“Lepida?” The familiar knock at my door. “I heard a crash.”

“Just a perfume bottle, Marcus. Iris knocked it over.” I arranged my face in a winning smile.

My husband entered, kissing my cheek in greeting. Ugly and out of place in my pretty blue and silver bedchamber, and smelling like ink as usual. “Down in the library again, Marcus?”

“I can’t find Cicero’s Commentaries.”

“The slaves don’t put your things away properly. You should take a firmer hand.”

“No need. Poking through the shelves, that’s half the fun.”

Fun. Lepida Pollia, the toast of Rome, married to a man who poked through scrolls for fun. “How sweet,” I murmured.

“And you?” His eyes caught mine. “Have you been keeping yourself amused?”

“Half my things aren’t even unpacked yet. As for the city—” I waved a hand airily. “Well, Brundisium may not be Rome, but I imagine I can find something to do. There’s a new production of Phaedra at the theatre. Oh, and I bought more pearls. They were so pretty I just couldn’t resist.” Dimpling.

“Buy what you like.” He smiled. “See? I told you the quiet would do you good.”

“Perhaps you were right.” I held my smile steady.

“Paulinus is coming for dinner tonight. And a few friends. It’ll be quite a party. You’ll like that, won’t you?”

Quite a party. Marcus’s serious son Paulinus, and a few old men droning on about the Republic. When for four years I’d shared dining couches with senators, with provincial governors, with the greatest patricians of Rome. “Of course I’ll enjoy it, Marcus. I’ll tell the cook to make up some of that venison with crushed rosemary that Paulinus likes.”

“I’ve asked him to come early. Sabina loves his stories before bed.”

“You both spoil her,” I chided. “She’s got a nurse to tell her stories.”

“Can I help it if she likes Paulinus’s better?” He kissed my cheek again—ugh, that inky smell!—and quietly limped out.

I waited until he was safely out of earshot before I threw another perfume bottle at the door. I hate Marcus! I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!

PAULINUS Norbanus lowered his sword as his opponent doubled over. “You all right, Verus? Did I—”

“Hah!” Verus straightened, whipping his blade up at Paulinus’s throat. “Knew you’d fall for it. Yield?”

“Yield.”

They sheathed their swords, loping out of the heat of the practice ring back toward the Praetorian barracks. “You’ve got to go for the kill, Norbanus. Augustus’s great-grandson? You’re just a baked clam.”

Paulinus grabbed him in a headlock, and they wrestled across the sunny courtyard. A pair of sparring Praetorians dodged out of the way, swearing amiably. “Yield,” Paulinus panted, thumbs jammed into Verus’s windpipe.

“Yield, yield.”

They ducked into the Praetorian baths, stripping off their sweat-stained tunics and collapsing gratefully in the hot steam of the laconicum. Verus groped through the billows of steam for the wine decanter. “Going to Marcellus’s dinner party tonight?”

“I can’t.” Paulinus swiped a towel across his forehead.