Romance at Heart: free romance reads, Chapter One of A Little Roman Scandal by Jennifer Mueller

A Little Roman Scandal

* *Chapter 1* *

The cook had outdone himself on the meal; grilled damsons and pomegranate seeds, truffles and mushrooms, sausages on a silver grill, piping hot wild boar, lobsters garnished with asparagus, apples whose scent was a feast in itself, Syrian pears in a soufflé. It was all the best that could be purchased, but as far as feasts went, it was quite modest. The family prided itself on its fine standing in Rome, but they weren’t the sort to have lavish feasts that people spent all night long at. Besides, there was business to take care of this night.

Claudius Quintus Gallus reentered the dining room and was surprised to find someone there, still more that it was a woman staring out an open door at the Pincian Hill mansion's garden. He thought all of the families were in the other room trying to entice him into matrimony with their daughters’ attributes. He wouldn’t have minded so much of it was their attributes they were indeed discussing with the girls themselves. Friends, hobbies, interests, travels, but he’d never heard so much talk of money and property in his life. He hadn’t seen her at the meal, but then with so many people there, it would have been easy to overlook one. He didn’t know how he could have missed her when he walked closer. From behind, she was tall and lithe. The sea green silk tunic and drape fell enticingly allowing the curves it was supposed to hide to show through quite well. Her dark brown hair was the image of an ideal Roman lady, curled high in front and covered in an exquisite net decorated in pearls and emeralds. His glass of wine and the women in the other room were forgotten.

“Would you care to see the garden close up instead of just through the door?”

She turned and he held his breath when she lifted her eyes. They were the same shade of sea green as her drape and glowed in the lamplight. She was gorgeous and literally dripping with more pearls and emeralds than he had seen in one spot before, and he had dined in some of the wealthiest homes in Rome, including the Emperor's. The pearls came from far away in India and China driving the price up, and the emeralds that could be found in only one place in Egypt were just as expensive to obtain. That was what the fathers throwing their daughters at him would notice if they were found talking. He could only see she was more beautiful than a statue of Venus.

“Would it get me out of all that talk I hardly understand? Perhaps if I knew who all their mistresses were, I might be able to keep track.”

He smiled when no mention was made of dowries, fortunes, or even the wedding date. “The gardens are quite expansive, so I’m told. They would take some time to view, I would imagine, especially if you took your time.”

“So you are told? Haven’t you been here before then?”

“Only once briefly. It is the Censor’s chance to show off his gift to his son for finally marrying.”

She smiled and the last of his will power melted away. “Then how are you to give me a tour of somewhere you’ve never been yourself?”

“Come, we’ll stumble around together. I don’t understand half of what they’re babbling about either. All this marriage talk is a bore.”

“So that is why my father dragged me here. I wonder which one he was trying to entice. Knowing him the Censor’s eighty year old father or his five year old son.”

He was a well-built man dressed in the richest of brown Palmyra silks. His hair was dark brown and not curled in the current fashion, but it had lightened in the sun while it had the opposite effect on his skin, which had darkened considerably. He was in his early thirties and he had to be one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. Why couldn’t her father ever find such a man for her to marry?

Claudius made no mention of the fact that he was to be married off from the offers that night. His father had invited all the parents who had offered their daughters for his son. The negotiations couldn’t wait for some forty fathers to present their cases one by one, he would be an old man before anything was decided if that was the case. He had been of marriageable age for some years now, but it wasn’t until he’d mentioned to his father that perhaps it was time that anything went forward. Of course none of the families knew that the others were there for the same reason as the invitations had been for his birthday, and many family and friends were there as well. Now he had listened to the same secretive whisper from each family as they pressed their suit for marriage thinking they were the only one; he never even met the girls. It was no wonder he had drunk so much wine already and the night was only half over.

He opened the door and showed her out. They were soon surrounded by high pergolas covered in roses, fish pools with fountains in their centers, fig trees and rosemary, peacocks strutted around with their shrill call filling the night air, dark cypress trees competed with white lilies, doves cooed as they walked by. It was hard to tell where the mansion’s gardens stopped and the public gardens dotting the Pincian Hill started.

“You don’t sound like you wish to wed.”

The beautiful face turned hard. “I have been planning all my life to become a wife as all Roman daughters should. If I had been told to marry the one arranged when I was a child and he hadn’t died, I would have done my duty and become a proper matron even if I had never met him before. But this . . . I have been promised to six different men in the last six months and when a better offer comes along, he throws it all out the window, not caring what promises he breaks.” She kept speaking as if in a daze. She knew it was poor manners, but she was unable to stop once she started. “One he broke off only a week before the wedding. He has lost far more influence from all those he as angered than he ever would have gained in marrying me off to any one of them. I have never even met the men from these matches; they lasted so short a time, some only a few days. I never even met the one I was to wed in only a few days. Now I am to wed a man who is fifty years my senior and dying at that, but he has no children. I would be his sole heir and my father would have his riches back forcing me to turn over what would then be mine. Even worse: what he is dying of he will give me on our wedding night.” He watched her shudder at the thought. Her next words came as a whisper. “Should I forget bedding such a man because it brought me silks, jewels, and fine houses? Should I die slowly and excruciatingly because it made my father rich? He says I am causing a scandal by refusing to go through with it and he says nothing of the scandal he has caused. So I am not a perfect daughter. To my father, I don’t want to be.”

His smile faded as he realized she was not one of the brainwashed woman who had been proposed to him so far, girls who could only do as their father said and only waited to transfer that allegiance to him for the right price. She had a mind of her own and she wasn’t afraid to show it. “If you are to wed already why has he brought you here?”

“Don’t you see it? He is still looking for the better deal. All along, he has wanted a Senator or at least a Senator’s son. He hasn’t the money to attract one though. I suppose that is why he dragged me here, to a birthday party of all things. His dowry isn’t enough in the company I saw tonight so he thought one look at me would tip the scales.” Her sea green eyes outlined in kohl, shaded with malachite dust, looked back at him; it was the only makeup she wore. Much less than any woman in Rome would dare be seen without leaving her room in the morning, which made it twice as little as any others there that night. The face he looked upon was all her own. There was nothing to disguise any flaws, she was stunning and so was the Arabian perfume that swirled around her in an expensive cloud.

“Any man Censor, Senator, or Plebian would be a fool not to have his scales tipped in your favor.”

She smiled. The first smile he had seen from her. “You must be a friend of the birthday boy. If he is of the age to marry finally and with the number of parents here, tonight the offers must be flying thick. Just what has been offered to make a match tonight?”

“Many more than five million and that was the low end.”

“And now you know why I am here to sweeten the pot.”

“My mother would call that vain.”

She laughed prettily. “Your mother hasn’t endured being sold off like a sheep.”

“That’s not an excuse. All Roman daughters go through that, my mother included.”

Her laugh settled into a wry grin. “It didn’t take long for me to figure out why I have been dragged out here. He prefers to entertain his candidates at the brothels. There are some out there that actually have scruples though. Most of those he has tempted with me, I have heard that if only the dowry were higher they would undo the arrangements they had already made just from seeing me. Money obviously speaks louder than beauty or I wouldn’t have been shuffled about as I have.”

“How much may I ask is he offering?”

“Five hundred thousand sesterces.”

“Your father plays with you if he offers such a paltry amount to tempt the Censor and a family such as this one, but if it was me for instance…” He paused not sure he should say what he was thinking, but in the end his reserve failed him. “I would take the offer without one sesterces in your dowry and the Censor would be a fool if he didn’t see that a face and spirit like yours was worth the money lost from a more advantageous arrangement.” Livia walked away from him, vanishing in the dark even though he knew she was only a few feet away.

“If I am going to stay, I am not going to do it spending my time talking of a man I loathe. What do you do with your life?”

“Doing my civic duty like everyone, waiting to get out from under my father’s rule like any son my age.” He didn’t mention that his civic duty was as a Praetor, a judge - a quite prestigious title to have before one’s name. Somehow, he doubted he would ever have found out so much if she had known he was the one being paraded around to entice.

“Somehow I doubt that. You don’t look like anyone that sits around and waits for something to happen.”

Claudius laughed heartily. “Perhaps you are right, perhaps I have caused him enough heartbreak already, and now I just bide my time until he has forgotten and sets me free.”

Livia grinned. “I can see that a bit more.”

“What sort of life do you have when your father isn’t being so fickle?” She was silent for a time listening to the peacocks. Claudius walked over to her and found her standing as still as one of the statues that littered the grounds.

“My mother died when I was young so I spent much of my life being raised by my uncle and his wife on the Seleucia side of the city at the bridge across the Euphrates on the trade routes to the east.”

And that, Claudius thought, explained her well; it also explained the jewels. Seleucia held great fortunes in its fortified walls as the gateway to the east and its exotic goods.

“They treat me as their own child even now that I have my own house to live in. They raised me properly and gave me all the freedom I desired. They have given me the love my father refused me. I returned to enter into a marriage that was arranged even before I left for Seleucia when I was all of four. I came only because I knew I would spend no more than a few nights in my father’s house. That man was dead, dead for years. My father used it solely as a means to get me here so he could do this to me. I cannot take my own case to the courts since only males may see to such a thing. He watches me like a hawk to see that I do not write my uncle to come and plead my case. I know no one in the city to trust with such a task, or one who will not be frightened of my father once he finds out I am trying to leave. One of my brothers died in a posting in Alexandria and the other in a riding accident just outside the city. I am all that is left. I have no other family to turn to.”

“As well as your father’s last chance to ally himself with a worthy family.”

“Yes.” She practically spat the word out.

“ While you are still free to associate with handsome young men, would you perhaps care to accompany me to a play tomorrow evening?”

“And cause my father scandal? I get in enough trouble contradicting his words.” The household dog ran over and she bent to rub its ears. The dozens of pearl and emerald necklaces fell aside. Dripping in them did not show taste or restraint like Cato advocated for the rich. In all other regards, she was quite restrained in her dress compared to the others there, but it did cover the bruises from what looked like someone half strangling her. The dark bruises showed up easily against her fair skin even with only the moonlight to see by. Despite that he didn’t know her name, he ran his finger gently over one of the bruises. She shivered slightly and he knew it wasn’t from the cool evening.

She felt no shame in his finding out about them. Even she didn’t understand why she was talking of them at all, even why she told him so much of her life. All she could figure was she needed someone to talk to. “I refused to wear as many jewels as he wanted me to tempt the esteemed Censor so he gave me a reason to wear them.”

Claudius’s throat went dry as he stood once more. “One word to the Censor and he will be punished for what he has done.” He whispered, having trouble bringing it to words. Women may not have had as many rights as men, but their men were expected to protect them to the point they didn’t need them.

“You’re assuming I would survive the night in his house if I said one word that would get him in trouble.” He ran his finger over the bruise again. “But perhaps if I cause a little scandal, the old bastard I am to marry will think again about his choice of a wife.”

Claudius smiled faintly. “You don’t even know my name. I might be more of a scandal than even you want to take on.”

She smiled back like an image of Venus herself. “I’m not saying yes to take to your bed, I’m not even saying yes to being alone with you. I think the theatre is safe enough for a first scandal, don’t you think?”

He laughed. “I am Claudius.”

“Livia.”

A slave appeared at her side and he saw her jump. She truly was scared of her father; it surprised him that she had contemplated what she did so easily knowing the consequences could be painful.

“My lady, your father is eager to find where you had gone to. He is ready to talk to the Censor about your suit.”

“Tell him I left, he can talk to the Censor himself. He should have told me why he was bringing me and yes, you can tell him I’ll not help him catch another one. Claudius I will see you tomorrow evening near the Viminalis gate. The villa is grey marble with an iron door, across from the fountain.” Before the slave could answer, she had headed for the gate and her chair to take her home. Claudius quite enjoyed the view as she left, but he worried about what bruises she might have to hide from such defiance.

“Sir?” The stout Gaulish slave asked quietly.

“Yes, Lapidacus.”

“You did not tell her that her father was going to discuss you, did you?”

“If her father found out I was interested in her, he would sell her like an unwanted piece of furniture.”

“Isn’t that what all of them are here to do? Try to sell their daughter to your family for the highest price?”

“He’s engaged her six times in six months and the seventh is arranged to marry her in a few weeks.”

“You, too, shall have an arrangement by the end of the evening.”

Claudius shifted his gaze a bit saddened. “I know.” Lapidacus started to walk off. “Tell my father not to speak to her father. Do that instead of telling her father she left. I don’t know her father’s name though.”

“She is Livia Pollia, Sir. Her father Annius is a Praetor as well.” Claudius looked back at the gate where she had disappeared, at last realizing why she was as trapped as she was. He had the power in his own right to see she was barred from leaving the city. He hadn’t the need to go to anyone for the favor.

“Is there a chance, sir, that she will be the one that your father chooses? How will you ever know if they never talk?”

“Forty fathers, Lapidacus, the odds are slim it would be her, in view of what she told me. Just keep my father from talking to him, only have him not do it by actually forbidding it. That might get her father suspicious about why. Hopefully he will be too mad at being put off to realize she left before it became a lost cause.”

“Yes, sir.” Lapidacus left him there in the garden with the sound of the peacocks in the night.

Claudius let out a deep breath. “It may save you one beating at least.” He muttered to the woman that was unable to hear him before he went back to the party and drank heavily to numb his ears about money and nothing.