I looked at Raphael sleeping still, n***d in the heat, his hair a black shadow on the white linen of the pillow. Then, as though feeling the caress of my gaze, I watched the first stirrings of his morning arousal beginning its tentative rise. Jesu, I was tempted. Yet, feeling such an unpleasant mixture of nausea and acute hunger, I knew I must eat first. ‘Damn,’ I said, under my breath, before slipping from the bed and retrieving my shift from the floor.
I moved silently through the house and out along the open-sided covered passageway leading to the kitchen block, which smelt enticingly of freshly baked bread. A sleepy-eyed slave girl handed me a roll, slit to insert a goodly dollop of butter. My mouth watered as I carried it onto the porch, intending to return to my husband as soon as I
