To Love Again - Bertrice Small [102]
“Why are you here?” his companion demanded bluntly. “You detest the country, Basilicus. There is another reason, I know.”
“Verina sent me,” Basilicus admitted. Honesty always worked with Aspar, the prince knew. Besides, Aspar was not a man to trifle with, particularly when he was in a difficult mood such as now.
“Good lord! What does your sister want of me that she would send you to the country after me, Basilicus? Tell me! We will not return to the house until you do.” Then Aspar chuckled, obviously finding humor in the situation. “Your poor body will soon go into shock, my friend. I do not believe it has been in the warmth of the sun in years.”
“Verina heard that you had closed up your house in the city and moved out to your villa. She has also heard that you have taken a mistress. You know her curiosity is greater than most women’s,” Basilicus said to Aspar. “And, of course, she is Flacilla’s friend.”
“And she hopes to get me in her debt,” Aspar observed wisely.
“How well you seem to know my sister,” Basilicus said mockingly.
“I also know of the recent scandal involving my wife that the patriarch hushed up,” Aspar replied. “I may be living in the country, Basilicus, but my channels of information have simply stretched a bit farther. There is little happening in the city that I do not know about. Because I am happy, and because my wife’s relations have quieted the gossip surrounding her and her recent lovers, I am content to let the matter rest, lest my own arrangement be brought to light. You know as well as I do, Basilicus, that Flacilla is perfectly capable of creating a scandal around this villa and its inhabitants simply to deflect attention from her own outrageous behavior. Because she is not a happy woman, the idea that I should be happy would be galling to her. That is why I live here now rather than in the city. My conduct is subject to less scrutiny at Villa Mare, or so I believed until today.”
“You do not seem to be living a very profligate life, Aspar,” Basilicus observed as they now walked from the beach up the garden path to the villa. “Indeed, if I had not known you, I would have assumed you were simply a well-to-do gentleman and his wife. Now tell me, before I die of curiosity, who the girl is and where you found her.”
“You do not recognize her, Basilicus?”
The prince shook his dark head. “No, I do not.”
“Think back, my friend, to a night several months ago when you and I together visited the Villa Maxima to take in a notorious and particularly salacious entertainment that had the city agog,” Aspar said.
Basilicus thought a moment, and then his dark eyes grew wide. “No!” he said. “It cannot be! Is it? You bought that girl? I do not believe it! That exquisite creature with you on the beach is patrician-born without a doubt. She cannot be the same girl!”
“She is,” Aspar said, and then offered his friend a brief history of Cailin and how she had come to Villa Maxima.
“So you rescued her from a life of shame,” Basilicus noted. “What a soft heart you have, Aspar. It would be better that others, including my sister and your wife, not know it, I suspect.”
“I am only softhearted where Cailin is concerned,” the general told his friend. “She makes me happy, and is more a wife to me than Flacilla has ever been. Anna would have liked her, too.”
“You are in love,” Basilicus accused, almost enviously.
Aspar said nothing, but neither did he deny the charge.
“What will you do, my old friend?” Basilicus asked. “You will not be content to live in the shadows with your Cailin for very long, I know.”
“Perhaps I will seek a divorce from Flacilla,” Aspar said. “The patriarch cannot deny me, particularly given this recent scandal she has caused. It is past time she was shut up in a convent. She is a constant embarrassment to her family. Eventually she will do something so mad that they will not be able to cover up her behavior.”
They walked across the portico facing the sea, and into the interior garden of the villa, where chilled wine and