In the back of her mind, Nimue knew this night was the last night they would have together. She couldn’t allow her people to continue in their captivity, and she could no longer delay in fulfilling her pledge to Caratacus to safely deliver his queen and daughter to the land of the Brigantes.
When they finished their meal, Tacitus dismissed his servants and showed her the kitchen, where she would prepare her herbal teas in the morn. But she didn’t want to think of the following day. Because that was the day she would say goodbye to Tacitus forever.
He avoided all mention of her unauthorized visit to the prisoners or the way she had taken the opium. Instead, he appeared fascinated by the magic of her herbs. And, against the unwritten laws of her people, she found herself telling him of the ways a woman could assist or prevent conception. She trailed the tip of her finger along the table in the center of the room. “Is such knowledge denied to the women of Rome?”
“It’s not something I’ve ever considered.” He sounded as though he confessed to a great sin. “If such knowledge was freely available, perhaps it would have saved my adoptive mother great heartache.”
His adoptive mother? She trawled frantically through the conversations they had shared. He’d mentioned his mother several times. It had never occurred to her that she had traveled onto the next stage of her journey.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” How long ago had it occurred? No wonder he sounded so tortured when he spoke of his mother’s wish for his future career. And yet…her thoughts tumbled, uncertain. He had always spoken of her as if she was still in the mortal realm.
Tacitus frowned, seemingly baffled. “My loss?”
Nimue fought the urge to squirm. She had the feeling she completely misunderstood his words but had no idea in what way. “Of your birth mother,” she clarified, as heat washed through her. “It’s—hard to accept.” Such an understatement. Even with the passage of fourteen full moons since her own mother’s murder, the wound remained raw in her heart.
Tacitus’ frown faded, but his intense gaze didn’t waver. “My birth mother still lives, Nimue.” His voice was gentle, as if he realized her confusion but his words merely confused her further. How could he possess an adoptive mother if his blood mother still survived?
“I don’t understand.” The admission hurt, but not as much as it would have a quarter moon ago. “When you spoke to me before of your mother, of whom were you referring?”
He smiled, but it was a pensive smile and she couldn’t help but cradle his jaw in her hand, or caress the corner of his lips with her thumb. She didn’t like to see her Roman sad.
How far she had fallen in so short a time.
“I spoke to you of them both.” He took her braid and allowed the heavy rope to slide along his fingers. “My birth mother, whose gods I worship in her name and my noble Roman mother, whose forbearance often shames me.” He heaved a sigh and wound her braid around his fist. “Their ambitions for me are identical. A mirror image of my esteemed father’s.”
Mesmerized both by his entrancing violet eyes and the insight to his life, Nimue swayed closer until their bodies all but touched. A possible answer to his domestic arrangements fluttered through her mind.
Sometimes, despite every endeavor, a woman failed to conceive a dearly wished for babe. In those cases, her sister or close relation might offer the sanctuary of her own womb. It was a precious gift and not lightly given and in such cases the babe did, most assuredly, possess the love of two mothers at the same time.
“Your adoptive mother was barren,” she said, sure she was right. “And your birth mother gave her and your father the greatest gift of all. You.”
If she expected him to be impressed by her deduction, she was mistaken. A shadow passed over his face, as though by laying out the facts so baldly she had somehow defiled him.
“Something like that.” There was a trace of bitterness in his voice. Before she could probe further he tugged her closer, her hair still wrapped around his fist. “What happened to your mother, Nimue?”
His question was so unexpected she gaped up at him. How did he know something had happened to her mother? She had never so much as breathed a word about her mother to him.
“Was she killed during the invasion?” He was frowning again and there was a note of regret in his voice, as if he knew the answer already. And only then did she remember her words to him when she’d thought his birth mother had continued her journey.
Her Roman was too astute when it came to her. The knowledge didn’t irk her, as it would if anyone else had shown such insight, but she didn’t want to dwell on that uncomfortable fact.
“Yes.” It was a simple answer for an event so traumatic she could barely bring herself to think of it. She hoped he wouldn’t press the issue, and after a brooding look that caused her heart to squeeze in her breast, Tacitus gave a barely perceptible nod and wrapped his free arm around her in silent comfort.
Her tense muscles relaxed and she breathed in deep, relishing his masculine scent and the way his touch caused spirals of arousal to dance through her blood. She wound her arm around his tunic-clad waist and closed her eyes. She had to remember who she was and where her loyalty lay. But it didn’t ease the ache in her heart or the tightness in her throat. Tacitus’ heart thudded against her breasts, a bittersweet blend of comfort, desire and ultimate despair. How was it possible that one man could mean so much to her, when barely a quarter moon ago they hadn’t even met?
His race no longer mattered. She would never admit that aloud but it didn’t matter. Her confession seared her soul, condemned her for all time—and still she did not care.
“What are you thinking, Nimue?” His hand cradled the back of her head and held her close as if he feared she might otherwise escape.
She looked up at him. Tried, one last time, to see him as she had the first time they’d met. But it was futile. Because even that first time by the mountain stream she had seen him as more than merely her enemy.
“I’m thinking,” her voice was husky. She tried to clear her clogged throat, but it would not be cleared, “that I’m going to rip this Roman tunic from your body and have you at my mercy.”
He laughed, and the intoxicating sound ignited the embers glowing in her blood.
“I greatly anticipate being at your mercy.”
“As you should, Roman.” She tugged at his robe and finally slung the linen to the floor. Tacitus stood before her in all his naked glory, his tawny flesh taut, muscles flexed and with a lascivious smile on his face that caused her knees to tremble as if this was the first time she had seen an unclothed male.
“Do you like what you see, Celt?”
Her gaze dropped and she watched, fascinated, as his erection thickened before her eyes. “I have never seen anything better.”
Her words visibly aroused him further and he reached for her but she sidestepped his grasp. “You may look, but not touch.”
“You ask the impossible.”
Yes, she asked for the impossible but it was locked inside her heart and there it would remain. Because the foolish wish she harbored, that they might somehow forge a future together, was nothing more than that.
A foolish wish. And treacherous. Again she shoved her errant thoughts to the darkest corner of her mind. She wouldn’t spoil this night with hopes that could never be.
“You’ll be well rewarded for your patience.” She offered him a provocative smile and slowly peeled the linen from her body. Tacitus watched every movement, mesmerized. “Do you like what you see, Roman?”
His gaze dragged across her body and flames licked her skin as though he physically scorched her with merely a look. Then his eyes meshed with hers, captured her as easily as he had captured her on the day they’d met.
“I have never seen anything better.” His husky voice, with a trace of amusement at how he used her own words against her, enchanted her and she kicked the gown aside as she moved toward him.