Call to Juno (Tales of Ancient Rome #3)(86)

She froze as he examined her. He placed his lamp next to hers. “She was taller than you. She lacked your curves.”

Stricken with guilt, Pinna fumbled with the drawstrings, but he reached across and stayed her hand.

“Is this what you want? To be able to wear a stola and palla?”

She bowed her head, humiliated to be exposed in her fancy. She waited for his anger but instead his touch was gentle. He brushed her lips with his fingers, his other hand smoothing the pleats of the dress until he rested it on her waist. “Because that is what I want also. I want you to be my wife.”

She was unsure if she’d heard him correctly. Her stunned silence provoked laughter. “Well, what do you say?”

She wanted to forget the sin that stained her. She wanted to say yes. Then she remembered Genucius, the sour aftertaste of his threat spoiling the sweetness of the moment. “I can’t, my Wolf. It wouldn’t be wise. What would your family say? Your sons? Your friends?”

He wrapped his arms around her. “I don’t care what they think.”

She shook her head, drawing back within the circle of his embrace. “Yet you were reluctant to introduce me to your younger brother yesterday.”

He frowned. “Was I? It was not deliberate. I was excited to hear his news. Don’t you see? I will be a general again. No longer powerless.”

She felt ashamed she’d doubted him. She could feel the energy within him even though he’d been awake all night. She was touched that his first thought on returning home was to find her. His request that she tend to Spurius now seemed trivial. He had things of greater import than her feelings on his mind. Nevertheless, the same qualms about the differences in their rank assailed her. “My Wolf, I’m a farmer’s daughter. You’re a nobleman.”

“No, you are Lollia, daughter of Gnaeus Lollius, a soldier of Rome. And now you will be the wife of Marcus Furius Camillus.”

She bowed her head, unable to face him, but he hooked his finger under her chin, guiding her to look at him. “Pinna, don’t be afraid. It’s not against the law for patrician and plebeian to marry anymore.”

She covered his hand with his. Genucius was right. She loved Camillus too much to let him be ridiculed, the great general ruled by his cock instead of his brain. “Please, my Wolf. How could I ask Juno for her blessing? She may grow angry that I dare to wed you. A concubine is impure.”

“Nonsense. You will loosen your hair and sacrifice a lamb to cleanse yourself before her altar. And then, when I wed you, such a rite will never be needed again. You’ll no longer be tainted as an unmarried woman who has lain with me.”

Pinna wished it were true. She reached up and touched the scar on his cheek, tracing the line of the grooves that defined his mouth, the laughter creases around his eyes. “I must say no, my Wolf. I will not be the one to weaken you.”

Camillus stepped back, grappling with rejection. Confused as to why she would refuse his proposal when it was clear that was what she hungered for. “No one will dare challenge my strength.” He turned toward the door. “But I can’t command you.”

She grabbed his arm. “Wait! Please don’t be angry.”

He turned back to her.

She untied the ribbons and sashes so that the stola rippled to the floor, then she stepped from the crumpled circle of cloth, shivering in her night shift. “I’m content to be your concubine, my Wolf. I already have all that I could wish for.”

The loud, boastful crow of a rooster was piercing. They glanced around. A shaft of light, rosy and bright, shone through the doorway. Pinna smiled. Her goddess had once again fought back the night to ride her chariot across the sky. She held out her hand to him. “See, my Wolf, Mater Matuta is pleased with us. We can witness the start of a new day together.”

He locked his fingers through hers, watching the room fill with light.

“You’re like the sun to me, my Wolf. Fierce and bright and hot. You should worship the dawn goddess. She will bring you victory.”

“I will take all steps to placate her and the Latins.”

She looped her arms around his neck. “Her temple is derelict in Rome, my Wolf.”

He laughed, stroking her hair. “You’re persistent on her behalf.”

“I want her to protect you.”

“Perhaps she already has. My victory against the Volscians was at daybreak. It gave us an advantage of surprise. They didn’t expect the enemy to spring from the verge of darkness.”

She lowered one hand, stroking his thigh. “When you received this wound? When you fought with a spear still embedded in your flesh?”

He grasped her hand. “There is no time for that. It’s daylight.”

Pinna blocked the thought that even whores end their shift at sunrise. She walked across the room and shut the door, once again plunging them into a gloom lit only by the wavering flames of the oil lamps. She was prepared to break taboos, prepared to risk offending her deity.

Even in the half shadows, she could see his surprise as she shut the chest’s lid, then clutched two handfuls of his tunic, pulling him around. Yet he didn’t resist, smiling as she pushed him down to sit. She straddled him, knowing her influence over him would always be as a lover, not a wife.

Camillus rested his forehead against hers. “I don’t know what to do with you, Pinna. You’re stealing my soul from me.”