To Love Again Read Free Page B

exist,” she said wisely. “Perhaps this Quintus Drusus will be the perfect husband for Cailin.”
    “Husband?
What is this talk of a husband, Grandmother?”
    The two older women started guiltily and, swinging about, came face to face with the main object of their discussion, a tall, slender young girl with wide violet-colored eyes and an unruly mop of auburn curls.
    “Mother? Grandmother?
Who is Quintus Drusus?”
Cailin demanded. “I want no husband chosen for me; nor am I yet even ready to wed.”
    “Then you had best tell your father that, my daughter,” Kyna said bluntly. Although she had worried about broaching this problem with Cailin, it was not her way to beat about the bush. Plain speech was best, particularly in a difficult situation like this. “Your father has sent to his family in Rome for a prospective husband for you. He thinks it is time you were married. Quintus Drusus is the young man’s name, and he is, I surmise, expected at any minute.”
    “I will certainly not marry this Quintus Drusus,” Cailin said, with stony finality in her tone. “How could Father do such a thing? Why should I be married off before Flavius and Titus, or has he sent to Rome for brides to wed my brothers too? If he has, he will find they are no more eager than I am!”
    Brenna could not help but laugh. “There is far more Celt than Roman in you, my child,” she said, chuckling. “Do not worry about this Quintus Drusus. Your father has said if you do not like him, you do not have to have him; but perhaps he will turn out to be the man of your dreams, Cailin. It is possible.”
    “I cannot imagine why Father thinks I need a husband,” Cailin grumbled. “It is too ridiculous to even contemplate. I would much rather stay at home with my family. If I marry, then I must take charge of a household and have babies. I am not ready for all of that. I have had little enough freedom to do anything I really find interesting, for I am deemed too young, but suddenly I am old enough to wed. How absurd! Poor Antonia Porcius was married two years ago when she was just fourteen. Now look at her! She has two babies. She has grown fat, and she always looks tired. Is that what Father thinks will make me happy? And as for Antonia’s husband,well! I hear he has taken a very pretty Egyptian slave girl to his bed. That shall not happen to me, I assure you. When the time comes, I will choose my own husband, and he will never stray from my side,
or I will kill him!”
    “Cailin!” Kyna reproved her. “Where did you ever hear such salacious gossip about Antonia Porcius? I am surprised at your repeating it.”
    “Ohh, Mother, everyone knows. Antonia complains about her husband at every turn. She feels put upon, and she very well may be, though I think it her own fault. The last time I saw her at the Saturnalia, she was unable to stop talking about all her woes. She pinned me in a corner for close to an hour chattering.
    “It’s all her father’s fault, you know. He chose a husband for her. How smug she was at the time, too! She loved lording it over us other girls when we met at the festivals. Sextus Scipio was so handsome, she bragged. Handsomer than any husbands we’d ever get. Why, there wasn’t a man in all of Britain as handsome as he was. He was rich, too. Richer than any husbands we’d ever get. By the gods, how she carried on! She’s still carrying on, I fear, but now ’tis a different tune she sings. Well, that’s not for me! I will pick my own husband. He will be a man of character, and of honor.”
    Brenna nodded. “Then you will choose wisely when the time comes, my child.”
    “Like I chose,” Kyna said softly, and her companions smiled in their agreement.
    When they came together that evening for their meal, Cailin teased her father. “I hear you have sent to Rome for a
very special
birthday gift for me, Father,” she said. Her large violet eyes twinkled with humor. She had had the afternoon to cool her temper.