Julia rubbed the back of her neck. Dismissing him was proving far harder than she had anticipated. Her heart kept whispering to her to prolong the encounter, to enjoy feeling that someone might be interested in her welfare. But was it worth risking her father's wrath?

The beginnings of a headache pounded between her eyebrows. She shook her head and refused to let confusion take hold of her tongue. She had to get rid of the man, no matter how much her heart wanted him to stay.

"Thank you for the offer but I would hate to think I put you to any trouble.'

'It will be no trouble at all. Apollonius will be visiting here later. He has to make sure my diet will be adequately catered for. The problems this new law has caused. Luckily Caesar spotted the Senate's move before it happened.'

Julia felt an ice-cold finger creep down her spine at his words. His diet catered for? The headache crashed over her in full force. She swallowed hard and reached out a hand to grasp the doorframe.

'I'm sorry, but I think I misheard you. Why would we be catering for your diet?'

'Because this is where I am staying.' Valens looked at her as if she had lost her mind. 'It has been all arranged.'

Julia stared at the tall gladiator, unable to believe what she had just heard. She had begun to hope that perhaps Sabina had been mistaken. But his words confirmed her worse fears. Somehow, she had inadvertently invited him. She'd have to bluff it out, get rid of him before her father returned. Make him understand it was a mistake.

'Pardon me? Is this another one of your not-so-amusing jokes? If so, it is even less likely to raise a smile than the last one. I never invited you here. Of course, if you want something for bringing my flask back…' Julia started to fumble with her arm purse.

She paused. Her actions made it seem as if she came from the same mould as Sabina. He wasn't some servant or a street child to be given a token in exchange for a small service. He was a successful gladiator.

'There is no need for that. It was my pleasure. I was only too glad to find it.' Valens waved his hand and then stared at a tablet. 'This is the villa of Julius Antonius, the lawyer, isn't it?'

'It is.' Julia folded her arms and braced her legs. He'd have to move her from the threshold, before she let him cross.

'He is a client of Julius Caesar, who is the current Aedile in charge of the games and public entertainment, the man sponsoring my gladiatorial school?' Valens spoke slowly as if she were some half-witted child.

She released a pent-up breath in one great whoosh.

'Caesar is our second cousin, but I don't see what that has to do with anything,' she said carefully, her mind starting to whirl.

There was more going on here than a simple misunderstanding. Her hand twisted the necklace of blue stones around her throat. How like Sabina, not to give her the full story and to send her to accomplish a task Sabina didn't have the stomach for. If Caesar was involved, it would be unthinkable to refuse, even if she wanted to. Caesar was her father's most important patron, providing most of the clients for his law practice. Her father always acceded to Caesar's wishes.

'The Senate has decreed this morning that large groups of gladiators living together pose a threat to the city's security, citing Spartacus's rebellion of seven years ago. Caesar looks on this as a direct attack on his integrity as Aedile and feels it is an attempt by his rivals to discredit him. Therefore, he has requested your father to house a gladiator for the duration of the games,' Valens said, holding out a tablet. 'I am that gladiator.'

Julia took the tablet and read the words in Caesar's very distinctive script. She reread the words and glanced back at Sabina, whose face was growing more thunderous.

Not this time, Stepmother dear. If she wanted to cross Caesar, she did it herself.

'My father knows about this?' she asked, tapping the tablet against her lips.

'I was given to understand he did,' Valens said, lifting one eyebrow. 'Caesar is the most efficient man I have ever served. Within two hours of the law being passed, he had found places for over a hundred men. I see no reason to doubt his word.'

Julia bit her lip. What to do? She could see Sabina watching from inside the courtyard, making ever-increasing shooing motions. Julia shook her head at her for a second time. Let her father deal with Sabina's shrieks and wails when he came home. How like her father—desperate to avoid a confrontation with Sabina, he had disappeared until the storm had blown over, leaving others to sort out the mess. Her father and Sabina could be infuriatingly similar in their ways of dealing with uncomfortable situations.

'I can understand that—'

'Is there some sort of problem?' Valens asked, his eyes showing concern and something else. 'If you'd like, you can always send a runner to check with Caesar's house. I'm sure you will find everything in order.'

'There will be no reason to trouble Caesar with this,' she said in an overloud voice. 'I have seen his hand before. If Caesar requires his clients to house gladiators, who am I to question?'

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sabina shrink back at the invocation of Caesar. Despite her pretensions, Sabina was well aware how much their present prosperity was dependant on Caesar's continued generosity. Kow Sabina's most-prized possession, the bathing suite with its expensive mosaics, was a direct result of Caesar involving her father in several lucrative lawsuits. Lawsuits that would vanish overnight if her father crossed him.

'It will be our pleasure to honour Caesar's request and provide a room for you,' she said, turning back to Valens.

'I knew you were a woman of learning as well as sense,' he said and his voice flowed over her.

Valens's smile made her pulse race and drove all coherent thought from her mind. Her hand shook as she tightened her hold on Bato's collar. It was no good telling her heart that he smiled like that all the time. Her heart was certain it was for her and her alone.

'Thank you, thank you very much,' Julia stammered out and then tried to calm her thumping heart. 'I shall take it as a compliment.'

'It was meant as one.'

'First my ankle and now my intellect. Does idle praise always sup off your tongue with such ease?'

'I beg to differ. I merely state the obvious.' His eyes twinkled. 'I always tell the truth about such things.'

Julia pretended to reread the tablet. She was no good at flirting games. She had to change the subject, get her mind off him and onto the problem at hand—this gladiator's accommodation.

Caesar gave no indication of the rank he was supposed to hold in the house. She could hardly place him with the slaves and run the risk of causing offence to their most important patron. She wanted something to enhance their reputation with Caesar and to make up for the welcome Valens had so far received.

She tapped the tablet against her hand, her lips curving upwards. She'd teach Sabina to threaten her. She'd enjoy watching Sabina squirm for once.

'Clodius, please show our guest to the best chamber.' Julia made sure her voice carried and watched the colour drain from Sabina's face. 'What Caesar asks for, we should grant. He'd hardly go to all this trouble unless he wanted us to treat Valens as our honoured guest.'

'Julia.' Sabina's indignant whisper carried as she marched over to Julia. The sound of her sandals striking the paving stones echoed throughout the courtyard. 'Did I hear you order Clodius to show this gladiator to our best bedchamber? Surely the stables would have been good enough for one such as him.'

'Caesar's request, Stepmother.' Julia waved the tablet under the older woman's nose. Threaten to put Bato down, would she? 'I'm sure anything less would be looked on as a slight by Caesar. And I would hate to tell my father we slighted his greatest patron. But if those are your orders…'

'You are right. Of course you're right' Sabina wrung her hands and looked distracted. 'I know you're right. What am I to tell Mettalius Scipio? I had rather hoped he would stay the night…'

Mettalius Scipio. Valens froze. The name opened cracks in his memory, sent his mind along forgotten paths. Images of forts and the tribune issuing orders, of the dark night and the breath of his men as they waited, of the ambush and then finally of the hook-nose pirate who had captured him and then spat in his face, crowded into his brain. Images he thought he had buried years ago when he first wielded the gladiator's sword.

'Mettalius Scipio, son of Mettalius Agrippa?' Valens asked, making an effort to keep his voice steady.

'Why, yes,' Julia's stepmother simpered. 'Do you know the senator? Julia is about to become betrothed to him.'

'We've met…several times.' He knew instinctively his words would be interpreted as meaning recently when in fact it was five years since they had last spoken. Valens closed the door to his memory with a bang. He refused to remember anything about the time before.

'That puts a rather different complexion on the whole thing, doesn't it? I mean, if you are a friend of senators…' She held out her hand, batting her false eyelashes. 'I'm Sabina Claudia, the wife of Julius Antonius. Julia is my stepdaughter, in case you didn't guess. I must apologise for her—Julia can be too cautious at times, too apt to judge people by their standing, if you know what I mean. Too proud for her own good.'

'Not at all like you,' Valens said and made an effort not to wince as he said the words.

Sabina Claudia was one of those dyed blondes with paint so thick on her face her very features were obscured, one of those women whose sole purpose was to grasp the next rung of the social ladder, kicking anyone and everyone as they scrambled over them.

'I am positive you are the soul of tact,' Valens added pointedly. 'A reflection of the true Roman-matron ideal.'

Bato the dog gave him a strange look, and Valens bowed back. He ignored Julia's questioning glance.

'Julia, why didn't you tell me your gladiator was so perceptive in addition to having such a fine Italian accent? He could almost pass as someone other than a gladiator,' Sabina cooed, hooking her arm through Valens's. 'Now you must try our bath suite. It has the latest word in luxury—a hot plunge bath. I made certain of that, and that is undoubtedly why Caesar chose us for your lodgings. He knew we could provide the facilities you needed, unlike others I could mention.'

Valens detached himself as unobtrusively as he could. Julia looked as if she was about ready to explode. At him? At her stepmother? Valens gave a slight nod in her direction, but Julia looked away, chin very firmly in the air.

'He's not my gladiator, Stepmother. I explained to you already that we had barely met.' Her voice dripped ice.

'A figure of speech, my dear,' her stepmother replied airily. 'At least you had the good sense to run into a gladiator who is well connected.'

'I…' Julia said and then turned on her heel and limped off.

Valens watched her go, the skirt of her gown swishing at her heels. He admired the way she kept her head held high and did not stoop to dignify her stepmother's remark with an answer. She reminded him of the sort of woman he had dreamt of marrying years ago. The sort of woman who had helped make Rome great and who was for ever beyond his reach. One who did embody the ideals of Rome.

'I had no idea Julia Antonia was betrothed to Senator Mettalius,' he said, turning once again to Sabina, his anger growing at the stupidity of the woman, at his folly for wanting something he could not have and at his desire to remember the past.

'Of course, nothing is settled yet, but we are very hopeful. The senator appears to be willing.' Sabina's voice dropped to a hushed whisper. 'All things considered, Julia can not be choosy.'

'Indeed?'

'I am sure you will hear anyway, seeing as you will be staying here. The servants will talk.' Sabina gave a large mock sigh. 'Julia left her husband. She divorced him, claiming he had beaten her. She even took his dog. Her father was most upset. He had to take her back in, of course. She couldn't be left out in the street and she is his responsibility. I did tell him when they married that she is a flighty over-indulged child and might do this. Would he listen and marry her with confarreatio, giving her to her husband for ever, relinquishing all authority over her? No, he gave into fashion. Now he is faced with an unmarried twenty-one-year-old with the wisp of scandal clinging to her stolla. All the best alliances have gone. What sort of man wants a wife that will argue back?'