A Stray Drop of Blood (16 page)

She had no response to that command. She could only shut her eyes and resign herself to the lot she seemed to have drawn.

“
I have something for you.” He put a finger under her chin to tilt her face up to his, and drew his body away from hers enough to hold something between them.

The sparkle of the necklace ignited a fire in Abigail she had not thought herself capable of. Pure, raw anger made her voice shake. “You have already shamed me enough. Must you now turn me into a harlot as well?”

He had the audacity to smile. “It is a gift, Abigail. It is not payment. I thought of you when I saw it, and it is my pleasure to see you wear it.”

“
And where would I?” Her eyes met his for only a moment before latching onto the ground. “Such gifts are useless, Lord. I would have no explanation for your mother as to where I got such a thing.”

He ignored her protests and fastened it around her neck. “You may wear it with me, for now. I trust you have someplace to store it when you are not in my chamber?”

She sighed and nodded. Why argue more?

“
Good.” He leaned back to survey her. “You are so beautiful, beloved.” As he moved closer once more and aimed his mouth for hers, he uttered again, “So beautiful.”

Beautiful . . . she thought it the most hateful word in the world.

~*~

“
She is a Venus.”

Jason watched as Menelaus outlined alluring female curves in the air. “More beautiful than your women, Titus, with a modesty the likes of which you cannot find in Rome. Jason was not deceiving us.”

The others laughed, but Jason let his gaze wander to the stalls of wares they meandered by. He listened with only half an ear as Menelaus continued to expound on Abigail’s charms. It had been a week since he dined with them, but this was the first the whole group had been together.

He had expected to feel a rush of pride when his friends realized what was his. Instead, he felt only the same frustration he had felt when he left that morning.

Apparently Titus noticed the clenching of his jaw. He leaned close with a knowing smirk. “Something amiss in paradise, Jason? Has your chaste goddess turned into a shrew?”

This was one of those times when the Roman was utterly intolerable. He knew well Titus would not stop poking until he hit a tender spot. So he might as well present something. “It is not as you think, Titus. It is just this annoying Jewish tradition.”

Titus’s brows inched up. “Which tradition would that be?”

Jason shrugged, grateful the other three had ambled ahead a few steps. “She will not let me touch her. At all. Because it is the time of her monthly impurity. I understand that she would not wish to come to my bed, but she objected when I tried to
kiss
her! Blasted Jewish law!”

Titus’s eyes dimmed with lack of interest. Good. “It will not last long,” he said lazily. “You have no cause to complain. One week, and she will be yours again.”

“
Indeed.” He closed the distance between him and Menelaus, who still painted Abigail’s portrait to Lentulus and Apidius.

But it was not the physical distance Abigail was insisting upon right now that bothered him; it was the fact that she made it clear every night that no matter how often he took her body, she still was not his. She would not call him by his name, she would not so much as touch him unless he demanded it, and she continually avoided him whenever possible. She did her duty as a slave and as his lover, but no more. When she served him, no matter the task, it was without that dedication with which she waited on his parents.

Even though her love for them had sparked their first conversation, Jason had not given it that much thought. But now, having this cold and rigid Abigail in his arms whenever he wished, he realized it had been her warmth that had drawn him. When she was with his mother, she was all soft curves and gentle femininity. With him, she had turned to marble. Exquisite and unyielding.

Well, that would have to change. He would force her to realize that her body’s reactions were nothing to be ashamed of, but rather to be embraced. He would teach her that their relationship could please them both. He would make her feel for him the same love and devotion she felt for the rest of his family. Or at least solidify the bonds between them until denying them was no longer useful. Only then, when she was a pliant and loyal servant to him, could she be useful in more than giving him his pleasure. He had learned in the Asinius house how well a beautiful face could be used with one’s peers. And Abigail’s countenance was fair enough that any man would melt in her presence as ice in a summer’s sun.

At last, he relaxed. He knew what he had to do.

Chapter Eleven

Abigail opened up the crude wooden chest that held her personal belongings and fingered the growing stack of items from Jason. Over the past month he had continued to give her gifts, though it was all she could do to acknowledge them. Each piece of jewelry felt like chains of bondage, and the clothing he had slipped to her made her burn in shame. Never had she dressed provocatively, but the garments he asked her to wear for him turned her into a Jezebel. She despised them.

She despised him for giving them to her.

The sound of Andrew’s door told her it was time to stir herself and go serve the evening meal. She stepped out into the hall just as he shut the portal to his room again.

He smiled. No matter the mood she was in, Andrew always smiled at her. And Abigail always smiled back, though it felt incongruous to the pain inside.

“
How was your day?” He fell into step beside her as they headed for the kitchen.

“
Uneventful.” Abigail sighed and surprised herself by saying, “I miss our lessons, Andrew. It would seem they are over, though, would it not?”

“
It would.” He sounded genuinely saddened, though she knew the studies had never been enjoyable for him. The time together, though, had always left them both laughing. Perhaps he missed that as much as she did. “It seems the master has decided our educations are satisfactory.”

“
Mm.” Pausing before the entrance to the kitchen, she turned to face Andrew and offered him a sweet smile. “You were a poor pupil, anyway.”

It had been a long while since she had teased him, and the quickness of his grin told her he had noticed the lack and missed it. He tugged on her braid playfully. “Perhaps it was my teacher who was poor.”

For the first time in a month, Abigail entered the kitchen laughing.

As if responding to her mood, dinner conversation was light and easy that evening. It was not until they carried out the sweet pastry for dessert that Cleopas’s expression grew a bit tight and his eyes focused on neither son nor wife, but addressed them both at large.

“
I have been giving much thought to what I have heard about this teacher, the Nazarene.”

A silence fell over the table. Abigail focused on Cleopas just as his family did, awaiting what that comment would introduce.

Cleopas cut off a bite of his dessert but did not raise it to his mouth. “The stories are jumbled. But I cannot deny what I have seen. Jairus’s daughter lives again, though she had died. Vetimus’s son walks, though he was lame. I cannot judge of the other tales, but I hear of what he teaches, and I feel a stirring within me.” Now his eyes met Ester’s, then Jason’s. Both mother and son looked away uncomfortably. “I wish to know what he has to say about his place according to the Law,” he said to his wife. “And I wish to know what it means to those of us who are Gentiles,” he said to his son.

As if those two statements transcribed the entire situation into stone, he took the first bite of his pastry. “The next time he is near, we will journey to hear him speak.”

Ester nodded, obviously at a loss, and Jason made no response at all.

Abigail and Andrew left the room, knowing they would not be needed until the end of the meal.

“
Does this surprise you?” Andrew asked quietly while Abigail dished up food for the two of them.

Abigail took a moment to collect her thoughts; given what she and Andrew had talked about when Jason first arrived, of the interest Cleopas was showing, she could not say she was truly shocked. But at the same time, she had never expected her master to actually
pursue
the teachings of this Jesus. It was one thing to listen to the stories, another to take part in them. “I know not what to think.”

“
None of us do.” Andrew accepted the plate that she handed him and sat down at the table with a short sigh. “That is why the master wishes to investigate.”

“
That is reasonable. And it is consistent with the way he taught us to acquire knowledge; listen, then ask, then investigate.” She attempted a small smile and managed to forget for a moment her own tribulations. “Our master is a wise man. And as you said before, if this man has gotten his interest, I am not one to question it.”

Andrew smiled. It was soft, contemplative, matched the expression in his eyes. She expected him to say more, but he did not.

When the moment grew too long for her comfort, she arched a brow. “What?”

He grinned and tore off a piece of bread. “Nothing, Abigail. I was just thinking how proud I am to call you my friend.”

For several heartbeats she let herself feel the warmth of the compliment before remembering that she did not deserve it.

~*~

The lamp had been extinguished hours ago, and darkness lay as heavily over her as Jason’s arm. Her eyes were opened, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling and imagining now the hairline cracks and marks that she had long ago memorized. She was waiting for the three words on which her nights had come to rely: “You may go.” But Jason kept putting them off tonight.

He had settled beside her and continued to trace his fingers slowly over her arm, a feather light caress that she deliberately kept from thinking about. She was tired but had grown accustomed to getting less sleep. Still, her eyes grew heavy, and she wanted nothing more than to return to the tiny little room that was hers.

Beside her Jason shifted, and she felt him move to lean over her, though she knew he could not see her any better than she could see him. The moon was hidden tonight behind a bank of clouds, the stars eclipsed, and there was nothing to reveal to her the expression on his face.

“
Abigail?” His whisper pierced the night.

“
Yes, Master?”

“
Why do you still resist me?”

She froze at the question, each muscle going taut until she could have passed for a work of stone. “I do not, Master.”

He brushed the tips of his fingers over her cheek. “You still call me Master, when I asked you to call me Jason. You still get tense every time I touch you. You still enter my chamber every night as though you hope I will send you away.”

To that truth she had no answer.

“
I give you pleasure, Abigail. You know it is true, as much as you may wish to deny it. Your body responds to my touch, even if your mind does not.”

Yes, her body was traitorous. It was a sin as dark as the night around her, but she would not make it worse by welcoming it.

His fingers stroked over her eyes, forcing them closed, then settled lightly there to keep them that way. “I want you to relax, beloved. I want you to be comfortable with me.” He paused a moment, and she tried to open her eyes, but he would not let her. “You will stay with me. I want you to sleep in my arms. I want you to wake up to my face. I want to consume your thoughts as you do mine.”

Her muscles sagged, but he surely knew it was more in defeat than acceptance. He would take from her the only time of privacy she had, and he would do so knowing very well what it was he was demanding. He would control her in what ways he could until he controlled her in what ways he wanted.

He ran his lips softly over hers. “Go to sleep now, sweet one. You can rise at your normal hour, and no one will know the difference.”

No one but her.

~*~

“
I know.” Ester released a resigned sigh. “I will put it off no longer. First thing in the morning, Cleopas, I swear to you I will ask Abigail if she wishes to marry Andrew. I will not even wait for the meal. I will rise when you do and ask her immediately.”

Cleopas smiled and drew her close to his chest. “I know this has been hard on you, my love.”

“
You have been so patient, my husband.” Ester snuggled against him. “And generous to even give me this choice, then to allow me to give it to Abigail. Most women have no such say in their marriages.”

Cleopas squeezed her shoulders and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “And we could have done the same with Abigail, binding her to a man of the city. I am sure you are right, that there would be many eager to take such a beautiful woman into their house, in spite of being an orphan and then a slave. But you do realize by now, do you not, that Abigail deserves more than a stranger?”

Ester let out her breath slowly and nodded. “When I told her of how you and I met and were married, of how we had come so quickly to love each other, she said she wished for that. I hope that you are right, and that with Andrew she will find it. Abigail deserves happiness.”