The Gladiator's Mistress (Champions of Rome) Read Online Free PDF Page B

with the gladiator?” Acestes asked.
    Phaedra’s mouth went dry. She had not kissed Valens, but she had encouraged him to hold her and had returned the embrace. That alone might cause her ruin. “I told you already.” She had hoped to sound annoyed with the question, or at least weary of the asking. Instead her voice came out too high and trembled slightly. She breathed in deeply and emptied her lungs slowly. “He was just about to leave when you arrived. I needed some time alone.”
    “Alone? You were with the gladiator. Did you arrange to meet him?”
    “I would never dishonor your uncle or myself in such a way,” she said. She put the sharp edge of outrage in her voice, and still she could not deny to herself that a part of her still craved the gladiator’s touch.
    “Many women take gladiators as lovers. You would not be the first.”
    Phaedra felt the argument shifting to her benefit. Surely Acestes would have accused her of wrongdoing if he had actually seen anything. “I am not many women. I tire of your insults and will once again take my leave.”
    “Phaedra, wait.” Acestes placed his hand on her shoulder as she turned to go. “I have offended. I do not know what to say, because you intrigue me.”
    “You cannot speak to me thus,” she said. Her heart beat fast in her chest. Phaedra had never dealt with a man of rank before. Her father had kept her hidden away behind the walls of the villa, allowing her to have a circle of suitable patrician girls for friends. For the first time she understood her disadvantage. She wanted to be rid of Acestes’s indictments and accusations and the very maleness of him. She slipped away from his grasp. Avoiding the villa and her drunken guests, she ran along the outer colonnade to her room, leaving Acestes standing alone.
    Terenita sat on a stool, a single oil lamp burning on a table nearby. She stood when Phaedra entered. “My lady, I had begun to worry.”
    “Thank you for your concern,” she said as she leaned her head onto Terenita’s shoulder. The maid stiffened under Phaedra’s touch. Terenita was a kind and gentle woman, but she kept a physical distance from everyone. As a child Phaedra was never offered an embrace upon waking or a hug that followed a skinned knee. Above all else, it was this lack of touch that kept Phaedra mindful of her position as mistress and of Terenita’s as slave. Phaedra stepped away, realizing that she had been foolish to expect that somehow her maid had suddenly become demonstrative. “I was overwhelmed and went for a walk in the garden,” she said. “Did you know that there is a fixed star in the heavens? Polaris, it is called. Sailors use it to navigate the seas.”
    “I believe that the stars are really the spirits of our ancestors looking down upon us. But if you want me to believe that they are not, I shall.”
    “No, Terenita. You can believe whatever you want,” Phaedra said with a small smile. She sat at her cosmetics table and rested her face upon the cool marble top.
    Phaedra’s room had changed little since her childhood. A single bed, with a curved head and footboard, took up its middle. A table with a basin and pitcher for washing sat in one corner, with a reclining sofa covered in red silk at another. In order to make use of the bright Mediterranean sun, her cosmetics table and chair sat next to the door that opened onto the garden. A cabinet that usually held her clothes and jewels stood on one side of the door that led to the villa, with a small altar on the other. Clay figures of various goddesses and one of Phaedra’s mother sat atop the wooden altar. Candles burned in sconces high on the wall, bathing the room in a weak golden light.
    “Shall I take down your hair, my lady?” Terenita asked. “The board holding your bun in place must be pulling by now.”
    “Thank you,” Phaedra said as she lifted her head. Picking up a palm frond, she slowly fanned her face as the maid unwound her hair. Even in