“Of course not; I missed you.” He gave her a hug too, then stood back approvingly. “You’re a pretty thing, Vibia Sabina. I can see why half my officers want to marry you.”

They can’t have her, Plotina wanted to spit. She is for my Publius, does no one see that? For my Publius.

Publius’s voice at her shoulder soothed her, so deep and cultured and authoritative. “I am hard-pressed to decide whether my Empress or my future wife looks the more beautiful this evening.”

“Flatterer.” Plotina offered her cheek to be kissed. That beard: He still hadn’t gotten rid of it, but he did look very distinguished in his fine linen synthesis, calm and handsome with a chased silver goblet in one hand and a seal ring glinting on one finger. He nodded to some acquaintance hailing him across the room but lingered at Plotina’s side.

“I must thank you, you know. You were right about Vibia Sabina—I see now she will be the perfect wife for me.” A smile gleamed in the close-cropped beard. “I should never have doubted your judgment.”

“Sometimes I doubt it myself.” Only to Dear Publius would she ever admit such a thing. The Mother of Rome must never have doubts. “I understand the girl is still stringing you along—I’d hoped to see it settled by now.”

“On the contrary. The delay gives me a chance to know her.” Hadrian looked across the room at Sabina, cornered between two tribunes and looking politely bored. “And I like what I see.”

“I don’t.” The girl would not get one word of approval out of Plotina until she became Dear Publius’s wife. Then she would be as a daughter, but now she was a nuisance. “I don’t like the dress.” There wasn’t really anything to fault in the narrow silvery gray gown with its high neck, but somehow it looked…

“The word you want is glamorous.” Hadrian swirled the wine in his cup, thoughtful. “The other girls here tonight aimed merely for pretty. And in ten years or so they will look like their mothers—fat and overpainted. Not my Sabina.”

“How nice you’ve come to like her,” Plotina said tightly.

“I remember meeting that monstrous mother of hers once or twice,” Hadrian continued. “The woman was appalling, but one couldn’t deny she had style. She had a very effective way of gliding into a room… Vibia Sabina seems unlike her in most respects, but she does have style. Even better, she has a mind. Given a few years”—Hadrian lifted his cup in an appreciative toast—“she might be quite a collector’s item.”