Barbarian Princess by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788632034
Publisher: Canelo Books
Published: 2019-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Whatever it was that was abroad in the moonshine that night, Flavius felt it, too. The windows were propped open, and the moon turned the lotus flowers silver. Aemelia, in her night shift, was brushing her hair at a marble-topped table with fanciful crocodile legs. The flickering lamplight gave the crocodiles a jovial look.

“It will be nice to go to parties again,” Flavius said lazily. “I should think you’ll like that.” He was stretched on the bed with his hands clasped behind his head, watching her. He would like it himself, he thought, spending his off-duty hours socializing in Rome instead of sitting in a Lindum wineshop drinking cheap wine and watching it rain.

“Yes.” A vision of hitherto forbidden pleasures danced in the mirror before her. Aemelia was not long out of the schoolroom, and the amusements considered suitable for a schoolgirl couldn’t compare with those of a married lady. But it wasn’t respectable to go to parties by herself, and without Flavius to escort her, she might as well have been still in the schoolroom. Her mother and Lady Antonia had definite ideas about the conduct suitable for a young bride.

Now, with Flavius on the praetorian prefect’s staff, they would be invited everywhere. They could even have their own parties… Flavius was going to build a house of their own. Holding court for envoys and foreign ambassadors and the leading men of Rome… Aemelia drew the brush through her hair dreamily, while Flavius watched her with amusement.

She’s a nice girl, but there isn’t much to her, he thought with sudden clarity. She’s relieved not to have to follow me about on some dreary frontier or feel guilty because she isn’t. Not like Correus’s Freita – but I couldn’t have lived with Freita. Maybe that’s why I love Aemelia; because she is less than I am. What that said about himself, he wasn’t sure, but he knew it for the truth in this odd, moonlit moment of knowledge. He shrugged his shoulders. It didn’t matter. It simply was.

“We’ll pick the site for the house tomorrow,” he said, and smiled when her face lit up. He held his arms out, and she came and sat on the edge of the bed. He ran his hand down the front of her shift and she watched him solemnly. “It’s not supposed to be a duty,” he whispered. “It’s supposed to be fun.” He pulled her down on the bed beside him and kissed her. After a moment she slipped an arm around his neck.

The lotus flowers shimmered in the moonlight, and the cat-headed god on the far wall seemed to smile benignly at them. You’ll be happy with me, Flavius thought. You wouldn’t have been with Correus. He started to say it aloud, and stopped. Let her come to that knowledge herself. And if it suited her to keep Correus as a pleasant daydream somewhere in the back of her mind, it took nothing away from Flavius. The dried herbs in

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