As Sure as the Dawn(83)

Her touch sent a rush of sensation through his body, rousing an intense physical desire as well as a deeper longing he didn’t want to analyze. He looked straight into her eyes. Hers went wide and she took her hand from him. “Why must you always misunderstand me?” she said and looked away.

He turned her face back and smiled sardonically. “Maybe I do have something to live for, but I doubt the reasons I can think of right now have any similarities to yours.” He liked the rosy color that poured into her cheeks, the warmth of her skin when he brushed it with his fingertips.

She drew back from his touch. “People are watching us,” she said, embarrassed.

“Good. They’ll know to stay away from you.”

Pugnax showed them upstairs and opened the door into a spacious bedchamber. Rizpah didn’t move from the corridor until Atretes took her arm and pulled her into the room.

“Through here, my lady,” Pugnax said. He showed Rizpah into a small connecting room meant to accommodate a manservant or lady’s maid and left her there.

“Close enough?” she heard him say to Atretes. “Or would you prefer more privacy and her in a chamber not connected to your own?”

“She will be safe where she is.”

“And if you want other women?”

Atretes said something low and dismissed him.

Pugnax did exactly as she feared. “Atretes has returned to Rome,” a crier called below their window. “You can see him at the inn of Pugnax, gladiator of the great Circus Maximus!” Within hours, people began to arrive. Pugnax charged a fee for entry into his inn, the price increasing as did the numbers.

Although Atretes agreed to spend several hours in the banquet room so that guests could see him, he made no attempt to entertain anyone with stories of his exploits in the arena. In fact, he made no effort to talk to anyone who approached him. Women were enticed by his reticence; men resented it.

Rizpah remained in the upstairs room, eager to avoid curious eyes and embarrassing speculations. Atretes would return to the room tense, restless, and it worsened with each day that passed.

Caleb fussed incessantly. She was afraid he was sick until she felt the two small nubs sink into her breast and realized what was the matter. She rubbed his sore gums. Still he cried in frustration, and she put him down on a blanket, watching as he crawled off of it and headed across the room toward the carved legs of a couch. When he began to chew on one, she picked him up and put him back on the blanket again. He screamed in outrage.

Sure the sound carried right through the walls, Rizpah snatched up one of the fancy cushions and dangled it above him. “Caleb,” she said and swished his nose with a tassel. He stopped crying and reached up to grasp hold. She sat down and watched him chew on the captured cushion. He was not distracted for long.

She was exhausted when Atretes entered the room. He threw a pouch of coins onto the bed and stared at her for a moment in silence. “I’ve been invited to a banquet,” he finally said cryptically.

She was sure it wasn’t the first or only kind of invitation he had received over the past few days. She had dared go downstairs only once, curious to see his many amoratae and how they behaved toward him. It had only taken a few minutes to see the temptations he faced. Women surrounded him; beautiful, bold women who wanted him.

“Are you going?”

He turned his head and looked at her. Did she want him to leave? Was his company so distasteful? “Lady Perenna is not without a certain charm,” he said cynically, testing her reaction.

She fought down the sudden desire to jump up, slap his face, and scream at him the way Caleb had been screaming all afternoon. Instead, she rose from the floor and picked Caleb up with as much dignity as she could. “Do whatever pleases you, my lord, with Lady Perenna or anyone else who might wish to kiss your feet.” She carried the baby into the small servant’s quarters.

Caleb started to cry again. She tried to hold him close and comfort him, but he screamed louder, pushing at her. “Oh, Caleb,” she whispered brokenly, fighting back tears.

“Why don’t you nurse him?” Atretes said, standing in the doorway, smiling faintly.

“While you stand watching? I think not.”

His jaw stiffened. “There’s more to view downstairs.”

“Then go downstairs.”

“Give him suck, woman, or he’ll scream the walls down around our heads.”

Her eyes pricked with angry tears. “It won’t do any good. He’s not hungry.”

He frowned, straightening. He stepped into the small enclosure and knelt down before her. “Why didn’t you tell me something was wrong with him?”