“I have it memorized, too. I could just tell it to you now.”
“Please do!” She grabbed his hand. When an opening arose, she would ask Eric if his mother ever hired servants for their travels.
Darkness closed over the streets in the bad section of town. Cara paced a strip of ground in front of some hovels. Where was Edna? An owl hooted.
Nearby, a drunk cursed.
She should never have snuck out again for one of Victor’s parties.
The drunk’s gaze alighted on her. She grabbed for a rock, a stick. He lunged toward her.
Father feared she’d get assaulted on the streets of Greece. What if she got assaulted right here in Camulodunum?
The drunk closed his hand over her arm. Her blood raced. Her breath came in gasps. She should scream.
The ground shook under her feet.
Her knees trembled uncontrollably.
Not another spell, not now!
The thoughts started as familiar shame overwhelmed her. She’s a wanton sneaking out like this at night. What would her father say? Why did she do it? For Eric? She’s a fool then. He’s just using her for kissing practice.
Edna rounded the dark frame of a house. The drunk released her.
Shoulders slumping, Cara gasped for air. “You’re late.”
Edna shrugged. “Do we even want to go?”
“Not go?” Eric had promised to tell her about Greece.
“Very well, but don’t expect me to be civil to Victor.”
As the panic receded from Cara’s body, she touched Edna’s arm. “What’s wrong?”
“An innocent like you wouldn’t understand.” Edna set off at a fast pace.
Shoving away the shame-filled thoughts that always accompanied the spells, Cara followed.
Edna lengthened her strides as they moved into the garrison district where the smell of ale and loud voices filled the streets. “I’m baking for an event in four days at the Paterculi house. Their housekeeper said they’re still short two servers if you want to come.”
“Yes!” What did Eric’s house look like? Maybe she could see those scrolls he talked about. Edna always had to stay late to clean the kitchen afterward, so she’d have time, and Eric would be there.
Ahead, light and noise cascaded from the warehouse’s open door. With a snort, Edna marched into the lights within.
A board squeaked beneath her boot as Cara stepped into the place. The same as last time, a table to the left held a tabula board. Patrician men, village girls, and some women dressed like slaves clustered around it. She spied Eric at the table.
As he rattled the dicebox, his gaze alighted on her. “Want to play?” With his chin, he indicated the empty spot on his right.
Beaming, she slid in next to him.
All the pieces had already entered the board. Across from Eric, a sharp-jawed youth smiled. He already had three pieces over the finish line.
Difficult, but not irredeemable.
Eric tipped the dicebox and split a pair, leaving one open to capture.
Rising to her knees on the bench, she whispered in his ear, “When gambling, you always have to leave yourself a way out.”
He turned to her. “How so?”
“Like now. You could put your all on the chance he’ll roll low and not capture the pair you split. Or you can couple up these two exposed pieces.” She pointed to the ivory on the beginning lines. “Bring your furthermost piece to the finish later on.”
“Taking a risk is how you won the game last time.” Eric twisted the ivory piece between his thumb and forefinger.
She glanced toward the stack of gold that grew higher with each new round of the game. Tonight, the coins of the men’s combined wagers heaped to overflowing on the wooden boards. “That was early in the evening. You’ve got too much stake in this wager to risk all.”
With a nod, Eric laid the furthermost piece back down in its couple and moved the back pieces she’d indicated.
A quarter of an hour more and Eric won. Another game, another win. A third and a fourth.
Sandals sounded behind Cara. The sharp-jawed man took the dicebox.
“Winning again, Cara?” Victor flicked the edge of her sleeve. He looked out of sorts and she didn’t see Edna.
Smiling, Cara tucked her feet further underneath her and pointed to the piece Eric should capture. “Of course.”
“Only because you’re playing across from a donkey like him.” Victor gestured toward the sharp-jawed man. “Everyone knows girls can’t focus on dice and numbers when there’s a good-looking man around.”
Cara crossed her arms across her chest, fingers locking on her elbows. “You know nothing about girls.”
“You couldn’t beat me at tabula.” Victor’s dark eyes dared her.
“I could, too.”
Hand on the table, the slick-haired man they’d played against earlier leaned forward. “Don’t insult the sun, Victor. She’s the best.” The slick-haired man elbowed Eric. “Not like him.”
Eric pushed him away, gaze still on the board, looking at the moves she’d indicated. “How do you do that, Cara?”
“Not fair. She’s the only reason you’ve won anything tonight.” The sharp-jawed man averted his gaze from the disastrous carnage of his pieces. “Come help my side, Cara girl.”
“I’ll take her.” The slick-haired man pushed an indecently dressed slave girl off his lap to peer around Eric from the left. “How about it, Cara? Cut you into part of the winnings?”
Cara felt her cheeks heat. She looked at Eric, who still studied the board.
“Come on, Eric. Share your phalanx,” the sharp-jawed man said.
Eric looked up from the board. “Ecce, I didn’t make her help me.”
“See, Cara, he doesn’t even want you.” A man three seats up the table called. He wore a blue tunic.
She eyed the man, who Eric didn’t contradict. Over a fortnight, and Eric hadn’t tried kissing her again. Was he repulsed by her?
“Come join me, Cara girl,” the man invited again.
“No.” Cara picked up the dicebox.
Eric broke into a smile. He raised his hand to slap against hers as if the chasm separating plebeian from patrician didn’t divide them, as if he wanted her. “Let’s beat these barbarians.”
A dozen more games in, when they’d hardened their role as champions, the rest of the patricians left the tabula board for the wine amphorae, taking the candles with them.
In the dimness, Eric gathered the ivory pieces and dropped them into the game box. His muscles stretched the white linen of his tunic sleeve.
Sensibly, she should marry Conan, content herself within the confines of this town and the drudgery of babe after babe. She shook her head. Tomorrow, she’d tell Conan “no”.
Only a lone oil lamp illuminated the table now, the darkness shrouding them from the others’ eyes. Pruella had said men don’t respect women who initiate a kiss, but she wanted his affection more than respect. Leaning forward, Cara touched her mouth to Eric’s. “Victory kiss.”
He drew back, brown-eyed gaze fixed on her.
Face heating, she swung her legs out of the bench. “I’ll just go look for Edna.”
Eric caught her hand. “Do you still want to know about Greece?”
She nodded, cheeks hot. He released her hand, but a nervous sweat built on her palm all the same.
“I drew you a map.” Eric placed a wax tablet on the table. Scooting next to Eric, she looked over his arm. His upper arm almost brushed her cheek.
“Here’s where the minotaur’s supposed to have lived. The monster demanded human sacrifices. Then Theseus, the king’s son, and six other men set sail to kill the minotaur. Only the minotaur lived in a labyrinth, so even if Theseus killed it, he’d still die in that inescapable maze. I have a relief of it on my chariot.”
She looked up. “You have a chariot?”
His eyes laughed as he nodded.
She clasped her hands together on her lap.
“May I see it when I go to your house?”
“My house?”
“In four days, I’m serving at the party at your house.” She pulled her legs up underneath her. “May I see it?”
“Of course, you can see it. Our tablinum has better maps, and in the gardens out back, there’s a statue from Macedonia. Do you want to see that, too?” He curved his mouth up, his brown eyes reflecting the dim light.
“I want to see it all.”
His gaze connected with hers, and for an instant, a spark flamed in his eyes. Why hadn’t he kissed her back? “Macedonia’s here.”
Cara bent forward, her gaze following his finger.
Three cities down from Corinth, he touched his mouth to hers. Her heart throbbed against her chest as he brushed his lips against hers. She never knew the scrape of wind-chapped skin could penetrate to the very soul. He circled his arm around her shoulders, a trace of awkwardness in his fingers as he touched the back of her dress.
She touched her hand to his knee as she stretched to press her lips closer to his.
Eric tangled his hands in her hair, his mouth warm on her lips as if the kiss meant something, which, of course, it didn’t. Why worry about that tonight?
With a laugh, Cara drew back. “I never taught you the way to touch a girl’s hair.”
“How am I doing then?” Eric used both arms to tug her body back against his. His hard chest smashed against her body like a rock face, but she could feel his heart beat. He touched her waist.
She brushed her fingers over his temples as she let her mouth linger against his. He tasted of faraway lands where the sun rose over mythical heroes.
“I don’t think we should do this.” He pulled away in the middle of a kiss in the most insulting way possible.
“Why?” She stiffened. “Do I not kiss well enough for a patrician?” Conan had never complained about her kisses.
He looked at her, his eyes so deep. “You kiss like Andromeda, the mortal woman who even the sea nymphs envied. The legends say at Andromeda’s kisses the ocean breeze itself paused to gape in wonder. The sea nymphs called upon Poseidon for Andromeda’s death because they knew as long as she lived their beauty held no allure for the world of men.
She wasn’t entirely certain of Andromeda’s identity, but with that kind of compliment she was kissing him again. Reaching out, she touched his shoulder, but he towered too far above her. Rising to her knees, she scooted onto his legs and lifted her mouth toward his.
“Enough kissing.” Eric pushed her off him. “Let’s talk of Greece.” He pointed to the map.
Not the response Andromeda would have gotten. Cara dug her teeth into her lip. Did he just invent stories like that to make her heart race and drive away all good sense?
Feet thudded behind them. Victor strode up to the edge of the dim lamplight.
Eric looked at him. “Going to the training grounds tomorrow, Victor?”
Would Eric have told her “no more kissing” if she’d been a patrician girl? Cara glared at a knothole in the table board. She was merely a blacksmith’s daughter, and breaking her heart over Eric wouldn’t change that.
“Someone cracked the shed lock, and stole all the discuses I’d stored there.” Victor looked ill-humored. “For some reason, the thief didn’t touch yours.”
“I know a blacksmith if you need more.” Cara sat straighter, feet properly on the floor as if what she’d done meant no more to her than to Eric.
“Yes?” Victor looked at her.
“Off Light Street, after the potter district. Best blacksmith in the city.” Father kept complaining about the decrease in sales. He said the whole town hurt for coin this year and he certainly could use the extra business.
Victor nodded.
Twisting, Cara looked through the dimness behind him. “Where’s Edna?”
“How should I know?”
“She’s always with you.”
“Not anymore. She won’t even speak to me.” Victor glared at the table. “As if she didn’t well know the cost of her wager when she started out.”
“What?” Cara looked up.
“Nothing.”
Chapter 7
Afternoon sunlight spilled onto the wax tablet as Cara summed the numbers. The forge stood empty, anvil cold. Father had gone to the garrison hoping to negotiate a price for a large production of blades. He’d worked half days all week because he couldn’t obtain enough orders.
The lingering smell of forge smoke shifted through her nostrils. Always the same smells, the same village streets, the same mundane talk as women gathered at the riverbank with water buckets to speak of shops, babies, and toiling for daily bread. Everything the same.
Behind her, the open door creaked, and then swung shut, darkening the room.
“Father?” Cara bent over the numbers, light from the window still illuminating the tablet.
“You can’t be lovely and quick-witted. Didn’t you know that?”
Cara jolted up. Her shoulder blades hit Victor’s chest.
“You made that up.” She felt her cheeks heat as she pulled back.
“It’s true. Just as you can’t kiss a man and work numbers in your head at the same time.” He stepped closer.
“False, and I could beat you at tabula, too.”
Victor shook his head, confident. His chest almost touched her front now, but the table blocked her exit.
She shook her head back and clamped her hands on the table behind her.
“How about a wager then?”
She raised one eyebrow. “What kind of wager?” Usually people came into this shop dragging three small children and grumbling about the price of bread. Nothing nearly as exciting as a wager.
“Kiss me and see if you can still work numbers in your head.”
Cara drew her arms up. “Edna wouldn’t like it if I did.” If only she could say Eric wouldn’t like it but, based on last night, he didn’t care for her kisses.
“Edna’s not even speaking to me anymore.”
True, Edna had acted quite done with Victor. Cara brushed her thumb against the wax behind her. “I’m not going to do it, but what’s your wager?”
“Bragging rights.”
“For you or me?” After Victor’s insult at last night’s tabula game and the way he laughed at her the first time she’d kissed Eric, she would love to show Victor that he wasn’t half as irresistible as he thought.
“Either, depending on who wins the wager.”
Kiss Victor? Her damp hand slid off the wax. Then again, Eric didn’t love her, and since Victor had asked first, Pruella couldn’t call the kiss wanton. “This is an insane idea. I’m not going to do it.”
“If you win, I’ll send my other friends to this shop for their smithy work. Lots of extra business.”
Father did need the work. She touched the tablet again. “You shouldn’t offer money for a kiss.”
“It’s not a kiss. It’s a wager, an experiment to answer a riddle. Everyone offers money on a wager.”
“I – ” She could absolutely work numbers in her head while kissing Victor. The wager only required one kiss, just like the hundreds of others Conan had insisted she give him. It was a small price to pay to prove Victor wrong.
“Flip a coin? Heads, you take my wager, tails you don’t.” Victor kept her body trapped between the table and himself.
She swallowed hard. The coin would most likely roll tails. “If you insist.”
Pulling a gold coin from a pouch, Victor placed it on the table. With two fingers, he sent the coin spiraling.
She turned, her arm jogging his because of how close he stood. Victor’s chest pressed into her shoulder as he leaned over her. The spinning slowed. With a clatter, the coin fell to its side.
Heads.
Cara glanced around the now darkened room. With the door closed, no customers would enter, and Father shouldn’t return for at least another hour. She ran her tongue over her lips. It was only a kiss. “Just one kiss, this once
. Never again.”
Victor grinned. “Once is all it takes.”
She cast a glance back at the figures scrawled on wax. Then, she raised one hand and placed it on his shoulder. Victor moved his arm around her waist and he tucked it possessively in the curve.
Raising her chin, Cara stretched up on her toes. His mouth met hers long before she had extended to her full height.
No brush of mouths, his lips clasped hers. She felt his breathing quicken.
She moved her other hand behind his neck and she pressed back, lips imitating the grabbing motion of his. He was good, really good.
Lowering her arms, she went to step back. Fifty-four asses, that’s what the wax tablet said, and what she’d announce as soon he released her, winning the wager, but Victor didn’t part his mouth from hers. He tangled one demanding hand in the hair of her head, pulling her tight against him with his other arm.
What was this? Even the longest of Conan’s kisses would have ended many moments ago. She touched the white linen on Victor’s shoulders and pushed.
“The kiss isn’t over yet, carissime,” he whispered the word in her ear and trailed kisses down her cheek and across her neck.
The kiss must be over. No kiss lasted this long. Her cheeks flushed with heat as he continued doing whatever this was that he considered one kiss. Her hair fell down in pieces where he grasped it, her dress wrinkling from the constantly moving pressure of his body.
Her breathing grew nearly as thick as his now. She needed to halt this kiss, but with her heart pounding like this, and the flush of heat rising through her veins, she didn’t know how to make him stop.
A grunt sounded. Huge hands clamped down on Victor’s shoulders.
With one movement, Father threw the patrician across the shop. Victor landed on the backside of an anvil, soot staining the white linen of his patrician tunic.
“I don’t know who you are. And I don’t know why you’re here. But you will leave now, and if you ever – ”
Bristling, Victor stood. “Victor Ocelli, and you might want to think before you lay hands on patricians. I could have you imprisoned.”
“Get out!”
When Gambling (Love and Warfare Series Book 2) Page 9