“But Empress Plotina notices everything,” Lady Calpurnia groaned, “and I won’t have her wrinkling her long nose at my housekeeping.” Very heavy now, Calpurnia went lumbering about the house trailing lists and menus and worried slaves. Even the daughter of the house was pressed into service, and I saw Sabina down in the kitchens with her hair tied up in a rag and a smudge of flour on her chin, wrestling gamely with a lump of bread dough. “Show me,” she said, watching the cook’s expert hands pummeling and punching. “How interesting.” I hid a grin because she’d said the same thing to me last week, in exactly the same tone, when I showed her something under the blankets (never mind what).

“Gods, it’s cold,” she shivered, diving into my bed that night. “Warm me up.”

“As my lady commands.” I wrapped my arms around her. “You’re late tonight.”

“I was busy with Calpurnia, picking menus for the Emperor’s dinner.”

“I’ll be glad when this bloody dinner’s over.”

“Don’t you want to see the Emperor?”

“I’ve seen emperors before. Don’t want to see any more.”

“Liar.”

She could always catch my lies. I was curious to see this Emperor. A soldier, they said, but the Senate doted on him as they usually didn’t dote on soldiers. Popular. Intelligent. But what else was he?

Sabina poked my chest. “Can’t you warm me up any more than this?”

“Doing my best, Lady…” I ran a hand down her bare back and lower, and as usual we’d finish all the talk by making love a few more times—nothing like nineteen for stamina—and do it all over again the night after.

“Sabina, you’re looking tired these days,” Calpurnia exclaimed the following morning. “Rings under your eyes! Am I working you too hard for this ridiculous Imperial dinner?”

“I just haven’t been sleeping much,” Sabina said, placid, and I thought I saw a sharp look from Lady Calpurnia to her stepdaughter. But if she watched Sabina, there was nothing to see. No bright glances in my direction, no attempts to brush my hand as she went by in the halls, no more than the friendly interest she gave all the slaves and freedmen. The same friendly interest she gave me when we’d met in her father’s atrium that first time, and at the races afterward… not much changed from the interest I got now, really, in between the rest of it.