The strategy was a good one. Rhiannon’s kinsmen could fight amongst themselves for years without ceasing. They had done as much when Cartimandua renounced one king and took another. Her heart plummeted. Despite Madog’s careful tutelage, she would repeat her grandmother’s folly. Would her people end by hating her for it?
“Aye,” Gwenda was saying. “I’ll help ye leave the fort.” She quickly divided her laundry and held one of the bundles out to Rhiannon.
Rhiannon dropped the chain over Gwenda’s head and took the laundry in exchange. The woman shoved the amber pendant into the neckline of her tunic.
“We’d best be going,” the laundress said in a whisper, “afore the women return from the baths.”
Rhiannon nodded, not without a pang of regret. She’d not seen the inside of the bathing rooms, as Vetus was nearly always within, but the kitchen women spoke of the pool’s heated waters in the most reverent of whispers.
She wished she could delay long enough to experience the bath’s pleasures for herself, but there would be no better time to make her escape. Lucius had left the house several hours earlier. Even Cormac was gone. Claudia had sent him to one of the outlying farms in search of an herb he’d been unable to procure in the village. He’d been none too happy to receive the order, as the task took him far from the fort.
She had to act now or not at all.
“How will ye distract Dermot?” she asked Gwenda.
The woman chuckled. “ ’Tis no problem I’ll be having on that score. Just slip out and don’ be stopping until ye turn the corner past the stables. I’ll follow as soon as I’m able. Here,” she said, unpinning her checkered cloak. “Take this.”
Rhiannon drew the garment’s hood over her head. “Will the gate sentries remark upon two laundresses leaving the fort when only one entered?”
“Nay. The guard changed at midday. The new ones will not be knowing I came alone.” She stepped to the door. “Wait here a spell until ye see it’s safe to pass.”
Gwenda went into the kitchen, hips swaying, as Rhiannon peeked around the doorframe. Dermot sat near the alley door, back propped against the wall, his weight balanced on two legs of a stool. His eyes were closed.
“Good day to ye, Dermot.” Gwenda’s voice was a husky whisper.
Dermot’s stool crashed to the floor as he leapt to his feet. “Gwenda.” Heat flared in his blue eyes.
Gwenda smiled up at him. Dermot took the bundle of laundry from her arms and set it aside, then bent low for a kiss. Gwenda responded, wrapping her arms about the man’s broad shoulders. He backed her up against the worktable and tugged the neck of her tunic down over one shoulder. His head dipped and Rhiannon heard the sound of suckling mingled with Gwenda’s sigh of satisfaction. The laundress’s fingers tangled in the stout man’s blond hair, holding him close.
Rhiannon stood rooted to the spot. Gwenda opened her eyes. She sent Rhiannon a grin and a pointed glance at the alley door over the top of Dermot’s head. Rhiannon drew a sharp breath, then went still. Dear Briga! Had Dermot heard her? No. He was oblivious to anything but Gwenda, at least for the moment.
Rhiannon crept toward the door, scarcely daring to breathe. How in the name of the Great Mother would she be able to open it unnoticed? Surely Dermot would hear the creaking hinges and feel the rush of moist air, no matter how intent he was on Gwenda’s ample breasts.
She sent the laundress a questioning look. Gwenda’s eyes unglazed long enough for her to respond with a brief nod. She wriggled in Dermot’s arms, coaxing him toward the storeroom where Rhiannon had stood but a moment before. Rhiannon eased open the latch as silently as she could and stepped into the alley.
The morning’s downpour had eased to a sullen drizzle. Thank Briga, the narrow path was deserted. With luck, the garrison soldiers would be within their barracks until the rain stopped completely. She glanced to her left and caught sight of the wide road fronting the residence, then turned to the right and made her way along the wall of the stables.
Soft whinnies and snorts drifted from a bank of high windows. She crept to the corner and peeked around it. No one. She slipped into the intersecting alley, flattened her spine against the wall, and waited.
Gwenda arrived a few moments later, breathless and glowing, one breast all but spilling from her tunic. Rhiannon cast about for words to cover her embarrassment, but the laundress just gave her a cheeky grin. “The others rave about Cormac, but I’ve no complaint with Dermot,” she said. “My last babe was his.”
Rhiannon followed Gwenda past the rear of Lucius’s house and into another alley between the granaries. Only one barrier remained—the south gate. Once through, it would be an easy task to slip through the fort village and into the forest.
Gwenda traded bawdy jests with the sentries, introducing Rhiannon as her cousin visiting from a village to the south. Rhiannon forced a smile and a few suggestive comments to her lips. One soldier patted her behind as she passed, but Rhiannon barely noticed the liberty in her haste to clear the gate. She drew a deep breath and murmured a prayer of thanks as the stout timber doors closed behind her.
“Ye’ll stay in my home until nightfall,” Gwenda said, drawing Rhiannon into the shelter of the nearest dwelling. “Ye don’ want to be attracting notice.”
Rhiannon shook her head. “Ye’ve done enough, Gwenda. I’ll not be putting your family in danger. I’ll be gone at once.”
“The lookouts atop the wall might be seeing ye.”
“They’ll be thinking nothing of a village woman entering the forest.” She thrust her bundle of laundry at Gwenda.
The laundress hesitated, then took the bundle and nodded. “Keep my cloak, then, and go swiftly. May Briga go with ye.”
Rhiannon whispered a final word of thanks and slipped through the alley into the barley field beyond. The young plants, ankle-high and drooping with rain, soaked her skirt as she passed. Though every instinct screamed for haste, she forced herself to go slowly. She could not afford to attract attention.
The path between the planting rows ended at the tree line, quite near a patch of ground strewn with high markers and encircled by a stone wall. A cemetery?
A dark shadow moved just beyond, in the trees. A shiver of dread went up Rhiannon’s spine. Changing course, she picked her way across the rows and entered the forest by a separate path, head bent against the rain. She’d taken but two steps into the blessed shadows when a man stepped from behind an elm and clamped his fingers around her wrist.
Lucius wanted Rhiannon’s terror.
Instead, he received her disdain. Her chin lifted and her spine stiffened. The hood of her checkered cloak fell to her shoulders. She looked past him, into the forest, as if his hand restraining her arm was but a momentary inconvenience.
He caught her chin with his free hand and forced her to meet his gaze. Her golden eyes, usually so expressive, showed not a trace of emotion. Neither fear, nor anger, nor even regret. Had she played him for a fool? Was it so easy for her to walk away after she’d opened her thighs to him?
His own emotions, in contrast, churned in a cauldron of conflict. He snatched the one closest to the surface—anger—and clung to it.
“Lucius. Why are you here?”
His grip tightened on her wrist and the flare of pain he saw in her eyes brought satisfaction as well as guilt. “I might ask the same of you,” he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral.
She wrenched her chin from his grasp. “I am going home.”
“Your home is with me.”
“No. I am a free Celt, not a Roman slave. You have no right to keep me here.”
“By Pollux, I have every right. I claimed you from the field of battle.” He bent his head low and let his breath brush her temple. “You are mine.” He released her wrist and trailed his fingers up the inside of her arm, under her cloak. He brushed the outside curve of her breast.
He felt rather than heard her sharp intake of breath. With it rose the scent of her need.
His rod hardened.
She must have known, for her eyes went dark and when she spoke, her voice trembled. “How did you find me? Did you follow from the fort?”
“No. I was in the cemetery. Digging.”
Her eyes widened as she took in his mud-slicked armor. “Why?”
“Aulus is not in his grave.”
The tip of her tongue darted forward to wet her lips. “He is not?”
“No. An interesting turn of events, don’t you agree?”
“Indeed.”
“My brother watched my labors, of course. Then, as I finished refilling the pit, he vanished.”
Understanding dawned in her eyes. “You knew I was near.”
His fingers drifted across the swell of her breast and stroked through the fabric of her tunic. “Yes.” He teased her nipple into a tight nub, then flicked his thumb roughly across the hardened peak. “But I hardly need my brother to lead me to you. I scented you like the buck scents the doe.”
She gasped and arched into his touch, though he suspected she would have much preferred to remain unmoved. “Lucius …”
“I knew you were near,” he repeated, “but I didn’t know why, or how.” He plucked one nipple, then brought his left hand up to pinch the other, taking no care to be gentle. “You had help.”
“How did you—”
“Your cloak. Who was she? No, don’t answer. It will be easy enough to discover.”
Rhiannon tried to move away. “Nay! She did only as I asked.”
“No doubt.” His hands stole upward, encircling the delicate column of her neck. His thumbs covered the pulse at her throat. “Where is the amber necklace, Rhiannon?” His voice was deadly calm, but his fury crouched like a wildcat behind it. “Will I find it in your bedchamber? Or around the neck of the deceiving wench who gave you this cloak?” He made a disapproving sound. “What punishment should I mete out to such a woman?”
“Nay,” Rhiannon whispered. “You must not harm her. She knew nothing of where I came by the treasure, only that I bartered it for my freedom.”
The sense of betrayal bit deep. Anger surged so hot he wondered that the rain did not sizzle as it struck his skin. He crowded her against the trunk of a broad elm, his heart black with fury.
He raised one hand to touch her face and she flung up her arms as if to ward off a blow. He stared for a moment, stunned, then threw back his head and laughed. She feared him. No matter that he’d never lifted a hand against her. No matter that he hadn’t forced her into his bed when another man would have used her until she broke. No matter that he had whispered soft endearments and heard them spoken in return. He’d told her of Aulus’s haunting and of his own guilt and despair. He’d trusted her with the darkest secrets of his soul.
Yet despite what they’d shared, she still believed him to be the basest of criminals, a Roman dog, a defiler.
Fire raged through his veins, along with a dark purpose born of anger and need. He would give her what she expected of him, no more, no less. It was only what she deserved.
With a swift motion, he grasped her cloak in both hands and tore the fabric free of the pin at her throat. The garment landed on the ground, a bright heap on the mud.
“Lucius, nay—” Rhiannon’s eyes were wide, startled. Afraid.
He couldn’t bear to look into them any more than he could stop himself from reaching for her. He caged her with his arms. She resisted, twisting, but her frantic struggle only caused him to tighten his hold. He spun her around and pressed her spine against his muddy armor. Her buttocks nestled at his groin, his hands splayed over her breasts and stomach, holding her immobile.
“Release me,” she gasped.
“No.” He lifted her instead, carrying her deeper into the forest with two quick strides. His hand sought the hidden place between her thighs and stroked the heat he found there. She squirmed and twisted, striking him as she was able. Her efforts succeeded only in causing his rod to go even harder.
He increased the tempo of his fingers, concentrating on the hard nub at her center. He scraped the fabric of her tunic across her sex until the linen dampened in his hand. A moan tore from deep in her throat.
Her entreaty, when it came, was breathless. “Lucius. Please. Put me”—she moaned again as he touched her—“down.”
“As you wish.” He set her, face down, over the wide trunk of a fallen oak and lifted her hem.
Rain fell in glistening drops on the smooth white skin of Rhiannon’s buttocks. She struggled furiously, but his hand on the small of her back conspired with her awkward position to prevent her escape. She braced her hands on the ground but gained little leverage. “Let me go.”
He palmed over one smooth globe. “How could you leave me, Rhiannon?” He slipped his hand into her cleft and stroked downward. Slick heat gripped him when he slid his finger into her sheath.
She went still. He added a second finger to the first and flexed his knuckles. She let out a cry, not of anger or pain, but of need.
His eyes burned. “How could you leave me,” he said again, “when you want me as much as I want you?” He flexed a second time. “Tell me, Rhiannon. Tell me that you want me inside you.”
“No.”
He bent low, his hand still pulsing inside her. Raindrops fell on his arm and coursed along his wrist and into her heat. “Tell me to whom you belong.”
“No.” The word was a bare breath.
His low chuckle contained no mirth. “Then I will show you.” His hand left her tight passage. She made a small sound, a whimper she tried but failed to contain. He cupped her buttocks with his palms, kneading, watching as the rain pelted her skin. He followed the path of one droplet with his finger into the crease at the top of her thigh.
Her hips lifted into his touch. “Lucius … please.”
“What do you want, Rhiannon?”
Another moan as he reached between her legs to stroke where her need was greatest. “You, Lucius. Within me. Now. I cannot bear it any longer.”
He shifted his war belt and lifted his tunic. Grasping her hips with both hands, he plunged into her with one sure, swift stroke, burying himself to the hilt. She let out a soft cry and clamped tight around him, hot, wet, and demanding. He withdrew until he was nearly unsheathed, then paused, waiting, gripping her hips and holding her still.