Chapter 19

Late into the night, when Julia stole outside to the stables to fetch her pony, Antoninus stood waiting, a look of pure grotesque wonderment frozen on his face. Before the situation could even register properly in her mind, she shuddered, for after this day's events she never wished to be stared at again by any man, for as long as she lived.

            Her stepfather, thankfully, looked at her for only the briefest of moments before he turned to gaze out at the fields, frowning.

            "It strikes me as very odd that you should wish to go somewhere at this hour, Julia. Or at any hour, considering what we have agreed."

            She sighed, her chest aching with the tears she had not yet shed. "I want only to ride out into the fields. You never forbade that."

            "Really? Lately, you don't seem to do that much anymore."

            "I have been distracted."

            He sniffed. "Of course you have."

            Avoiding his piercing glare, she looked into her pony's stall, reaching in to stroke the mare's neck. Antoninus, however, would not be put off whatever mission he had sought her out to complete.

            "May I go?" she said irritably, unable to force nonchalance into her voice.

            "No. Not tonight. I must discuss something with you."

            He lifted his right hand, in which was a sealed letter. Whether he had just written or received it, she could not tell. Either possibility worried her. Straightening her shoulders, she swallowed twice, trying to still her fluttering stomach.

            "I will speak with you, then."

            "All right, although I was not asking for your permission. I am writing to your mother, you see, to tell her that we will shortly be returning home to her."

            Before Julia could prevent it, a moan of surprise and confusion escaped her. Staring into her stepfather's face with the bewilderment of a child suddenly denied its favourite toy, she tried her hardest to speak, but her throat had constricted too much to expel all the questions she needed to ask.

            He seemed equally surprised by her reaction as she had been by his announcement. Taking a few tenuous steps towards her, he held out both arms in a bungling, miscalculated gesture of apology. Julia's only response was a devastated shriek, followed by the second torrent of tears she had wept that day.

            "My darling…oh, dearest, I did not mean to upset you so!"

            She covered her face, as much out of shame that he had seen her break down as from the heartbreak overcoming her. Many a time, in recent days, she had decided that she despised Antoninus. Years ago they had been perfectly suited to live together; he had known instinctively when to give her the free rein she desired, and she had understood when to submit daughterly obedience in return. When had he made up his mind to be as other men, those men who treated their children like pets and assets?

            She, Julia, was her person in her own right, was she not? If he didn't recognise that, then certainly no man ever would. She could not love any man who would not allow her freedom in life and in spirit.

            All might have been well with Quintus, if only he had not deigned to make a prisoner, an ordinary wife, of her. The thought was disgusting to her, though she did not even know why.

            "You did not upset me," she murmured at length, facing to stone wall of the stable and frantically rubbing her wet, swollen cheeks. "I am feeling unwell today…that is all."

            Antoninus was by now only inches away from her, and longed to reach out and make some tentative contact with her, both to express the long-standing feelings of guilt plaguing him and to try to win back her trust. Her hair hung to below her waist; shining, perfect honey-coloured curls tied loosely with narrow ribbons.

            Absently, irrationally, he compared her resplendent, almost otherworldly beauty with Diana's richer, more restrained charm, and found himself wondering how his staid, fragile little wife could possibly have produced the infuriatingly splendid creature before him.

            "You must come inside so we may discuss what is to be done, child!"

            "I am not a child."

            His hands trembled, hovering above her narrow shoulder. She shivered visibly, sensing his intentions as she unfailingly would each time he tried something similar, and failed.

            "You will do as I say, in any case. This will wait no longer. Gods, my dear, the servants do not cease talking about you even though they allow you to get away with murder! It is murder! You are destroying yourself as well as me. It would be the end of my poor wife if she knew all that you have been doing. Julia? Julia?"

            "There is no need to discuss anything, or tell Mama. I am happy to go home."

            A lie – everything she said to him of late was a lie. Her eyes closed tightly, she tried her hardest to think of anything except her last memory of Quintus's face. The last time she had seen her only friend.

            Antoninus did not argue with this. The greyness of his skin and resigned slump of his shoulders informed her that he had simply run out of energy with which to do so. Lifting a weary arm, he shook the letter at her, as if to threaten her with its existence.

            "If you are quite sure, then all is prepared. But first," he began darkly, "I must tend to some business."

*          *          *

The wine Quintus saved for dark moments such as these was truly lethal in large quantities; however, lethal, he fancied, might be just the effect he was looking for tonight. Julia was lost to him – there was no doubt about that. Every last inch of her sweet flesh, the miraculously perfect result of an inhuman attack, was as good as perished as far as he was concerned.

His fantasies of her becoming his bride, pledging her eternal love to him before the Gods, and then for the rest of their life together caring for him by day and sharing his bed by night, finally seemed as nothing except perverted whimsies. She remained a confused, unworldly little girl, whatever her age, and fit to be no man's mate until she had resolved her inner turmoil. Perhaps he might have resolved them for her, had he only realised all of these things before his disastrous conduct that day.

Taking mouthful after mouthful of poisonous brew, and slipping gradually into blessed oblivion, he steeled himself to spend the rest of his miserable existence knowing that he had been responsible for making the lives of all of his most precious connections unendurable, in one way or another – Maria, the General, Lucilla, and now Lucilla's youngest child and final gift to the world.

He took several long, deep breaths as the wine reached his head and numbed his mind of painful thoughts, hardly noticing as the door to his sitting room creaked open. Looking towards the blurred figure of a beautiful, shapely woman as she trod towards him, he blinked several times, hardly believing his luck.

"Oh, may the Gods bless you! You have returned."

"I never left this place, sir, as you well know."

Quintus shrank back where he sat, squinting as the lady, fair hair spilling around elegant white shoulders, bent to hurriedly take up the wine bottle and goblet where he had placed it within easy reach.

"What are you doing, darling?"

"Saving your life, although I hardly see why I should trouble myself. Will you come to bed tonight?"

His heart sank, and he lurched forward to take hold of her upper arm, making her jump. "Cassia, love, we will never be parted again if that is what you wish. I will lie with you tonight and every night."

She jerked out of his grip, scowling at him and hurrying across to room to where he could not touch her, her mouth set in a hard, enraged line.

"Is this how you intend to treat me forever? I sacrificed everything to live here as your whore, because I loved you! In all honestly, I did. My family needed your influence at court, yes, but I did not care a fig for their desires! I gave up my virtue even after you lost that, your one success in life, though I was happy to."

She strode up to the enormous fireplace, pouring what was left of the wine over the flames, making them leap and spark ferociously. "And you repay me by giving my mother's jewels to a woman so green and skittish that she belongs back in the cradle – not in your arms. It is perverted!"

He had begun to feel nauseous. With pleasure would he vomit onto the marble floors of his ancestors' home, though not in front of this woman. There had to be some measure of dignity still there for him to reclaim.

"I must…retire now, my dear. Could you please fetch Didius? There are things to be done which only he may assist me with. Cassia…?"

"No. Didius is occupied at this moment, with a visitor. A gentleman, come to speak to you." Even through his drunken, wavering vision, he saw that she smiled almost evilly, relishing his torment. "But if you would prefer, I could defer him until the morning…"

"No…" Pulling himself to his feet, Quintus swayed vaguely in the direction of his chambers. "Let our visitor know that I will speak with him, after I have…prepared myself a little."

Julia's stepfather. The man's face was entirely unfamiliar to him, and yet his explanation of himself, spoken before Quintus's senses had fully returned, made perfect sense. Were Antoninus not so obviously good hearted, his host might have despised him for a spineless worm. Exactly the sort of terrible father who would do nothing to prevent his daughter risking her reputation and even her life every night by leaving their home, under his very nose.

            If this is a good man, Quintus mused bitterly, then I am fortunate to be bad.

            "You are welcome here, sir," he began, trying his utmost to stand upright and avoid rocking from side to side. "Will you join me inside, where we may converse more comfortably?"

            "I cannot – I apologise. But I must finish this as quickly as possible." Antoninus's expression seemed grotesque. Quintus could plainly envisage it as it might be ordinarily: his handsomely oversized features relaxed and constantly smiling. The hardness in his eyes, formed of anger and protectiveness he was not usually given to, replaced by unchanging love and trust. For Julia.

            "...As you wish, sir. How may I help you?"

            "I have a daughter," the other man replied abruptly, as if expelling the words before they should disappear. "But you well know of her, don't you? I came here to inform you that she and I are leaving together as soon as possible. Returning home, I should say, where her mother and myself may keep watch over her with more vigilance. This city is corrupting to young women. A cesspool…it sullies and then kills them. They are too delicate for this place."

            Quintus shook his head slowly, his body turning numb. Nothing Antoninus said was untrue in the least – bar his assertion of women being delicate. Women were stronger than men. This city forced them to be. Nevertheless, in common every living thing, each woman had a breaking point.

            Antoninus barely paused long enough to allow his host to respond. "I pray the Gods that Julia is not sullied, you see. I could not bear for her to give her birthright away for the sake of a liaison with some unworthy fool. So, I must take her home."

            "As you wish," Quintus repeated and then paused, feeling the chilly night winds gusting ominously around them, as if carrying some unpleasant prophecy. "What have your plans to do with me, sir?"

            He laughed heartily for what seemed an eternity. "You pretend that you will not be sorry to see Julia leave? Oh, I should like very much to see both of you grieve yourselves to madness for your idiocy! You in particular, for you are the reason we must go. The majority of the reason, in any case."

            "Before you make these decisions," Quintus cut in swiftly, "you must understand that I never meant to discredit your daughter in any way! She is merely a dear friend of mine, whatever you might have heard of us, or whatever she might have told you…"

            Antoninus laughed again, almost drunkenly. "She has told me nothing! No confessions, not even the merest hint of her activities has passed her pretty lips. No, I was forced to make my own enquiries as to her whereabouts on those evenings when I would find her bed empty. What I discovered was most unsavoury…the reasons for that, sir, you will be aware of."

            "I am guilty," Quintus said simply, his throat closing up with the beginnings of tears. His eyes stinging, he added desperately, "I have harmed the girl, I know, though to what extent, I fear to guess. I had my reasons, and many years ago, they seemed to be good ones! But it is finished now, and she is of no use…"

            "No use?" Antoninus blinked several times. "Of course she is of no use to you! She is mine. She belongs to me until she marries!"

            "Paterfamilias," Quintus murmured under his breath.

                "Indeed. Know this, sir: you will never see or speak to Julia ever again. Not while I live. She will never belong to you."

            "I am aware of that. I bid you goodnight, sir."

            "Wait, please!" Antoninus said suddenly, his expression falling into a grimace. He had begun to tremble uncontrollably. "I need you to assure me, at least, that you honestly cared for her. Please."

            The request was not in the least odd or difficult for Quintus to answer. The words had been swimming around his mind since the last time he had seen her.

            "You are the most fortunate man alive, sir. You love her purely, because you cannot see or ever discover her secrets – the ones that not even she can comprehend. I must always be aware of it, and yet…I have never aspired to marry Julia. But I do love her. That is the truth."