Free The Saint's Mistress by Kathryn Bashaar

is brilliant. I have extracted from him a promise
    to come back to Thagaste and teach, in return for my financing his further education in Carthage.
    I would like to see our town turn into a great center of learning and rhetoric. Not only that, but I
    need a rhetoritician to argue my cases with the government. And, lastly,” he grinned, “I just
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    enjoy the company of intelligent young men.” He swung himself around to a sitting position and
    leaned towards me. “And here you sit: beautiful, intelligent for a woman from what I can see,
    and the daughter of a pleb and sister of an executed rebel. Yet, he is determined to have you, and
    I can’t say I blame him. Further, there is a child. What to do?” He pretended to ponder, although
    I suspected he had already reached a decision. Finally, he sighed and rose to his feet. From my
    studies with Aurelius, I recognized in the Urbanus himself something of the rhetoritician, his
    pauses and movements those of a professional who knew how to keep his audience’s attention. “I
    can only see one solution,” he said. “In order to protect the investment I’ve already made, and
    guarantee the success of my plan, I see I must add to the pot. I am prepared, Aurelius Augustine,
    to finance a household for you and your beloved and child in Carthage.”
    Aurelius bowed his head. “Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.”
    “Thank you, sir,” I murmured. “When shall we be married?”
    “Married?” Urbanus’ hand froze on its way to his lips with the wine goblet, and the word
    seemed to echo from every wall of the room, looking for a home. “Oh, no,” he said, “you
    misunderstood. You must surely know it’s impossible for young Aurelius to marry you.”
    I tingled with shame and could not look up at him, willing the tears to stay behind my cheeks.
    Urbanus continued, “I thought you understood. You must think of his future, Leona. Not only
    would marriage to a pleb force him to forfeit his inheritance, but it would destroy his political
    prospects. Frankly, he’ll advance only insofar as he’s seen as eligible to eventually combine his
    fortunes with some other family’s. And my investment is only good insofar as he advances. But,
    don’t worry: he doesn’t need to marry for years yet. In fact, he might do better by dangling the
    bait as long as he can. And a mistress and children are no impediment to that, believe me. This
    sort of thing happens all the time.”
    He shrugged and waved a hand and, with those gestures, effected an utter change in the way I
    saw my situation. How foolish I had been, to think the love the Aurelius and I shared was
    something uniquely beautiful. How foolish I had been even in my fear and panic when I found
    myself with child, as if this were a catastrophe unique to me. Urbanus was right: “this sort of
    thing” had been enacted on many, many stages before, with the stock characters of the randy
    nobleman looking for a little fun, and the pretty peasant girl who is flattered by his attention and
    believes herself to be different from all the pretty peasant girls who had crossed the stage before
    her. I looked down at my hands, two separate thoughts at war in my mind. Welcome to the world
    of the Romans , one of them sneered, you’re being offered not love, but a business proposition.
    And you’re in no position to turn it down. At the same time, I felt a tingle of victory. The door
    was opened to a way out: no more waiting on my father and Tito, no more terror of being
    married off to some brute with a scarred face like Numa. I could go and live in a big city with
    Aurelius and our child, and, eventually, perhaps, figure out a way to convince him to marry me
    after all. I took a deep breath, inhaling the tears that had threatened.
    Aurelius had said nothing throughout the conversation. I tossed my head as I raised it to look
    at him. “Do you agree to this?”
    He stammered, “I – Really, it’s the best thing for us,