“I saw you yesterday,” Cornelia said abruptly to Diana one evening as they waited to go to an Imperial banquet. Marcella had appeared, unjeweled as always, and Lollia declared she looked too plain and dragged her off to be fitted with earrings and brooches. Diana and Cornelia had been left alone. “I know your secret.”

“Do you?” Diana twirled one of the charioteer medallions around her neck.

“Your father says you’ve been sneaking out in the afternoons to meet some charioteer from Britannia. And yesterday on the Campus Martius, I saw you with him.”

Cornelia had been hurrying to Drusus, taking a shortcut. The Campus Martius had been quite empty in the fierce heat of the afternoon—empty except for one chariot and a team of tired horses, with two figures flanking it. Cornelia’s little fair-haired cousin, and another figure much taller.

“I usually go to his villa to drive,” Diana said, unembarrassed. “But no one else uses the Campus Martius in this heat, so he took me to the city to practice on a real track.”

“Just practicing?” Cornelia asked gently. She’d seen them only from a distance, but there had been such ease between Diana’s little figure and the tall one, whoever he was. Diana had playfully squeezed half a water skin over the back of his neck, and he’d smiled and picked her up quite unselfconsciously to toss her into the chariot. “You looked very—well, close.”

Diana smiled.

“I won’t tell,” Cornelia sighed. “I should, but I won’t.”

“Good. Because I’m not stopping.”

Cornelia looked at her youngest cousin, so little and so brave, sneaking off to meet her charioteer. I know I should disapprove but I can’t. Juno’s mercy, I can’t.

“Cornelia?” Drusus was a dim shape in the darkness, sitting up in bed, reaching in reflex for his sword. “You’ve never come at night before—how long can you stay?”

“All night,” Cornelia whispered, crawling naked into bed beside him in the hot little room, half drunk with her own daring. “All night, Drusus. Every night.” She kissed him, twining her arms around his neck as the sounds of moans and grunts came through the thin walls on either side—and realized she was happy.

She hoped Piso would have been a little glad.

Sixteen

Sixteen

���FLAVIA!”

Cornelia smiled as Lollia picked up her daughter and whirled her in a circle. “Or is it Flavia?” Lollia continued. “We dropped a giggling little girl off to stay with her great-grandfather, and you are a beautiful young lady. Where’s Flavia?”

Lollia pretended to look around, and Flavia giggled. “Four years old,” Lollia said softly. “What a big girl you are. Did you like your party?”

“Great-grandfather gave me a pony! And a pearl necklace an’ a fan an’ little jade animals—”