The Warrior's Bride Prize Read online

  Daughter of a slave...

  ...wedded to the warrior!

  Livia Valeria is furious when she’s ruthlessly gambled away by her intended bridegroom. Luckily, it’s tall, muscled and darkly handsome Roman centurion Marius Varro who wins her as his bride! She must hide her Caledonian roots, but when Marius faces a barbarian rebellion at Hadrian’s Wall, Livia must make a choice: her heritage or the husband she’s falling for...

  “A breath-takingly pure and beautiful tale and this story really shows just what a fine and articulated writer Ms Fletcher is … Just perfect!”

  —Chicks, Rogues and Scandals on Captain Amberton’s Inherited Bride

  “Fletcher takes fans on another gratifying journey through the gothic Yorkshire landscape, this time with a couple forced to wed under dire consequences.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Captain Amberton’s Inherited Bride

  “She deserves better than to be part of some game. She’s a woman, not a pile of coins.”

  “She’s my woman.” Scaevola leaned forward slightly. “Unless you win the game, that is. What do you say, Varro, why don’t we make this interesting? I thought you might actually appreciate the chance to win her. I suppose I can see the appeal myself in a rustic kind of way, even if she does look like a savage. I wonder if she acts like one in bed, too?” He grinned suddenly. “But then I suppose I’ll find out after we’re married. After I’ve dealt with her behavior tonight, of course. I haven’t thought of a punishment yet, but...”

  “How much?” Marius slammed his fist onto the tabula board.

  “I knew it!” Scaevola cackled. “I knew that you wanted to bed her.”

  “Not to bed her. To win her. That’s what you said.” He fixed the other man with a challenging stare. “That means if I win, she’s mine completely.”

  JENNI FLETCHER

  The Warrior’s Bride Prize

  Jenni Fletcher was born in the north of Scotland and now lives in Yorkshire with her husband and two children. She wanted to be a writer as a child but became distracted by reading instead, finally getting past her first paragraph thirty years later. She’s had more jobs than she can remember but has finally found one she loves. She can be contacted on Twitter, @jenniauthor, or via her Facebook author page.

  Books by Jenni Fletcher

  Harlequin Historical

  Married to Her Enemy

  The Convenient Felstone Marriage

  Besieged and Betrothed

  Captain Amberton’s Inherited Bride

  The Warrior’s Bride Prize

  Visit the Author Profile page

  at Harlequin.com.

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  For Helen & David

  Also a big thank-you to RomanArmyTalk.com as well as the staff at the Roman Army Museum and Chesters Roman Fort on Hadrian’s Wall for answering my many questions so patiently.

  Contents

  Historical Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Excerpt from A Most Unsuitable Match by Julia Justiss

  Historical Note

  One of the best but hardest things about writing a story set in the Roman era is that although we’re constantly learning more about this fascinating period, there’s still a lot that we don’t know. While this allows for greater imaginative freedom, it can also be frustrating when dealing with real-life events, such as the Caledonian rebellion of AD 197.

  What we do know is that Hadrian’s Wall was built after the Roman Emperor’s visit to Britain in AD 122. Comprising forts, mile-castles, ditches and turrets, it stretched for eighty Roman miles—seventy-three modern miles—from Wallsend on the north-east coast of England to Bowness-on-Solway on the west, and took fifteen thousand soldiers six years to complete.

  It had several purposes, functioning as a frontier, a military bulwark and a customs barrier, although the Romans also made several forays into the area they called Caledonia—now Scotland—even building another shorter fortification, the Antonine Wall, between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde, though this was abandoned after only twenty years in AD 163.

  In spite of these efforts, the northern tribes were never completely subdued or brought under the Pax Romana and there were numerous uprisings throughout the second century AD. Matters came to a head in AD 182, when the then Governor of Britain, Clodius Albinus, proclaimed himself Emperor of the Roman Empire and took a large part of the British garrison to Gaul, where he was eventually defeated by his rival Septimius Severus.

  Despite a significant bribe to maintain the peace, the Maetae tribe north of Hadrian’s Wall took advantage of the Romans’ absence by launching a series of raids and destroying large parts of the fortifications.

  In AD 197 the new Emperor Severus sent commissioners north to rebuild the wall and re-establish control—although archaeological evidence shows continued fighting around this period. The exact sequence of events is unclear, but the Sixth Victorious Legion was based in York—the Roman city of Eboracum—at this time, and the Emperor himself finally came to Britain to suppress the uprising in AD 208.

  Hadrian’s Wall wasn’t abandoned by the Roman Empire until the early fifth century. Consequently, although we know that there was a Caledonian rebellion, and it affected the real forts of Coria—Corbridge—and Cilurnum—Chesters—which feature in this story, all the specific incidents and characters are fictionalised.

  I’ve tried to keep place names accurate—Lindum is Lincoln—but to avoid confusion I’ve referred to the collective northern tribes simply as Caledonians, although there was an actual Caledonii tribe in central Scotland, in addition to the Maetae, Picts and Selgovae, to name just a few.

  As the heroine’s hair colour is an important aspect of the story, it’s also worth noting that several Roman sources, including Tacitus’s Agricola, describe the northern tribes as having red hair.

  Chapter One

  North Britannia, AD 197

  ‘Halt!’

  Livia woke with a gasp, startled back to her senses by the shout. With a lurch, the carriage rolled to a standstill, jolting her forward on the bench at the same moment as she heard a dull clanking of armour and a heavy thud outside, like dozens of feet all stamping the ground at once.

  Quickly, she pulled herself upright, tightening her arms around the four-year-old girl asleep in her lap. To her amazement, their unscheduled halt hadn’t disturbed her, though Livia had the ominous feeling that something was about to.

  ‘What’s happening? Are we under attack?’

  Porcia, her maidservant sitting opposite, sounded on the verge of hysteria. Despite the presence of an armed escort, the girl had been a bundle of nerves ever since lea
ving Lindum a month ago. Perhaps with good reason, Livia thought grimly. Her own anxieties had been gathering in strength the closer they travelled to Coria, though for very different reasons.

  And now this! Whatever this was... She felt a shiver of fear, as if an icy claw had pierced its way through her chest and was clutching her heart, making her feel cold all over.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She leaned over, trying to see out of the carriage window, but whatever was happening was taking place at the head of their small procession. ‘I don’t hear any fighting.’

  ‘What if it’s Caledonians?’

  ‘They’re on the other side of the wall. This side is under the Pax Romana, remember?’

  ‘Barely.’ Porcia’s bottom lip trembled. ‘They say only savages live this far north.’

  ‘Who say so?’

  ‘Civilised people. Romans...like us.’

  ‘Like us.’ Livia repeated the words sceptically. ‘Well then, it must be true.’

  Not that now was the time to be debating the merits of Roman society with her maidservant, she admonished herself, though somehow the words themselves gave her courage, forcing the claw to relax its grip slightly. If civilised Roman society said that she ought to be afraid then she’d be more than happy to prove civilisation wrong.

  In any case, there were still no sounds of combat, no clamour of weapons or shouting. If they were really under attack from Caledonians or outlaws, surely they’d know it by now?

  ‘Stay here. I’ll go and see what’s happening.’ She slid herself out from beneath the sleeping child. ‘Take care of Julia for me.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we wake her...just in case?’

  ‘No.’

  Livia shook her head emphatically, bending over to press a kiss into the spiral curls of the little girl’s hair. It was every bit as wild and untamed as hers had been at that age, as well as the same shade of blazing copper red, a legacy from her own mother that she wished Julia might have avoided.

  If only her daughter could have had dark hair like Julius, she thought regretfully. If only Julia could have looked anything at all like him, then mother and daughter might never have been in their current perilous situation. Julia might have been a rich heiress and she an independent widow, safe from her brother—half-brother, she corrected herself—Tarquinius and his scheming. Strange how great a difference something as trivial as hair colour could have on a person’s life...

  She straightened up again, dismissing the thought as unhelpful. Now wasn’t the time for regrets. Now she had bigger problems to worry about and she had to be brave for her daughter as well as her terrified maid.

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about, I’m sure of it.’

  She squeezed Porcia’s hand reassuringly and then climbed down from the carriage, glad to be out of the confined space for a while, no matter what the circumstances. It was more comfortable than horseback, better for Julia, too, but her muscles were still cramped and stiff from so much prolonged inactivity. Cautiously, she looked around, searching for some sign of an enemy attack, but there was none. On the contrary, it was hard to imagine a more peaceful, springlike scene than the one before her. The sun was high in a cloudless sky and shining for the first time in days, warming the air and giving the woodland road along which they were travelling a fresh, almost sparkling appearance. The trees on either side were starting to bud, too, if not yet bloom, and the birds within chirruping loudly, as if to celebrate the fact that the long, hard winter was finally coming to an end.

  It was a whole different world to the makeshift camp they’d left, shivering and cold that morning, as if some enchantment had fallen over the carriage during her brief nap, turning the hours into weeks. But then time seemed to have been working differently during the seemingly endless days of their journey north. Hardly surprising when they were travelling as far from Rome as they could possibly go, following the great road beyond Eboracum to the very limits of the Empire and the great wall built less than a century before by the Emperor Hadrian—a massive eighty-mile structure stretching from one side of the country to the other.

  Despite the relentless pace of their journey, however, there’d been days when she’d had the uneasy feeling they might be travelling for ever, trapped in some never-ending loop. Then again, there’d been days when she’d hoped that they might never arrive in Coria, one of the northernmost settlements of the frontier. Being sent to marry a stranger of her half-brother’s choosing wasn’t an experience she’d relished the first time. It certainly hadn’t been one that she’d wanted to repeat, yet now it was happening all over again, barely two months after Julius’s funeral, as if her past were repeating itself in the present and she was powerless to do anything to stop it.

  How many more times would Tarquinius use her as a bargaining tool? she wondered. How many more times must she be humiliated? Bad enough that he had so much power over her life, but now he was controlling Julia’s, too. Her only hope was that her new husband might prove a different kind of man to Julius. If not, then it was surely only a matter of time before her second marriage turned just as sour as her first... If he did prove to be different, however, then there was still hope. If he turned out to be good and honourable, then perhaps she could talk to him, perhaps even tell him the whole truth about herself before Tarquinius got a chance to interfere.

  Of course, that was supposing they survived their current danger and made it to Coria in the first place. Not that it sounded very dangerous, she reassured herself, heading around the front of the carriage in search of Tullus, the leader of the small band of men entrusted with delivering her safely to her new husband. She could already hear his voice at the front of her escort, talking calmly enough—in Latin, too, which was another good sign—though oddly without his usual bravado.

  She caught sight of his back at last and then stopped, rooted to the spot in amazement at the view before her. The road was blocked by tens upon tens of Roman soldiers, a whole century of them by the look of it, all standing in perfect formation and dressed in full military regalia, shields and spears at the ready, as if they were marching into battle. They looked even more impressive and imposing than the ones she’d seen on parade in Lindum, their burnished shoulder plates and polished helms gleaming like molten gold in the spring sunshine. And there at the front, wearing a transversely plumed helmet that immediately signalled him out as a Centurion, stood their leader, the man—surely it had to be him—that she’d come to marry.

  ‘Oh!’

  She didn’t intend to utter the exclamation aloud, but it came out anyway, too loud in the silence that greeted her arrival, and the Centurion’s gaze shifted towards her, sweeping briefly over the long folds of her stola before their eyes met and held. For a few moments he didn’t move. Then he inclined his head, courteously enough, though his gaze never left hers. His eyes were dark, she noticed, like pools of black tar, deep and mysterious and compelling, though the expression in them looked strangely arrested.

  ‘Livia Valeria?’ He broke the silence at last.

  ‘Yes.’

  This time her voice sounded too quiet as she forced her feet to move forward again. She couldn’t think of a single other thing to say either. How was she supposed to greet the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with? A simple Ave seemed insufficient.

  ‘I trust that you’ve had a good journey, lady?’

  ‘Yes,’ she repeated, wincing inwardly at the repetition. ‘At least, as good as we might have hoped for in springtime.’

  He glanced up at the sky. ‘The weather’s been milder than usual.’

  ‘Ye—True.’

  She corrected herself just in time, tucking her red curls back behind her ears self-consciously. In her haste to discover what was happening outside, she’d left her palla behind in the carriage, leaving her hair uncovered. Now she felt uncomfortably exposed, wishing she’d brought a shawl to cover h
er stola as well. The silken fabric felt too thin and flimsy in front of so many men, but then she’d dressed to impress her new husband, just as Tarquinius had instructed her to...

  As awkward as their first encounter felt, however, at least this got it over with quickly. It wasn’t exactly the way or the place that she’d expected to meet him, on a woodland road in the middle of nowhere, but perhaps it was as good as any. She’d sent a rider ahead with news of their imminent arrival the day before, though she hadn’t expected any response. Having never met him in person—Tarquinius not having considered a meeting necessary prior to their marriage—she’d had no idea what he thought of their union, but surely this had to be a good sign, his coming to greet her with an honour guard of soldiers.

  ‘Are we close to the wall?’ She asked the first question that sprang into her mind.

  ‘About ten miles away.’

  ‘So close? Then we should be there before nightfall.’

  ‘Even sooner. It’s barely half a day’s march from here, lady. We’ll get you there for dinner.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She smiled nervously and he reached up to remove his helmet, revealing a head of light brown hair, close-cropped like most soldiers’, above a ruggedly handsome face, with prominent cheekbones, a slightly crooked nose that looked as if it must have been broken at some point and a resolute-looking jaw. Judging by the ingrained frown lines between his brows, he didn’t smile very often, but taken as a whole his face was stern, not cruel, as if whatever burden he carried—and she had the sudden conviction that he carried something—was his alone.

  He wasn’t as young as she’d feared he might be either. Tarquinius had said that he was newly enrolled in the army, but the man before her looked both older and more experienced, closer to her own age of twenty-four than that of a raw recruit. The realisation was both a relief and a fresh source of anxiety. After marriage to a man almost three times her age, the last thing she’d wanted was to go to the other extreme and marry a boy—something this soldier most definitely wasn’t—though there was something powerfully disconcerting about him, too.