To Burn (31 page)

"He was," Ceolmund answered evenly.

"I hope you were not one of the men who was rude to my wife. She puts great store in manners." Wulfred barely breathed, "As I have learned to do."

"Wulfred, we did not come to discuss this," Sigred said, drawing closer. "We came to bring you down with us. It is not our way to seek solitude." He eyed Melania with open suspicion. "Saxons do not leave the company of Saxons."

"Even when they are newly joined?" Wulfred smiled. "You know that is not true. Here is my wife. I choose to be with her in a more private place than the rooms below. Understandable, is it not?"

"She was below—"

"Because she was required to comfort a woman who had been abused by Saxon hands and Saxon words." Wulfred walked to Sigred and stood a handbreadth from his face. "I have won this place by conquest. I have won the people in it. I will not hand it over to you. Not one small part of it. Understood?" When Sigred nodded in curt answer, Wulfred said, "Now return to my holding and enjoy my hospitality, while you may."

Effectually dismissed, Sigred, Walfric, and the other men brushed past Wulfred and walked down the steep hill toward the villa, anger and frustrated defiance showing in every movement. Melania stopped stroking her knife when they disappeared from view.

"Is this the amity shared between Saxon allies?" she asked. "Your world is peopled by enemies."

Ceolmund faded away into the brush, giving them a modicum of privacy; she had no doubt that he could still see them. Wulfred looked down at her, his manner strangely hesitant. This was altogether a new behavior for him. She had seen him angry, passionate, disgusted, and vengeful; this was... sorrow? Tenderness?

"What is it?" she asked, disturbed more than she cared to admit.

"It is not I who has their suspicion. But you are right; my bond with them is strained. It will heal. In time."

Melania looked into his eyes, so blue and suddenly so soft. "Is it because of me?"

Wulfred took her into his arms. The wind brushed her hair and pushed the dark clouds across the sky, cheating the sun of its day. It would rain again, and soon.

"You are Roman and among us. It troubles them," he said against her hair.

He had trouble with his own kind? Because of her? Because of a hated Roman? Of them all, Wulfred had the most reason to hate Rome and all who sprang from her; of them all, Wulfred stood with her, against them. She had not forgotten that his comitatus had stood to defend her, but only because of Wulfred. Because of Wulfred, she was safe. Because of her, he battled his own.

Regret surged through her powerfully. Regret that someone was hurt because of her and sorrow that she could not mend it. She could not stop being Roman even had she wanted to. Strangely, in this world of ravaging Saxons, she was more effortlessly Roman than she had ever been. But for the first time in her life, her Roman birth brought her no satisfaction.

"I am sorry," she whispered against his chest.

She apologized for being a Roman.

Wulfred, savage, uncivilized, and uneducated, understood.

How had she come to this? How had the barbarian holding her so tenderly learned compassion? Or was it she who had learned understanding?

Her world had been a simple place of simple and straightforward principles; Romans were the apex of civilization and the epitome of all man could achieve on earth. Saxons were, of course, the nadir. Yet the Saxon holding her now would stand tall in any culture, and his own was not as degraded as she had once believed. He had an honor from which he never wavered. He had the courage to stand against his own and the compassion to see the need. He inspired loyalty and dogged devotion. He was not the animal she had named him.

Her father died a little more at that moment as her arms wound around a half-naked Saxon warrior and her lips pressed against his thudding heart. Melania quietly let her father go.
Peace, Melanius.

She shifted in his arms so that she could look up at him as he held her. His jaw was strong and sculpted, his mouth wide, his nose straight. He was a well-featured man, and strong. And he was gold all over. She had never known a man could be so golden. On impulse, she stood on tiptoe and kissed his throat.

"Planning where next to set your knife?" he asked, holding her close.

She smiled against his chest and answered, "Too difficult to reach. I had considered it."

"You obviously thought it through. Unusual for you."

"I'm still thinking, still considering."

"I can see I've taught you caution."

She reached her arms around his chest and nuzzled her face against his width. She loved the smell of him.

"It would be much more fair if I could only get you down on the ground."

"I don't think you'll have a problem with that." He smiled, running his hands down her back to cup her bottom.

"Good. You have been something of a problem in the past. I don't suppose you can help it, being a Saxon."

Wulfred lifted her so that her legs straddled his thigh. The friction was exquisite torture, and she clung to his shoulders, closing her eyes to the world around her.

"I don't suppose you will admit to being a problem? Not even once in your short life?"

"Romans are not problems; they are challenges," she murmured, seeking his mouth with hers.

He kissed her. She felt the wind against her skin, and Wulfred's hands against her body, and his tongue hot against hers. She was all sensation, and reason was buried. He was a Saxon and she had been taught to hate him, but all she wanted was to feel him, be with him, talk to him. Could this fire that burned with every touch be the reason that she saw him differently? He was no longer Saxon to her. He was Wulfred.

And what of Marcus? Her father was gone—she had released him to the eternal—but Marcus was here.

That name tortured her more than the blaze of Wulfred's touch. She had again forgotten Marcus in the heat of Wulfred's arms. Marcus was depending on her for his very life. The area swarmed with Saxons, and Marcus waited in hiding, waited for her. And she stood on an open hilltop with her arms around a Saxon warrior. What had she become during the passage of this summer?

Pushing herself away from his kiss, she said, "I must go."

"You must not." He smiled, reaching for her again. Why was his grin so engaging, his manner so light, his lower lip so full? He had been easier to hate when he kept pushing her in the dirt.

"Because I have things to do, and so should you."

"Do what calls you. I will go with you."

"You don't have to do that!" How was she going to supply Marcus if Wulfred dogged her steps?

"But I will."

She walked down the hill, hoping to put some distance between them with every step. Of course, it didn't work; his stride far outpaced hers. Did he feel he had to protect her? Certainly he had cause, but if he stayed by her all day, she would never be able to meet her obligation to Marcus—an obligation rooted in love.

They reached the villa walls and walked into the courtyard, Ceolmund not far behind. She still had thought of no way to remove Wulfred from her side, until she saw Cenred's back outlined in the kitchen doorway. Inspiration hit.

"Wulfred, why don't you go to the baths? And take Ceolmund with you. I want to speak to Cenred privately."

Wulfred looked at her speculatively, seeming to measure her motives. She had told him the truth, and she let that shine from her eyes. She did want to speak with Cenred again about Dorcas... and Cenred would be so much easier to evade than either Ceolmund or Wulfred.

"I did not know you were so generous with your baths," Wulfred remarked, stroking his jaw.

"I am very generous where my nose is concerned."

"You will be in the kitchen?" So he had seen Cenred's back, too.

"That is where I am going," she said truthfully. The food for Marcus was in the kitchen.

"Then I will be in the baths, should you need me," he said, and he playfully pulled her hair in passing.

"There are Saxons enough to drown in. I won't need another," she called after him.

"There are Saxons enough to drown in," he repeated. "Stay in the kitchen." He didn't even look back as he said it.
Arrogant oaf.

She entered the kitchen without giving in to the urge to watch him until he was lost to her sight. Cenred was there, as was Dorcas. Cenred was flirting outrageously. Dorcas was ignoring him, her earlier vulnerability buried. Melania watched, fascinated and a little mystified. Watching Cenred cringe, Melania saw that Dorcas clearly knew more of men than she did.
What mastery.

"I would have been there, had I known, but I did not know," he explained pitifully. Stroking the length of her arm, he said, "You are too beautiful a woman to wander without an escort—"

Dorcas rapped his hand with a wooden spoon. "It was safe enough to walk from the triclinium to the kitchen before you Saxons came."

Cenred pulled his hand back and rubbed his knuckles. A nice red welt was developing. Melania smiled.

"These men have been long without a woman, and you, with your dark beauty... your smooth skin and sparkling eyes, have driven them wild with desire."

"Is that what happened to you?" Dorcas asked as she stirred the pot.

"I? Well, I... yes," Cenred scrambled, "you are so beautiful—"

"Because I am the only woman available."

"No! Because—"

"Because you traveled far and saw no one else."

"Dorcas! That is not what I said!"

"That is what I heard, didn't you, Melania?"

"You did say that your... friends couldn't control themselves enough to keep their hands off Dorcas because they hadn't lain with a woman in a while," Melania supplied happily, completely enjoying the green look that seemed to come over Cenred's face.

Cenred shot Melania a glance that clearly told her to close her interfering mouth and then gave all his attention to Dorcas.

"You are special to me, Dorcas. You know you are. I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Like rape?" She slammed her spoon on the table, just missing his fingers.

"It wouldn't be rape!" he burst out, defending his Saxon brothers instinctively.

"No? You think I'd be willing? As willing as I was with you?" Dorcas snapped, and then she smiled. "Perhaps I would." And she ran a light hand over her belly.

For the barest moment, Melania thought Cenred wanted to strike Dorcas. Or throw up.

"You'd better leave, Cenred," Melania offered. "Don't come back until you know the right words to say."

"Yes, Cenred, you run along back to your comrades," Dorcas called out breezily. "No need to worry about me. I won't be lonely." Her smile as she said it was pure wickedness, and Melania bit the pad of her thumb to keep from laughing out loud.

Cenred looked pleadingly at Dorcas once more before he walked out of the kitchen.

Melania studied Dorcas. She was a shrewd woman, and resilient. And she had been right about Wulfred being attracted to her. Dorcas seemed to have an unusual understanding of the male mind.

"Do you want to marry him?" Melania asked without preamble.

"Yes," Dorcas answered calmly, her playfulness gone, "but only if he asks. I think he wants me to ask him, to trap him into marriage by some female fit so that he can give in. I won't have him holding his reluctance over my head for the rest of my life."

"I think you're right. He's a proud man. Marriage was not on his mind when he came here."

"And it was on Wulfred's?" Dorcas laughed wryly. "No. I have my pride, too. And I have his child."

"I would think that, above all else, would sway him toward you, but I don't understand Saxon customs. They could feel very differently about children." Melania's hand crept to her own belly; she could very well be pregnant as well.

"They could," Dorcas agreed, "but I think it is unlikely. I pray so."

"I will pray, too," Melania said. "Your child will need a father."

Dorcas smiled and pointed to the doorway. Cenred's broad back and blond hair could be seen just beyond the threshold. It was obvious he was listening. And just as obvious that Dorcas would take full advantage of it.

"There are many Saxons," she said cheerily.

Both women laughed silently as Cenred cursed fluidly in Saxon.

Chapter 23

It had taken her the better part of the day, but she had done it. Now all that was left was to hide her bundle somewhere until she could get to it. At dawn tomorrow she would give it to Marcus.

It hadn't been simple. It had been much easier before Hensa had come; now her world seethed and swirled with Saxons. But since the ordeal in the triclinium and then the smaller confrontation on the rock, no one had bothered her. They hadn't been cordial, but she was far from wanting courtesy from filthy barbari.

Melania edged along the rear wall of the villa, near the furnace. The vegetation was closer to the house there and offered her some cover against curious eyes. She had wrapped her bundle of clothing and food in the folds of her palla, and with her arms around it, she melted into the woods. Brush snagged her stola and scratched her legs until she reached the deeper shadows of the forest. She cut through, aiming for the old apple orchard. She hadn't been there in years, but she had played in it often as a child and so was certain of finding the path.