Harlequin Historical April 2018--Box Set 2 of 2 by Lauri Robinson

Author:Lauri Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488087516
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It did not take long to spy her. She sauntered amongst the other servants like a Pegasus among horses. Still, it was not her gait that caught his attention, but her inappropriately exposed flesh. Her abundant breasts, unclothed and fully visible, swayed gently with her movements, drawing his astonishment, then, might Jupiter strike him down, his desire.

It was profane, the way that she was dressed. He could not believe that the Queen had allowed it. He knew that Egyptians did not follow traditional codes of modesty, but this went far beyond a mere cultural conceit. This was a corruption of decency.

He could not abide it. He was a military commander and a senator’s son, after all. He had been gently raised. He had been educated at Rhodes, had been weaned on Pericles and the ideals of self-rule. Who was he if he could not rule his own lust?

She was just a woman, after all. A woman was only as powerful as a man allowed her to become. That was what he had always believed, had been taught since he was a boy. You have no dominion over me, he told himself now, as he watched her move amidst the Queen’s allies. You are just like all the other women serving at this banquet.

But she was not like the other women. She wore the same long white tunic and same black, shoulder-length wig, but her eyes were brighter, her lips redder, her honey skin flush with some greater store of vivacity.

And her mind? Her mind was a mysterious weapon—as elegant and clever as the Trojan Horse.

He wanted her so badly that he felt ill. She had rejected him, mistrusted him, even threatened his life, yet he wanted her more and more each day.

Her lips alone were like medicine. He craved their healing, their soft uncertainty. The feel of her body against his had been a salve for his troubled soul, one that stimulated and soothed all at once. There was a peculiar magic at work for certain—some ancient Egyptian curse that turned educated, honourable men into helpless fools.

He drank down his goblet in the hopes of calming himself, but the wine only increased his ardour. It seemed that every Roman officer in the room had his eyes on her, along with every Alexandrian high-born worthy of his robe. Who is that gracious Egyptian beauty with breasts like Venus and eyes like a doe’s? they whispered.

She is mine, he wished to say, though it would have been a lie. She had allowed him to kiss her, that was true—both in the boat and in the Library. And the kisses, while chaste, had sent him spinning. But both kisses had been interrupted: the first by the call of duty and the second by Wen herself, leaving him to wonder if she wanted him at all.

He adjusted the folds of his toga and downed another goblet of wine. He would speak with her this very night. He would take her aside and ask her all the questions cluttering his mind.

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