I thought about how to answer that, yes or no, and neither one seemed right. So I just leaned down and kissed her, tasting wine but smelling dry grass and summer. Her breast filled my hand, and her cool fingers were tracing their unhurried circles again on the back of my neck, and this time there was no indignant Roman housewife to bang me on the head and stop me from pulling the dress off Sabina’s shoulder. I buried my mouth in her neck, tugging her fine hair out of its careless plait so it spread on the grass, and that was when her hand moved to my chest, pushing me firmly back.

“So that’s it for tonight?” I flopped on my back, not resigned but not exactly surprised either. Still, if I’d gotten a kiss last time and a kiss plus a breast this time, then maybe next time… “Where are you going? We can talk about stars, have some more of this awful wine—”

“Shut up, Vix. You want to wake the whole house?” She got to her feet, brushing bits of grass off her skirt, and offered me her hand.

I squinted up at her. “What are you doing, Lady?”

She grabbed my hand. “Come with me.”

“Where are we going?” I asked as she tugged me through the atrium and then down a darkened passage.

“Your room. Fewer questions if there’s blood. This way?”

“Blood?” I felt like a squawking parrot, always a step behind and echoing everything she said. We were tiptoeing past the darkened kitchens now, toward my little chamber.

“It’s my understanding there’s blood sometimes after this sort of thing,” she explained in a whisper. “The first time, anyway. Now, no one will ask any questions if there’s blood in your bed, since you’re always stumbling in with cuts and scrapes after getting into fights. But my bed? That’s just the kind of thing nosy slave girls are always looking for.”

My head was spinning and not from the wine. “You’ve been—thinking this out, haven’t you?”

“Of course I have. For quite a while, actually. Is this it?” She pointed at a narrow door.