Free The Saint's Mistress by Kathryn Bashaar Page A

Leona. I mean – it keeps us together,
    right? And what’s marriage really? It’s nothing. It’s business. It’s you I love.”
    I looked at Urbanus. “Thank you, sir,” I repeated. “You’re generous.”
    He narrowed his eyes and nodded. “Not generous. I expect a return from this young man.
    Now, come, let’s seal the deal with a good dinner.” He extended his arm, motioning us to
    precede him into the dining room.
    33

    I didn’t think to ask, at the time, what would become of me when Aurelius did finally find a
    suitable wife. I didn’t think to ask what would become of our child should he marry. And I didn’t
    think, yet, to wonder how his family might react.

    34

CHAPTER EIGHT
    I couldn’t face my father. I made Numa promise that she’d explain after I was gone. With
    Miriam, I was distant, though it pained me. I longed to tell her my plans, but didn’t want to force
    my secret on yet another person I loved, forcing her to choose between loyalty to me and a duty
    to inform my father – as I knew she would want to know if one of her children were in any kind
    of trouble.
    Over the next two weeks, I’d catch her gazing at me with her head tilted as if trying to figure
    out what I could be up to. I deflected her questions by claiming I still didn’t know what to do,
    and, no, I hadn’t told my father yet. To her offers of help, I said simply, “No, thanks,” avoiding
    her eyes.
    One day she took me by the shoulders, gazed into my eyes with her hazel ones, and said,
    “Leona, at least promise me this: that you will not go to a disreputable abortionist. Remember
    what Ruth said about the surer methods also bringing surer death. Promise me.”
    “I promise. I remember what she said. I don’t want to die.” That part, at least, was true. I had
    put out of my mind all of my worries over being the mother of a bastard, the mistress of a
    Romanized aristocrat, and was heedlessly in love all over again, eager to begin my life in
    Carthage with Aurelius. I felt sure I could eventually bind him to me permanently. Life felt sweet
    again, and I felt sweet and full, as if honey flowed in my veins.
    Little rain had fallen since the day of the governor’s visit. One especially dusty afternoon, a
    slave plodded barefoot up the stairs to our shop and bowed to me. “Are you Leona?” he wanted
    to know.
    “Yes.”
    “You’re requested to come with me to attend to Monnica, widow of the deucile Patricius
    Augustinus. You’re to come right away. A carriage waits for you downstairs.”
    Miriam, having overhead from the back room, drifted into the sales room. “You should go,”
    she said gravely, “it’s almost closing time anyway.”
    Heart flapping against my ribs, I followed the slave down to the street, where another slave
    guarded a sedan chair. The first slave helped me into it, and then the two of them picked it up
    and began running down the street with it, bare feet slapping up little clouds of dust. I had never
    before ridden in any kind of carriage. I felt off-balance in the swaying chair, and out of control
    behind its curtains, unable to see where we were going. But the ride had about it, too, a sly air of
    luxury, as if I were getting away with something. It occurred to me that I might be riding around
    in carriages a lot more in the future, and that it would be a lovely thing to get used to. Why settle
    for the Romans’ reading only, when their wealth provided so many other good things?
    When we arrived at Monnica’s house, the slaves set the chair down gently and helped me out.
    The slave who had come into the shop led me to the lady’s sitting room and showed me to a
    chair.
    I looked around while waiting for Monnica. Her home was much less luxurious than
    Urbanus’. The floor tiles were large and made of simple red clay, rather than the ornate mosaic
    of Urbanus’ dining room, and the walls were plain white plaster. But the chair I sat on had legs
    of bronze, in an ornate lion’s paw