Marilyn Todd - Dark Horse

How much of his grand scheme had Leo been about to confide that day in his office when Silvia walked in and interrupted what she thought was a kiss? How much history would have been rewritten, with Claudia in on the secret? Would she have allowed Leo to continue using Jason's children as pawns? Would she have allowed Silvia, for that matter, to persist in the same spiteful game? Would it have made one iota of difference?

Because had Orbilio come to the villa, instead of remaining in town, Leo would still be alive. It would just mean that, with his cousin under arrest, some other poor sod would have been skewered on the atrium door in his place — and who's to say one life is more important than another?

That was the enormity of the guilt Orbilio carried.

And the knowledge was like a vice round her heart.

But that was another time, another place. First, she must tackle this godawful hangover, and then she must find a way of extricating herself from that ridiculous doping fiasco. No wonder Orbilio scoffed at her offer of trading a pardon for a pirate! Since he knew exactly what Jason was about — wait. How did he know? How could Marcus Cornelius have had any idea about the man his cousin's sister-in-law had run off with? A couple of fires burning along the Liburnian coast was too much of a leap of faith to…

Well, I'll be damned. The answer had been staring her in the face all the time. With its big blue eyes and honey-coloured ringlets! Silvia had been ostracized from society because of a scandal, but who else had caused aristocratic sparks to fly when she eloped with a sea captain from Lusitania? From was the key. Marcus Cornelius never said he was born there. Just from Lusitania. The scandal would be seismic enough without adding a skull-guzzling, hide-stripping, scalp-mongering Scythian to the equation. Claudia realized there was something between Sylvia and Orbilio when he'd found her half-strangled on the bed: the tenderness with which he pulled up the sheet, the look on her face when it registered who had saved her. But calculation was Silvia's middle name. She might have been close to death, but she'd recognized the emotion in his face and stored it for later use. There was a child, you know. All other doors had closed in her face. She was desperate. A boy. Yes, indeed, Claudia thought. Except it wasn't Orbilio's.

For a moment, she felt again the crush of Jason's lips on hers beside the lake. Smelled cinnamon. I don't kiss killers. Oh, but he wasn't the only man who'd ever sent another soul to the land of his ancestors, was he? The Empire, especially Rome, was a dangerous place. Men were often required to kill in the course of their duties, so it wasn't that she didn't kiss killers. It was that Jason's weren't the right lips. The realization struck home like a slap. Because the right lips, she was certain, would taste, ever so faintly, of sandalwood — Shit! She really must give up the booze, if it put ideas like that in her head! It was making her sweat, too. You could wring this gown out, and the hot sultry air didn't help either. She could hardly breathe. O Bacchus, your servant quits.

Dreamlike, her thoughts drifted back to Jason. Give back what is mine. Bull tattoos. Spirits condemned to wander the earth for eternity, unless the clan emblem was carried forward on the chests of his heirs. How could she have been so blind, not to have put the pieces together before? What else would he have come all this way for — if not his sons? That was Jason's quest. To take the three boys he'd had by the Ice Queen to Scythia, where they could be raised in the place that was their spiritual home and receive guidance in their Scythian heritage. Wide awake now, Claudia struggled to sit up, but her muscles would still not obey her. Vaguely she remembered the party, the music, the dancing, with everyone coming and going, and vaguely she remembered the wine flowing freely. But come on, she'd drunk more than this in the past and not felt so ghastly. If only she could remember what had happened afterwards… where she was now.. Oh, lord, if only her head would stop throbbing!

But lethargy, however luxurious, would not acquaint Jason with what Silvia had done with his sons. Only Claudia could do that. And she must tell Orbilio that the child wasn't his. Because she had seen him. The Little Bustard, bruising her foot with his imaginary chariot. Right age, right colour hair, right colour grey eyes. A miniature version of his father. She'd seen the twins, too. In the one place no one would think of looking, among thirteen or fourteen others. You lose count. Don't you just! Nanai’ was no spectre at tonight's feast. No social outcast being given patronage by the self-appointed patrician hostess. Nanai had been invited so that Silvia might receive a progress report on her boys without arousing Jason's suspicion.

Leo had known, of course. That was why he'd been so desperate to throw Nanai out. Yes, he'd wanted to terminate his association. Handouts had been fine at the beginning, only Nanai abused his charity to the point where the forge had become dirty, unhygienic, in a bad state of repair and she blamed him for being a bad landlord. But then Nanai wanted everyone to do everything for her. She had no interest in maintenance, budgeting, management, abdicating responsibility for the older children to Snowdrop, because all she wanted was to wallow in the unconditional love of the babies. Let's face it, who else could love a woman who was waspish, self-centred and deeply embittered? True, her selfishness helped Snowdrop and her rag-tag siblings along the way, but what future did they have now that orphan numbers had passed the point where Nanai's budget could cope?

Even without knowing the reason for his shortfall in grapes, Leo was wise to be shot of her. The sooner she faced reality and stood on her own two feet, the better for all concerned, but there was no great hurry. Leo disapproved of Lydia's association with the woman, of course. The constant dripping of poison into her ear. And it wouldn't suit his new order, Leoville, to have a slum on his doorstep. But it was the arrival of Silvia's sons that had prompted drastic action. If Nanai knew who the father was, as she surely must, then it was only a question of time before she confided in Lydia. Exit the hero, before he'd even stepped on to the stage!

So it was only right that Jason should be told where to find his sons. He had been separated from them for long enough and god knows, so had his mother. Claudia struggled to sit up. It had to end, this game of using her children as pawns. Silvia could bloody well negotiate like everyone else! Except Claudia's body still wouldn't respond and dammit it was getting too bloody hot, her clothes were drenched, and she was sucking in air in bloody great gulps.

Then she realized.

Her arms and legs weren't prisoner to some terrible hangover. These were ropes binding her tight, and the reason it was so dark was terrifying simple. Claudia Seferius had been locked in a coffin and buried alive.

The air was running out fast.

The demon yawned. The hour was late and sufficient energy had been invested in witticisms and observations at this excellent party to substantiate an alibi.

Drugs were notoriously difficult to judge, of course, but the demon had calculated the dosage carefully and gauged at least an hour's worth of air inside the box. By its reckoning, the full effects of the soporific would have worn off around two quarters of the hour ago, leaving two quarters of unendurable torture.

Medea's blood ran strong in the demon's veins, and it had vowed to give her as much homage as it possibly could. Talking Leo into changing the name of his boat had been a good start. Which was why Leo had had to die before he could besmirch the memory of the demon's illustrious ancestor by changing it back.