out, thinking that, in the moonlight, he wouldn’t see her. But as she slipped into the bed, he saw, dimly lit, the smooth porcelain skin of her arms and legs and the dark, curly V at the top of her thighs. As she pulled the cover up to just under her breasts, she stopped to admire the moon scudding between the clouds, and he again saw those dark nipples playing hide-and-seek through her hair.

And he struggled to regain his composure, he didn’t ever remember being in a situation such as this. What was a lion of Rome doing, lying outside a lady’s bedroom? And the strange feelings coursing through him he didn’t understand at all. For the first time in his life, in the pit of his stomach, this brave warrior felt confusion and uncertainty in the presence of a woman.

Suddenly, all his senses were acutely intensified. He felt the hardness of the cot against his body. The cover that lightly rested on his toe. The constricting weight of the armor he still wore so as to be ready at a moment’s notice, sword in hand.

But the feeling, that unsure feeling, puzzled him and he didn’t know what to do about that. Nothing in his past had prepared him for this, and he was unsure about what it was. It certainly couldn’t be a love for a patrician senator’s daughter. That was unthinkable. Suddenly, a muscle in his shoulder twitched, and he tried to get it to stop but failed. It was as if he no longer had control over his body.

As the moon rose higher in the night sky, it cast more of its light into the room, clearly illuminating her face. He thought he saw her eyelashes flutter for a second but wasn’t sure whether he’d seen it or felt it in his heart. She sighed, and all he knew was that he wanted to be closer to that sigh. He wanted to feel her breath on his skin. Then he too sighed; this was turning out to be one of the most difficult nights that he could remember.

He also listened intently to the night sounds made by his soldiers, to the sound of the horses, for anything more sinister, such as a whisper or shout as an assassin crept through the perimeter.

Occasionally, his attention would be pulled back to Portia as she sighed in her sleep. As she turned, he followed the movement of her curves under the blanket. Then another shudder ran through him, something he didn’t understand. Centurions don’t shudder, he told himself. As she slept, he listened to her deep, even breathing. He visualized her breasts heaving up and down with each breath, her nipples rubbing against the cover.

In torment, he couldn’t sleep. His thoughts would not allow him to sleep. But as the glow of the new day’s first light came through the windows, he knew that he must have fallen asleep at some point. The thought did not worry him even though he reminded himself that if anything had happened to this woman, he would die in inconceivable agony as punishment. But he knew that he had trained his men well, and that they had been out there through the night, rotating guard duty to secure the perimeter, taking sleep when necessary. This he knew. He would stake his life on it … and often had.

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Chapter 3

Notes

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