“I’m sure Sabina will be very useful to me,” Hadrian’s voice returned calmly. “We will have to maintain good relations with the Antiochenes, so I’m sure her particular brand of charm will not be wasted.”

“I’ll do my best!” Sabina put on her most dazzling smile as she floated into the triclinium. “Plotina, Titus, everyone—how lovely to see you all.”

Plotina froze in the act of reaching for a cake, as if she had been turned to stone inside her dark-blue stola. Titus’s eyebrows climbed slowly up his forehead. The other guests looked stunned. Hadrian, reclining on his own couch, had just lifted his cup to his lips when he glanced at Sabina to see what his guests were staring at. His mouthful of wine, Sabina was pleased to see, arced clear out across at least three feet of mosaic.

“What,” he said when he had stopped coughing, “is that?”

“You said we’ll need to maintain good relations with the Antiochenes.” Sabina blinked, innocent. “Don’t you like it? It’s the very latest fashion in Antioch. I always think it makes such a good impression to follow the local customs. Don’t you agree, Plotina?”

The thunderstruck eyes of Hadrian, Plotina, Titus, and a score of Rome’s most important senators, legates, officers, and officials traveled in unison from the kohl Sabina had painted in winged lines about her eyes to the heavy gold earrings that brushed her bare shoulders, to the copper snake armband coiled about one elbow, to the gown so tightly cut that her maid had had to stitch it around her body. The dress left one breast completely bare, and Sabina had painted the nipple with henna to match the designs stenciled on her hands and feet. Plotina averted her eyes with a little gasp. Titus quickly lifted his cup and took a gulp—hiding, Sabina was certain, a grin.

Hadrian’s voice was low. “What is the meaning of this?”

“We can’t have the Antiochenes thinking we Romans don’t know their ways, can we?” Sabina explained sweetly, turning a circle so they could see from all angles. The view from the left was particularly jaw-dropping. “They’re going to love me, Hadrian. And isn’t that why you married me? Because I’m so good at charming people of all places and stations?”

Hadrian opened his mouth. He closed it again. Plotina had flushed the color of a plum. “Vibia Sabina—” she began thunderously.

Sabina moved toward them with the rippling little steps that were all her tight dress would allow, and saw Hadrian’s hovering secretary, the page boy with the wine, twelve servitors, and all twenty-four guests trying not to stare at her bare breast. She ignored them, reaching out to give Hadrian’s cheek a fond, wifely pat.

“Darling, you’re going to be so proud of me!”