“I don’t think you really like women who do as they’re told, Titus. Sabina always does exactly as she pleases and gets exactly what she wants, and so do I. We may not be much alike in other respects, but we have that one thing very much in common.”

Titus turned away from his betrothed. His hand clenched and unclenched about a crushed fold of his toga, and his eyes burned. He could still taste the sweet smooth skin of her bare shoulder.

“Maybe you’re right.” Faustina’s arms slid about his waist from behind, and he felt her warm cheek lean against his back. “Maybe Hadrian won’t let you live. But the worst thing that will happen to me, Titus, is that I’ll be a very, very wealthy widow.”

He gave a short laugh, and for one wild moment thought of fleeing. Taking Faustina and running with her to Britannia, to Hispania, to anywhere.

But where did you go when your enemy was master of the world?

He turned, folding her back into his arms. “I love you, Annia Galeria Faustina.”

They clung together silently in the dusk. Walk away, Titus told himself. Walk away now. But he couldn’t move, not with Faustina’s arms knotted around his waist like a circle of rope.

“Do you want an old-fashioned iron ring?” he asked her. “Or one of the new ones with gold set in iron?”

“Just iron.” Faustina tilted her head up at him, giving a watery smile. “Iron lasts, and we’re going to last too. We’ll be old together, Titus. Hadrian won’t kill you, you’ll see. You won’t be dooming me when we get married—you’ll be saving yourself. Hadrian won’t be able to touch you once you’re his brother-in-law.”

He let her think it. She scolded him a little as she scrubbed at her eyes—“You’ll have to buy me something very expensive to make up for this, you know!”—and he just feasted his eyes on her, wondering how long he would have to enjoy his wife.

And who they would finally send to kill him.

VIX

The day after he arrived in Selinus, my new Emperor sent for me.

No. Not my Emperor. Just the Emperor. That supercilious prat Hadrian would never be my Emperor, not if he ruled a thousand years.