Harper’s eyebrows had slid up his forehead as she rattled off her résumé. Now he cleared his throat and said, “Right, let’s start at the beginning. I believe that was a perfume maker?”
Drina chuckled and nodded. “My father first settled in Egypt, my mother was Egyptian. It’s where I was born. Women had a lot more freedom there. We were actually considered equal to men, well mostly anyway. Certainly more equal than in other cultures,” she added dryly. “We could own businesses, sign contracts, and actually work and make a living rather than be a burden to our fathers or male relatives.”
“And you grew up to be a perfume maker,” Harper murmured.
“My mother wanted me to be a seshet, a scribe,” she explained with a grimace. “But I was fascinated by scent, how the blending of them could create another wholly different aroma and so on.” She smiled, and added, “It turns out I was very good at it. The rich came from far and wide to buy my scents. I made a very good living, owned my own large home and servants and all without having to have a man at my side. It was the good life,” she said with a grin that faded quickly. Heaving a sigh, she then added, “But the Romans arrived and ruined everything. Those bloody idiots invaded everywhere and brought their more archaic laws with them. Women were not equal in Roman society.” She scowled, and then a smile began to tug at her lips again. “I couldn’t run a business under their rule, but I could fight. I became a female gladiator. Amazones they called us.”
“After the Amazons I suppose?”
Drina nodded, and said dryly, “The Romans were as lacking in imagination as they were intelligence.”
Harper chuckled at her snide words, and she smiled.
“I wasn’t a gladiator long. It just wasn’t very challenging. The mortal gladiators were slower, weaker, and easy for me to defeat. It felt like cheating. I did try to avoid ‘to the death’ fights. That would have just been, well, like slaughtering sheep,” she said with distaste.
Harper nodded with understanding, and then they both fell silent and sat back as their waiter returned with the bottle of wine Harper had ordered. The man opened and poured a small amount in Harper’s glass for him to try, and when he nodded approval, quickly filled both glasses. He assured them their meal would follow directly, and then slipped away.
“So beating up mortal gladiators was no fun, and you gave it up to become . . .” He arched an eyebrow. “A concubine, was it?”
Drina chuckled at his expression. “Well, not just like that. Some time passed.” She paused to take a sip of wine, smiled as the smooth flavor filled her mouth, and then swallowed, and said, “In retrospect, I think the concubine gig was my rebellious stage. I did behave and live with my family, playing the dutiful daughter for a while before that. But it was very hard. After having tasted the freedom of living and ruling my own life, to suddenly be reduced to a dependent child was very frustrating.” She blew out an irritated breath at the memory.
“Ah,” Harper nodded with understanding. “Yes, I suppose it would be.”
“Perhaps, had I started out living in that sort of society and hadn’t tasted freedom, I would have handled it better,” Drina said thoughtfully. “But I wasn’t, so I didn’t take well to being ruled by a man. At least not with Stephano doing the bossing.”
“Your father?” Harper asked.
“No, my eldest brother. He was named after our father. Our parents died when the Romans first invaded, and Stephano then became the “head of the family.” She grimaced. “He and I are like oil and water. Or we were. We get along well enough now, though.” She grinned. “But boy did he pitch a fit over the concubine thing. He even called in Uncle Lucian to deal with me.”
Harper’s eyebrows rose. “I’m surprised Lucian bothered to intervene.”
“Well, it wasn’t just the concubine thing. I was a couple of centuries old by then, and I suppose my being a concubine wouldn’t have bothered him if I hadn’t stepped over the line.” She hesitated, and then sighed and said, “As you probably have experienced, mortals become boring as lovers and partners after a while.”
He nodded solemnly. “Easily read and controlled, it’s hard not to give in to the temptation to do so.”
“Yes, well . . .” Drina grimaced. “I’m afraid while I was seen as a concubine, I was really playing puppet master with my lover and kind of ruling the country through him. At least until Uncle Lucian caught wind of it and came to give me hell.”