He checked his toga for stains, rearranged the folds over his arm, tried vainly to smooth down the tuft of hair that kicked up on the back of his head no matter how short he told the barber to razor it. The last time he’d gone calling on Senator Norbanus’s daughter, he’d tried desperately to flatten his hair down with goose grease, and his grandfather had told him he looked like a Bithynian bum-boy. “No need to trick yourself out, lad! Your name will do the trick; her father and I are like brothers. I’ve already spoken to him; now all you have to do is charm the girl a bit.”

Titus sighed. His friends at school complained about tight-fisted fathers, unsympathetic uncles, demanding grandfathers. But Titus had a grandfather who thought he was perfect and a father who had been perfect and was now dead, and that was far harder to live up to. It was absolutely no use telling his grandfather that an heiress related to the Emperor and courted by half of Rome was not going to be impressed by a boy of sixteen with nothing to boast but an armload of violets and six unpronounceable names. She’d probably laugh him right off her doorstep.

“You’re in luck today,” the broad-shouldered young guard told him. “She’s in the library. I’ll show you back.”

“Thank you for the advice about the violets,” Titus said, lengthening his stride to keep up with the guard’s long swaggering steps. He dearly wished for a little swagger himself.

“She likes sort of ordinary flowers instead of stiff fancy ones,” the guard answered. “I told that bugger Tribune Hadrian she goes mad for lilies, the big expensive ones, and now he sends so many she feeds them to the horses.” A chuckle. “She can’t stand the smell.”

“Tribune Hadrian?” Titus’s grandfather really thought he could win out over men like Tribune Hadrian with his distinguished voice and rising career and oceans of poise? I’m sunk.

The guard clapped him on the shoulder. “Good luck.”

“Thank you,” Titus gulped, and marched into the library before his courage failed him.

Well. Vibia Sabina didn’t look like the kind of girl being courted by half of Rome. He’d met her before, even been introduced, but she’d been dressed up and quiet at her father’s side; a senator’s daughter just like any other. Now she was lying on the floor of the library on her stomach, hair hanging over one shoulder, crunching on an apple. She had maps spread out all around her, and she was apparently drawing a line across them with a stylus. She looked up at Titus, and he saw she had blue eyes.

“Oh no.” Her voice was mild. “Not another one.”

“Sorry?”