A Voice in the Wind (59 page)

Turning slightly, he looked back at her. His own longing was mirrored in her eyes, mingled with confusion and fear. “Hadassah,” he breathed, and everything he felt for her was in her name. “I have waited—”

“No,” she said in a soft cry and moved to flee.

Marcus caught her before she could open the door. Forcing her around, he pressed her back against it. “Why do you fight your feelings? You love me.” He cupped her face.

“Marcus, don’t!” she said in anguish.

“Admit it,” he said and lowered his mouth to take hers. When she turned her head away, he pressed his mouth to the warm curve of her throat. She gasped and tried to struggle free.

“You love me!” he said fiercely and this time captured her chin and lifted her face to him. He covered her mouth with his, kissing her with all the intense passion that had been growing in him for months. He drank of her like a man dying of thirst. Her body melted gradually into his, and he knew he couldn’t wait any longer. Catching her up in his arms, he carried her across the room to his couch.

“No!” she cried and began to struggle again.

“Stop fighting me,” he said hoarsely. He saw the darkness of her eyes and the flush of her skin. “Stop fighting yourself.” He caught her wrists. “I left Rome to be with you. I’ve waited for you longer than I’ve ever waited for any woman.”

“Marcus, don’t bring this sin upon yourself.”

“‘Sin,’” he sneered and took her mouth again. She clutched at his tunic, half-pushing, half-clinging. She kept begging him to stop, and her pleas only made him more determined to prove her desire was no less than his own. She trembled beneath his touch, and he could feel the heat of her skin—but he also tasted the saltiness of tears.

“God, help me!” she cried.

“
God
,” he said, suddenly furious. All gentleness was forgotten in an explosion of frustration. “Yes, pray to a god. Pray to Venus. Pray to Eros that you might behave like a normal woman!” He felt the neckline of her tunic tear in his hand and heard her soft, frightened cry.

Swearing, he suddenly drew back. Breathing heavily, he stared down at the damage he’d done, the ripped tunic still clenched in his hand. A coldness swept over him and he let go of it. “Hadassah,” he groaned, filled with self-loathing. “I didn’t mean—”

He broke off, stunned into silence by the sight of her still, white face. Her eyes were closed and she was not moving. All the breath went out of him as he looked at her still form. “Hadassah!” Cradling her in his arms, he brushed the hair back from her face and laid his hand over her heart, terrified that her god had struck her dead to save her purity. But her heart beat against his palm, and relief flooded him—until it came to him with a sickening blow that he had been about to rape her.

She began to rouse and, unable to face her, he laid her back on the couch and stood. He went to the decanter and poured wine, tossing it down his throat. It tasted like gall. Shaking violently, he looked back and saw her sitting up. Her face was ashen. He poured more wine and brought it back to her.

“Drink this,” he said, pushing the goblet into her hand. She took it with unsteady hands. “It would seem your god wants you to remain a virgin,” he said, wincing inwardly at the callousness of his words. What was he becoming that he could rape the woman he loved? “Drink all of it,” he said bleakly and felt the tremor in her fingers as they brushed his. Full of remorse, he put his hands around hers and knelt in front of her.

“I lost control…” he said, his voice choked with pain, knowing it was no excuse. She didn’t look at him, but tears slipped down her pale cheeks—a silent river of them—and his heart twisted. “Don’t cry. Hadassah, don’t cry. Please.” He sat beside her wanting to pull her into his arms, but afraid to. “I’m sorry,” he said, touching her hair. “Nothing happened. You needn’t cry.” The goblet dropped on the floor, splattering red wine like blood across the marble tiles. She covered her face, her shoulders shaking.

Marcus rose and moved away from her, cursing himself. “My love is neither kind nor patient,” he said in self-condemnation. “I never meant to hurt you. I swear! I don’t know what happened… I’ve never lost control like that before.”

“You stopped,” she said.

He glanced back at her, surprised she had even spoken to him. Her gaze was steady, despite the trembling in her body.

“You stopped, and the Lord will bless you—”

Her words roused a fury in him. “Don’t speak to me of your god! A curse upon him!” he said bitterly.

“Don’t say that,” she whispered, her heart full of fear for him.

He came back and forced her to look at him. “Is this love I have for you what you would call a blessing?” He saw his grip was hurting her and let her go. He moved a few feet away, fighting his emotions. “How is it a blessing to want you as I do and not be able to have you because of some ridiculous law? It’s unnatural to fight our basic instincts. Your god takes pleasure in inflicting pain.“

“God wounds that he might heal.”

“So you don’t deny it,” he said with a harsh laugh. “He plays games with people just like any other god.”

“No games, Marcus. There is no other God but the Almighty God, and what he does, he does according to his good purpose.”

He closed his eyes.
Marcus
. She blessed his name as she said it, and his rage evaporated—but not the frustration. “What good purpose can come from my love for you?” he asked hopelessly, looking at her. Her eyes shimmered with tears. He thought he would drown at the look of hope in her eyes.“

“It may be God’s way of unlocking your heart for him.”

He stiffened. “For him?” He gave a harsh laugh. “I’d rather be dead than bow down to this god of yours.” He had never seen such a stricken look of hurt and sorrow on her face and was sorry he had spoken. He saw how he had ripped the seam of her slave dress with his hands and knew now that he had torn at her heart as well with his angry words. And as he looked into her eyes, he knew that in doing so he had torn himself apart.

“I want to know what it is in you that makes you cling to this unseen god of yours. Tell me.”

Hadassah looked up at him and knew she loved him as she would never love another.
Why, God? Why this man who doesn’t understand? Why this man who willfully rejects you? Are you cruel, as Marcus says
?

“I don’t know, Marcus,” she said, deeply shaken. She still trembled with a strange, heavy longing for him and was afraid at how easy it would be to surrender to the sensations Marcus stirred in her. God had never made her feel this way.

Oh, God, give me strength. I have none of my own. The way he looks at me makes me melt inside. He makes me weak.

“Make me understand,” Marcus said, and she knew he would wait until she answered.

“My father said the Lord chose his children before the foundation of the world, according to his kind intention.”

“
Kind
intention? Is it kind to keep you from enjoying what’s natural? You
love
me, Hadassah. I saw it in your eyes when you looked at me. I felt it when I touched you. Your skin was so warm. You were trembling, and it wasn’t with fear. Is it kind that your god makes us suffer this way?”

When he looked at her like that, she couldn’t think. She lowered her eyes.

Marcus came to her and tipped her chin up. “You can’t answer, can you? You think this god of yours is everything. That he’s enough. I tell you he isn’t. Can he hold you, Hadassah? Can he touch you? Can he kiss you?” His hand spread gently against her cheek, and when he saw how her eyes closed, his pulse jumped. “Your skin is hot and your heart is pounding as fast as mine.” He looked into her eyes, beseeching her. “Does your god make you feel the way I do?”

“Don’t do this to me,” she whispered and took his hand between both of hers. “Please don’t do this.”

He knew he had hurt her again, but he didn’t know why. He couldn’t understand anything and it filled him with grief and frustration. How could someone so gentle, so fragile, be so unbending?

“This god can’t even speak to you,” Marcus said raggedly.

“He does speak to me,” she said softly.

Marcus took his hand from hers. Searching her face, he saw she spoke the truth. Others had made such claims before: the gods said this, the gods said that. Whatever the gods said was to their own purpose. But now, as he looked into Hadassah’s eyes, he had no doubt—and he was suddenly, inexplicably, afraid. “How? When?”

“Do you remember the story I told once about Elijah and the Baal prophets?”

He frowned slightly. “The man who called down fire from the heavens to burn his offering and then afterwards butchered two hundred priests?” He remembered. He had been amazed that Hadassah could tell such a bloody tale. He straightened and put distance between them. “What of it?”

“After Elijah destroyed the priests, Queen Jezebel said she would do the same to him, and he ran away because he was afraid.”

“Afraid of a
woman
?”

“Not just any woman, Marcus. She was very evil and very powerful. Elijah ran away into the wilderness to hide from Jezebel. He asked God that he might die, but God sent an angel to minister to him instead. The food the angel of the Lord gave him enabled Elijah to travel forty days until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. Elijah found a cave there and lived in it. It was then that the Lord came to him. A strong wind came and broke the rocks, but God wasn’t in the storm. Then an earthquake and a fire came, but the Lord was not in them, either. And then, as Elijah was protected in the cleft of a rock, he heard God speak.“

She looked up at Marcus, and her eyes were soft and radiant, her face strangely aglow. “God spoke in a gentle whisper, Marcus. A still, small voice. A voice in the wind…”

Marcus felt a strange tingling sensation down his spine. Defensive, his mouth curled. “A wind.”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“There’s a breeze today. If I stand outside on the terrace, could I hear the voice of this god of yours?”

She lowered her head. “If you opened your heart.”
If your heart was not so hardened
. She wanted to weep again.

“He would speak even to a Roman?” he said mockingly. “More likely this god of yours would want my heart on his altar,” he said dryly. “Especially after what I was about to do to one of his most devoted followers.” He stood in the open doorway to the terrace, his back to her. “Is it your god I must blame, then, for this desire I have for you? Is it his doing?” He turned to face her again.

“Shades of Apollo and Daphne,” he said bitterly. “Do you know of them, Hadassah? Apollo wanted Daphne, but she was a virgin and wouldn’t surrender. He pursued her madly and she fled from him, crying out to the gods to save her.” He gave a harsh laugh. “And they did. Do you know how? They turned her into a bush with sweetly scented flowers. That’s why you’ll see statues of Apollo with a wreath of daphne crowning his head.”

Marcus’ mouth twisted wryly. “Will this god of yours turn you into a bush or a tree to protect your virginity from me?”

“No.”

A long stillness hung between them. The only sound in Marcus’ ears was his own heartbeat. “You were fighting yourself more than you were fighting me.”

She blushed and lowered her eyes again, but she made no denial. “It’s true you make me feel things I’ve never felt before,” she said softly and looked at him again. “But God gave me free will and he warned of the consequences of immorality—”

“
Immorality
?” Marcus said through his teeth, the word like a slap across his face. “Is it immoral for two people who love one another to take pleasure together?”

“As you loved Bithia?”

Her softly spoken question was like a dash of cold water and further roused his anger. “Bithia has nothing to do with my feelings for you! I never loved Bithia.”

“But you made love to her,” she said very softly, embarrassed to speak so plainly.

He looked into her eyes and his anger evaporated. He felt a sense of shame and couldn’t fathom why. There was nothing wrong with what he had done with Bithia. Was there? She had come to him freely. After the first few times, Bithia had come to him in the night even when he hadn’t summoned her.

“I would have to command you, wouldn’t I?” he said with a rueful smile. “And if I did demand your surrender, you’d feel compelled to throw yourself off the terrace.”

“You won’t command me.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“You’re an honorable man.”

“Honorable,” he said with a bitter laugh. “How easily a single word can wash away a man’s ardor. And hope. Your intention, no doubt.” He looked at her. “I’m a Roman, Hadassah. Above all else, I am that. Don’t count too heavily on my restraint.”

The silence hung between them. Marcus knew nothing could destroy his love for her, and he felt a moment of despair. If not for this belief she held so tightly, he could claim her for his own. If not for her god…

Hadassah rose. “May I go, my lord?” she said very softly, once more a servant.

“Yes,” he said without inflection and watched her walk to the door and open it. “Hadassah,” he said, his love for her tearing at him. The only way he could have her was to shatter this stubborn faith of hers. In doing so, would he shatter her? “What has this god of yours ever really done for you?”

She stood very still for a long moment, her back to him. “Everything,” she said softly and left, closing the door quietly behind her.

Marcus told his father that evening that he intended to look into buying a place of his own. “Our sudden relocation to Ephesus has raised some speculation concerning the security of our assets,” he said. “An outlay of gold talents for a second villa and some lavish entertaining of important Roman officials will dispel the speculations quickly enough.“

Decimus looked at him, well aware that Marcus’ true reasons for leaving had nothing to do with “outside speculation.”

“I understand, Marcus.” And, indeed, he did.

29

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“Hadassah!” Julia called as she entered the house. Lifting the hem of her palus, she hurried up the stairs. “Hadassah!”