Something dark and ugly twisted deep inside Gawain’s chest. There could be only one reason why Antonia’s daughter had been condemned to die. It happened in his culture too. He didn’t have to like it to acknowledge that it happened. Such decisions were never taken lightly. Who was he to judge another in such a matter?
But for Antonia to have lost four children, only to have her fifth born with such severe deformities that death was considered a kinder option, sickened him to the bottom of his soul.
There was nothing he could say to make her feel better. There was nothing he could do to wind back time and prevent him from asking the question in the first place.
“The gods play vicious games with us at times.”
“The gods had nothing to do with it.”
Something in her tone pierced the fog of recrimination that gripped him in a wraithlike vise.
“It wasn’t your fault, Antonia.” Was that what her bastard of a husband had told her? Blamed her for their child’s frail clasp on mortality?
She stared at him. “My fault?” She sounded confused, as though his words made no sense. He resisted the urge to wrap his arms around her and seduce her into forgetting this excruciating conversation. He had started it. He would not dishonor her pain by pretending it didn’t exist.
“That your daughter was…” The words lodged in his throat. In the past, before the invasion of Cymru, he had counseled his people in times of need. But that had been different. They had not been Antonia and their loss had not clawed through his chest the way Antonia’s loss did now. But still she stared at him and somehow he forced the word out. “Damaged.”
The silence after his words thundered between them and for a moment, he thought he’d gone too far. That he had pushed her beyond her limits and she’d crumble before him. But even as the thought formed, it disintegrated. Because she wasn’t looking at him as if she was about to fall apart. She looked at him as though he spoke in the sacred language of the gods.
“My daughter,” she said, and there was a fierce and terrible pride in her voice that unaccountably caused the spirits of his ancestors to drift over his arms. “Was perfect in every way. Her only flaw was that she was not a boy. My husband refused to acknowledge her existence to spite me, Gawain. To punish me for the sons I had lost.” Disbelief seared him, yet he knew she spoke the truth. She bared her teeth and for one eerie moment looked like a Celtic warrior going into battle. “As if their deaths do not haunt me every moment of every day.”
Disbelief surged into rage. It scarcely even registered that the man was Roman. All that thundered through Gawain’s mind was her husband had murdered his own child, simply to hurt his wife.
“It’s as well he’s in Rome. If I ever came across him I’d run him through with his own sword.”
“That notion crossed my mind more than once.” He felt the tension seep from Antonia as her fingers relaxed their death grip around his. “Had I possessed the strength that night I would have cut his throat with a fibula if nothing else had come to hand.”
Again the ethereal touch of his ancestors raised the hairs on his arms. Something was infinitesimally out of balance, although he couldn’t fathom what. Antonia’s heated fury of just moments ago had cooled and while he was relieved his thoughtlessness hadn’t caused her to tumble into hysteria, her current state of calm was…unnerving.
She had just confided that her husband had killed their newborn daughter. Admittedly, he had no idea how long ago it had happened although it couldn’t be that long, given her age and the length of time she’d been married. But even so, her attitude baffled him. Was it because the only way she could get through each day was to bury the pain so deeply that she could pretend it had never happened?
It seemed logical. But he couldn’t shift the feeling that something else had happened that night, something significant that she hadn’t told him.
He could think of nothing to say that didn’t involve deadly force against her former husband, and so he remained silent. But it was a healing silence as the tension that had held Antonia in its merciless grip faded and she hugged his hand against her breast.
“I vowed I would never conceive another child.” Her voice was so low he scarcely caught her words. He wondered if she even meant for him to hear. He buried his face in her silken hair and closed his eyes. There was nothing he could do to ease the pain she’d suffered. How he wished there was.
It was late. Every moment he stayed increased the chance of him being caught. But the thought of leaving her bed held no appeal.
Just a little longer. There would be no harm in that.
“Gawain.” Her whisper penetrated his thoughts and he brushed a kiss across her brow.
“What is it?”
Her sleepy gaze caught his. “I know it’s impossible for you to stay all night but would you mind—could you stay with me for just a short while? Until I go to sleep?”
“Yes.” His response appeared to both surprise and delight her, if the look on her face was anything to go by. She bestowed a luminous smile at him, sighed and then snuggled against him, as though that was the most natural thing in the world for her to do.
Propped up on his elbow he watched as her breathing became regular and her muscles fully relaxed. With her hair tangled over her shoulders and spread across her pillows she looked untroubled; untouched by the harsh realities of life.
How deceptive appearances could be.
No wonder she didn’t miss life in Rome, when so much tragedy had befallen her there. Was it really her fate to return, as the wife of the praetor?
She would never return to Rome if he had anything to do with it.
The thought filled his mind, and it didn’t thunder with heated fury, but chilled his blood with iced conviction. Antonia deserved more than to become the chattel of another arrogant Roman, but what was the alternative? What could he offer her? A life on the run with a displaced Druid, a life filled with lies when he’d have to keep his true nature a secret from her?
What was he thinking? Antonia would never—could never—share his life, even if he lost his mind and asked her to.
No woman could share his life. There was no room for a woman in his future. If Rhys remained adamant about not inciting the other Druids to rebellion then when Carys left Camulodunon so would he.
He’d travel north, beyond the land of the treacherous Brigantes, into the territories of the Picts. They, at least, still defied the insidious spread of the cursed Eagle.
But instead of anticipation flooding his blood at the prospect, an odd hollowness gnawed in his gut. It was the right thing to do. The only way forward for a warrior who no longer lived in his homeland. Why then did it feel so wrong?
Perhaps, in spite of his best intentions, he fell asleep because from the depths of black he jerked awake, heart pounding. For a moment, he had no idea where he was, until he realized it was Antonia in his arms. Antonia whose breath came in uneven gasps, whose body trembled and whose fingernails dug into his forearm in unnamed terror.
“Antonia.” He brushed her hair back from her sweaty face. She was in the grip of a nightmare and unintelligible words spilled from her lips. He leaned closer and brushed a kiss across her mouth. “Sweet Antonia, wake up. You’re safe. I’m with you.”
She went rigid and her eyelids sprung open. He began to smile in reassurance until he realized that she was still asleep. An eerie shudder inched along his spine as her fathomless eyes bored into him. And then she spoke.
“Embrace your destiny. Bring them home to me.”
Her words were clear, commanding, directed at him. But it was none of these things, or even the way she continued to stare, unseeing, that caused his stomach to clench and chest contract.
It was because Antonia spoke in the sacred language of the gods that only Druids understood.