Mettalius, obviously, Valens thought but resisted the temptation to say it aloud.

'Now, if you'll have a servant show me to my quarters and to your bathing suite, I'll trouble you no further. I've had a long day.' He gave a slight bow.

'But you will join us for dinner.' Sabina gave a coquettish smile. 'We're having sow's udder. It is a speciality of mine, a recipe handed down from generation to generation. The senator always compliments me on it.'

'Regrettably, no, I follow a very strict diet in the weeks before a bout, eating mainly barley and beans.' Valens bowed and forced his tone to hold a note of regret. Sow's udder had never been a favourite, even in the days before he'd been a gladiator. 'I tend to take my meals on my own. Or with the others from the gladiatorial school. Caesar has no wish to trouble you any more than he has to.'

'Some other time.'

'Perhaps, but I will give you longer notice as I don't wish to put you to any trouble,' Valens said smoothly, making sure nothing betrayed his disquiet.

He had no idea how he'd react if he had to confront Mettalius over the dinner table. Already the memories of those last days in North Africa were crowding again into his mind, driving other thoughts away. Valens frowned, and concentrated on turning his thoughts towards the games. His future depended on forgetting his past.


Chapter Three


Julia woke in the silver-grey half-light before dawn. The sounds of the servants beginning to stir and the rumble of the carts in the narrow road outside the house filled her tiny room. She stared up at the rough-hewn plaster ceiling, reliving the events of yesterday evening.

Her father had arrived shortly after Valens, red-faced from his exertions at the gymnasium. Far from being unwelcoming and upset at having to house a gladiator, he had gone to the gym to get some sword practice in before their guest arrived.

Julia chuckled, remembering Sabina's face as her father went on and on about the honour Caesar had given him by letting him house one of the top gladiators in the Republic.

Her luck had held. After the first course, her father had accepted her excuse of a painful ankle and allowed her to retire. She avoided both the sow's udder and a prolonged exposure to Mettalius. Surely, the heated argument about the merits of the former dictator, Sulla, that wafted through her window meant the wedding was less likely. Venus, the special protectoress of the Julian family, had at last begun to listen to her prayers.

'It was a good day after all, Bato,' Julia said, sitting up and hugging her knees through the thin wool blanket.

No answering whine or lick to her face. Julia stretched a foot out, but failed to encounter the usual lump at the end of , the bed, weighing the bedclothes down.

'Bato?' she called. Nothing.

Julia swung her feet over the side of the bed and checked the small room. No dog. She frowned and tried to think how he could have escaped. Surely, the window was too high and narrow to escape that way, even if he had smelt food.

The door creaked on its hinges.

She passed a hand over her eyes and tugged her hair in frustration. The means of escape was all too clear. Her heart sank further as she thought of the kitchens. If he was caught stealing again…

Julia belted her undertunic with a narrow cord. There wasn't time to get fully dressed, not with the clanking she already heard. Hopefully, she'd find him before he got into any major mischief. |

'Bato? Here, boy,' she called as loudly as she dared.

She ran down the stairs and peeped into the large underground kitchen. Several rabbits hung on the far wall and a large piece of meat sat alongside an array of cakes and buns on the counter, waiting for the oven to get hot enough. No sign of the dog, just the back of the kitchen boy as he relit the stove. Julia let out a sigh of relief. Bato was safe from the cook.

Within a heartbeat, relief turned to panic. What if the dog had gone into the wrong bedroom? And licked Sabina's hand? Julia raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Her hand twitched on her stepmother's door handle. Bato would never go in there. He had more sense than that, surely. Her stomach knotted.

She opened the door a crack.

All was peace with only the faint sounds of snores. She closed the door with a click, and tried to puzzle out where Bato could be.

The door to the guest bedroom lay slightly ajar. Julia's breath caught as she thought of the man lying asleep in there. What did he wear in bed—his tunic or nothing? Her fists clenched as she tried to rid her mind of the thought.

She placed her ear against the door, hesitating with her hand on the doorknob until she heard the telltale thump of Bato's tail.

She peered in and whispered. 'Bato. come here, boy.'

Bato looked at her from his place on the bottom of the bed, but refused to move.

Julia opened the door wider and snapped her fingers.

'Bato, now, come before the household wakes up.'

Bato stretched, leapt off the bed and started to move towards her, slowly.

Julia released her breath. Minerva was with her. She'd get Bato back to her room before anyone noticed…and provide an apology to Valens when she saw him later that day, should he mention it.

She screwed up her face. No doubt, he'd mention it in some sort of joke. Not content with leaving her flask behind, she had sent her dog as an excuse to get to know him better. Her cheeks burned.

'Come on, Bato,' she whispered as the dog stopped in the middle of an ornate bedside mat, sitting down to scratch his left ear.

He had to get out of there now!

Julia crouched low and started to crawl across the floor towards the dog, making soft encouraging sounds in the back of her throat as the skirt of her undertunic bunched up around her knees.

'Is there a problem?' Valens's low rumble resounded in her ears. 'I hope I haven't disturbed you.'

Julia froze, hand outstretched, knee on top of the central tiger motif on the mosaic-tiled floor. She glanced to her right and saw Valens standing, arms lifted as if he had been in the middle of an exercise session. If she had thought his tunic short yesterday, this one left little to the imagination.

And his feet were bare.

Her eyes traced the outline of his leg. The full length, from ankle to calf to thigh, was exposed. Her mouth went dry. Her heart started to thump in her ears as she realised her night-time imaginings had not been vivid enough. Reality was much more…

'No, no, you didn't disturb me,' she gasped out, thinking what a lie that was. Of course, he disturbed her. Even his scent— sandalwood and something else—this morning did strange things to her insides. 'My dog somehow seems to have ended up in your bed…I mean your room. I was trying to get him out.'

She scrambled to her feet, wishing she had more covering her body than her thin linen undertunic that she should have replaced a year ago and tried to smooth it lower. She should have thought about their guest, taken the time to get properly dressed, to do her hair and put her face on. There was nothing for it except to pretend she wasn't embarrassed. She lifted her chin.

'He came in during the night,' Valens said with a shrug, 'and went straight to sleep on the bed. I assumed it was where he always slept. The thought crossed my mind that this might be your room.'

At the sound of Valens's voice, Bato the traitor padded over to Valens and laid his head against his legs. Valens reached down and scratched behind Bato's ears.

'It's the guest bedroom. Mine is two doors down the corridor,' Julia said, forcing the words out as she stared at Bato and Valens, her attention caught by the way Valens's fingers stroked the dog's fur. 'I have no idea why he is behaving in such a fashion. Normally he is devoted to me and is very wary of men. He refuses to let my father touch him.'

'Perhaps he knows an animal lover when he sees one. The dog I had as a boy used to like his ears scratched in the same fashion.'

Again, their eyes met and held. Julia felt a curl of warmth start in her belly. She had to get away from here, or she'd end up in his arms, behaving like the worst female supporter and demanding he share her bed.

Some day when they met, she would be poised and not off balance. Right now, she was conscious of the cold stone from the mosaic floor against her bare feet, her hair falling to her shoulders, and the fact that her undertunic, despite her efforts, only reached her mid-calf.

She watched his fingers stroke Bato's ears in the same way a starving man watched his first meal in weeks being prepared. She dug her nails into her palms, attempting to rid her mind of the image of his long fingers touching her.

'I am terribly sorry about—' She gestured to Bato, who now lolled his head against Valens's leg.

'It's quite all right' His hand paused. His eyes stared straight into hers. 'Bato and I are friends. I enjoyed the company. Until I became a gladiator, I had a dog. It made a welcome change to have one sleeping at the bottom of the bed. I hadn't thought you'd be worried or I'd have sent him back to you.'

'I don't want Bato to make a nuisance of himself,' Julia said, snapping her fingers, hoping Bato would come to her so she could bury her burning cheeks into his soft fur. 'My stepmother is not overly fond of animals. She has threatened to send him away if he is caught doing anything untoward.'

Julia knew she ought to go. She ought to think of the scandal if she was caught in his bedroom dressed like this. No one, particularly not her father and stepmother, would accept the innocent explanation. It was an innocent explanation.

She had no desire to taste his mouth…

Her feet stayed rooted to the spot and her eyes refused to look anywhere except at his lips.

'That says it all,' Valens said. 'You can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat their animals.'

'I always think so.' She bent down and held out to her arms to Bato. 'I think this dog has bothered you enough. I don't want to impose.'

'He's welcome any time.' His voice dropped and his eyes seemed to imply there was something more.

Julia returned his smile and then shifted uneasily. Did he mean her as well as Bato? She smoothed a lock of hair back. She ought to go, but something held her there, pinned under his gaze. Her stomach knotted so much it hurt. She wanted the conversation to continue, but her words kept slipping away or else sounded inane. She refused to stand there like a mute gazing adoringly into a god's face.

'What are you doing up so early and dressed?' she blurted out, then wished she had kept silent. She turned her face towards the vine-leaf fresco so her blush was hidden. Always she said the wrong thing. She made it sound as if she expected to discover him naked!

'Training,' Valens said, withdrawing a royal blue wool cloak and a pair of sandals from his trunk. He fastened the cloak around his neck and proceeded to tie his sandals, lacing them around his calves. 'The morning session begins at dawn, but I like to arrive early in order to stretch properly. I was about to leave when you opened the door.'

'Do you know the way to the front door?' she said impulsively.

Immediately she mentally groaned. How transparent. Less than a day since meeting this man she had started to throw herself at him. He was probably certain now she had sent Bato to him. He looked at her with a quirked eyebrow and an amused smile on his face.

He did think that! Oh, help.

Julia swallowed hard and plunged on.

'The villa is a bit of a labyrinth, in case you hadn't noticed. It started off quite small, but successive owners have added to it.'

A babbling brook, that was what she was. Julia wished he'd say something. She twisted a lock of her hair around her forefinger and tried to think of how to recover. So far, in their short acquaintance she had tumbled into him, denied him a room and set her dog on him. She had her runaway tongue to blame if he thought her touched in the head. Julia realised with a jolt that she wanted him to think more of her than that. She wanted him to like her, to be attracted to her in the same way she was attracted to him.

'I noticed that,' Valens said, his voice flowing over her jangled nerves like a balm. 'Perhaps you'd be good enough to show me the way. It will save me getting lost or having to find one of the servants.'