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As I stood there, trying to collect myself, he suddenly asked, “Do you know how to ride a horse?”

“No. No, I had no opportunity to learn.”

“Perhaps that’s the place to start,” he said. “I’ll have Don teach you to ride. You won’t get very far on foot.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“I’d never laugh at you.”

“All right, then,” I said casually, trying to sound as though the feel of his lips on my skin hadn’t affected me at all. “I accept your offer of riding lessons. You might regret it, though. I’m a very good student. Once I learn to ride, I’ll gallop away, and that’s the last you’ll see of me.”

I was surprised to see a look of hurt flash briefly across his face. “Good,” he said gruffly. “I’ll let Don know.”

Embarrassed, I nodded and left him staring down at the map spread out across the table.

xii

TWO DAYS LATER I WAS READING IN the garden in the late afternoon when Sebastianus returned unexpectedly early from a day in the Imperator’s service. I had replayed our interaction in his study many times in my mind. My confusion over what I felt, the reaction I had to his touch, had only grown. Why was I now so aware of his presence in the house from the moment I heard his distinctive gait on the atrium floor?

He thumped into the courtyard carrying a flat wooden case. “I’d like to take you to the theater,” he announced.

I rested my book on my lap. “When?”

There were gray shadows under his eyes, but he looked at me warmly. “Tonight.”

“I thought you were concerned about taking me somewhere your uncle might see me.”

He put the box on the table and fiddled with the latch. “Jovinian would never go to the theater. Gurgexenes doesn’t approve, remember? I want you to see a play before he and my aunt make good on their threat to shut the theaters down.”

He opened the box with a flourish, revealing a silk dress and matching palla. Both were pale pink, with leaves embroidered on the hem of the dress and around the edges of the shawl. He lifted the garment out of the box by its delicate shoulder straps, and the soft fabric stirred and billowed in the gentle breeze that moved through the open courtyard.

I reached out to touch it. “This is lovely.”

“Cornelia reminded me that we haven’t given you the sort of wardrobe a lady in Panpirion needs. Consider this the first installment.”

“Please thank Cornelia for me,” I said. “She’s saved me from looking like a poor country girl at the theater. But was it expensive?” I felt a pang of anxiety at the thought of the slow accumulation of another debt I could not repay.

He left the box on the table. “Not at all. And you couldn’t look like a poor country girl if you tried, Anna. You can thank Cornelia yourself. She’s waiting upstairs to help you get ready.”

Cornelia draped the dress and palla expertly around me and helped me pin up my heavy hair in a loose braided coil. We looked in the mirror, and I was astonished to see a woman of Panpirion looking back at me.

When I returned to the courtyard, Sebastianus was leaning on his stick, inspecting the leaves of a large ficus plant. He was dressed in a gray wool toga, pinned with a jewel at the shoulder, over a white tunic and trousers. He turned when he heard my footsteps and seemed momentarily at a loss for words. “You look lovely,” he said finally.

“Thank you. Cornelia says this dress is like an undertunic, and I should have a stola to wear over it.”

“Why would we hide such an exquisite treasure under a sack of wool? And I have something else for you.” He reached into the folds of his toga and drew out a small pouch. “I thought these would suit you.” He took out a pair of diamond bracelets that gleamed dully in the orange light from the setting sun. He fastened one on each of my wrists, where they fit snugly.

I felt heat rise to my temples at his touch, but I had seen for myself how patrons at Casa Caligine gave such gifts as this, and I understood the strings they came with.

“And for your ears.” He clipped a diamond drop gently to each lobe.

I shook my head, and the earrings tinkled. “I can’t accept these. It’s too much. It is more than I could ever repay.”

He paused with his fingertips against the skin of my neck. I tried not to react to the sensation, which caused a strange flutter in my stomach. “I’ve told you before that you are not in my debt: not for this or anything else.”

I hesitated, unsure of how to reply.

“Perhaps we consider them a brief loan for the evening, only so I can have the pleasure of seeing you wear them?” He stepped back and looked me over from head to toe, then smiled and offered his arm.