Jail Bait by Marilyn Todd

thoughts, because this was a gown she’d have chosen herself. In the setting sun, she smiled inwardly. In her experience, the only men who have such taste and comprehension are inclined towards their own sex, but not Tarraco! His dark eyes were compelling, his movements lithe and beguiling and she did not need to hear his sharp intake of breath to appreciate the effect of his gift when she changed into it. Without a word he led her between a line of tall cypress to a white marble seat which looked out over the lake. Laid out in the centre were platters piled high with oysters and stuffed eggs, asparagus and wild mushrooms.
    ‘The shadows lengthen,’ he said as they pushed their plates away. ‘Come.’
    With the flat of his hand on her back as a guide, he led her to the dining terrace, where spiky palms flanked the marble steps and garlands of flowers—roses, lilies, valerian—hung from the capitals of deeply fluted pillars. Two couches upholstered in Tyrian purple and cast in bronze gleamed in the light of a score of burning torches and Claudia knew, as she stretched out, that the colour of her gown set off the scene to perfection. Tarraco, she reflected happily, was not just rich, he was an artist.
    Crab and lobster, venison and quail sizzled under silver-lidded platters and the silence was broken only by the rasping of cicadas and an occasional mew from the peacocks. Across the lake, the lights of Atlantis reflected like stars in the water.
    ‘Your—’ Claudia cleared her throat and started again. ‘Your servants. Are they invisible?’
    ‘You wish for a crowd?’ he asked, stroking his long, dark mane out of his eyes.
    She remembered the clearing. Him standing there, veiled by his hair, and her nearly naked, and despite the warmth of the evening, a shudder ran through her body. ‘How long have you lived here?’ she asked, gulping the heavy red wine.
    He spread expressive hands and shrugged. ‘I lose track of time,’ he replied, and Claudia could believe him. Was this what happened to Odysseus, when he stopped on Circe’s island? Perhaps time stood still for him also? But then Circe, she recalled, was an enchantress…
    Inside her chest, a blacksmith hammered on the anvil of her ribs. ‘Where were you before that?’ she asked.
    ‘Iberia, you mean?’
    Whatever.
    ‘From the hills above the coast on the east.’ His mouth twitched downwards briefly and, she felt, involuntarily. ‘I was slave originally. Prisoner of war.’
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘You,’ he grinned and picked up a lyre, ‘talk too much.’ Softly Tarraco began to strum. ‘Just lie back. Listen to the music and the night.’
    Sod it, why not? There were demons enough waiting when she returned! Thus Claudia abandoned herself to the marriage of chords which she never imagined existed. Haunting, aching melodies of sun-drenched Spanish hills filled the air, wordless songs of broken hearts and unrequited love, and they echoed across the terrace and far into the night. The level in the wine jug dropped, and the scent of the roses and the lilies intensified in the heat of the torches.
    ‘Now,’ he said at length, laying down his lyre, ‘let us eat honeycombs fresh from the hive.’
    ‘What is this?’ She laughed. ‘Like our festival of Beating the Bounds, have you laid on a moveable feast?’
    Tarraco made no reply, but silently ushered her through an atrium resplendent with golden rafters and redolent of myrrh, past a fountain chattering in a diamond pool. Finally he pulled aside a heavy tapestry curtain, the entrance to a small office, from which a large door opened inwards.
    ‘I think,’ Claudia said slowly, ‘I’ve eaten enough for one meal.’
    ‘You do not like honeycomb?’ He was mortified. ‘I fetch candied fruits, yes? Maybe nuts.’
    Damn right I am.
    Claudia cast an appreciative eye over the bronze lamps guzzling up the finest olive oil, the painted stucco ceiling, the gaily patterned frescoes. On a tapestry which