To Love Again - Bertrice Small [92]
“I think your nose very nice, my lord,” she replied.
“The nostrils flare a bit too much,” he told her. “Now my mouth is very well-proportioned, neither too big nor too little. Our friend, Jovian, has a cupid’s bow of a mouth, quite unsuitable for a man, don’t you think? It was probably charming when he was a child.”
“Jovian is still a bit of a child,” Cailin observed.
Aspar chuckled. “So there is a keen eye, and, I suspect, an intellect to go with that beautiful face and form.”
“I was not aware that my face was particularly visible when you saw me last, my lord, and my form was quite contorted, or so it felt,” Cailin said humorously. Then she grew serious. “Why did you buy me, my lord? Is it your habit to purchase inmates of brothels?”
“I thought you the bravest woman I had ever seen,” Aspar told her. “You were struggling to survive at Villa Maxima. I saw it in the blank stare you favored the audience with, and the stoic way in which you accepted the degradation visited upon you in that obscene playlet of Jovian’s.
“The empire that rules the world, or at least most of it, is governed by those same deviates who found your shame entertaining. I am a member of that ruling class, but I find those people more frightening than any danger I have ever faced in battle. When I impulsively purchased you from Jovian—who by the way would not have dared to refuse my request—I was doing so because I felt your bravery should be rewarded by freeing you from the hell you so gallantly endured. Now, however, I think perhaps there was another reason as well. You stir my blood, it seems.”
His frankness amazed her. Cailin struggled for composure. “There must be many beautiful women in Byzantium, my lord,” she said. “It is, I have been told, a city of uniquely beautiful women. Surely there are others more worthy of your attention than myself, a humble slave from Britain.”
His laughter startled her. “By God, I would not have thought coyness a part of your nature, Cailin. It does not become you, I fear,” Aspar told her.
“I have never been coy in my entire life!” she sputtered indignantly.
“Then do not start now,” he chided her. “You are a beautiful woman. I desire you. Since I bought you, there is, it would seem, little you can do except bear with the horrendous fate I have in store for you.” He put down his goblet and arose to stand facing her.
“Yes, you own me,” Cailin said, and to her dismay, tears sprang into her eyes which she seemed powerless to control. “I am bound to obey you, my lord, but you will never have all of me, for there is a part of myself that only I can give, no man can take!”
He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger, stunned by her honest declaration and moved by her passionate defiance. Tears slipped slowly down her smooth cheeks like tiny crystal beads. “My God,” he exclaimed, “did you know that your eyes glisten like amethysts when you weep like that, Cailin? You break my heart. Cease, I beg you, my beauty! I surrender humbly before your feet.”
“I hate being a slave!” she told him desperately. “And why is it that you can penetrate the defenses I have so carefully built up around myself these last months when no one else could?”
“I am a better tactician than any of the others,” he told her teasingly. “Besides, Cailin, although you tempt my baser nature, I find you fascinating on several other levels as well.” He brushed away her tears carefully with a single finger. “I have finished my wine now. We will become better acquainted in the bath. I promise I will try not to make you cry again if you will not be coy. Do we have a bargain, my beauty? I think I am being most generous.”
She could not be angry with him. He was really very kind, but she was a little fearful of him nonetheless. “I agree,” she said finally.
“Come then,” he said, taking her hand and leading her from the atrium.
Chapter 9
The bath at Villa Mare