Read Online Persona Non Grata by Ruth Downie - Free Book Online Page B

staring at the shadowed ceiling as if he had never seen it before. His contract with the Twentieth ran out in January. The Legate would never bring shame upon the Legion by reappointing a dishonored man. If Ruso could not persuade this Severus to drop the case, he might never get another posting back to Britannia. If Tilla wanted to go home, he would not be able to take her. Severus had not only enticed him home: He had trapped him here.
    He tensed, sensing movement outside the door. The latch clicked and someone entered the room.
    “Your stepmother does not like me,” announced Tilla.
    One of his hands made contact with hers in the dark. He heard a shuffle of fabric. When she slid into the bed and pressed her back against his chest, she was naked.
    “I thought you were asleep,” he murmured, sliding one hand around her waist.
    “Your stepmother is spying on me,” she said. “There is a slave sleeping outside my door.”
    He shifted one leg so it lay between hers and said, “Perhaps in case you need anything.”
“I do not think so.”
“No,” he agreed.
She wriggled. “You are too hot.”
“You’re lovely and cool.”
“You did not tell them about me.”
“I should have,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
She rolled over to face him. “Are you ashamed of me?”
“No.”
“I have wrong clothes and funny hair.”
“So do I.”
    She said, “Your sisters are taking me shopping tomorrow. They said I must ask you for money.”
    “Your hair can’t be that funny, then. They’re very particular.”
    She seemed to think about that for a moment, then she said, “What did your brother say about the letter?”
    He had expected her to be angry when she found out about the forgery. Instead she said, “I think the gods have made this wicked man write to you. Now you are here, you can help your brother to fight him.”
    If only it were that simple. “He’s from a powerful family,” he explained. “And he can use the law to back him up.”
    “I will help you.”
    He was not going to tell her that there was nothing she could do to help and that bringing her here had been a huge mistake. She did not need to know that if the wicked man won, they would not be able to return to Britannia together. Instead he bent forward to kiss her, feeling her hair brushing against his face in the darkness, and tried to think of something else to talk about.
    Only as he was halfway through “Arria thinks I should save the family by marrying the rich widow next door” did he realize that Tilla might not find it funny. When she said nothing he added, “But I said, What about Tilla? ”
    The silence from the other side of the bed told him that he was digging himself deeper into a hole.
    Outside, he heard the faint cry of a child and more footsteps. He had a sudden memory of Cass’s brother scrambling down that corridor on all fours with two of the nephews on his back squealing, “Faster, faster!”
    “Tilla,” he said, clutching at a new subject, “while we were traveling, do you remember anybody saying anything about a ship called the Pride of the South ?”
    She did not, nor did she seem interested until he explained about Cass’s brother. “She is the one who sent you the gloves and the socks and the olives?”
    “Yes.” Justinus’s ship had vanished back at the beginning of the summer. Cass was right: It was very odd that Probus had turned up here just a couple of weeks ago to ask if he was still alive. Perhaps Probus had heard some kind of rumor about his lost ship and was trying simultaneously to follow it up and keep it quiet. It was typical of the man that he had not considered the effect of his inquiries on the dead man’s sister. He said, “Probably nobody will ever know what happened to him.”
    “It is a sad way to lose a brother, far from home.”
    “I’d like to get over to Arelate and ask around, but I need to get into Ne-mausus first thing tomorrow so I can try and stave off this bloody court case.” He