Cara moved onto the dirt floor. “Is Marcellus truly the father?”
With a snort, Edna grabbed a ladle. “Of course not, but Victor was angry with me, and then the Marcellus rumor started. I didn’t see the point in denying it.”
“Angry with you?” Cara narrowed her eyes.
“For having this child.”
Cara felt her cheeks flame angry hot. “As if it were your choice.”
“There are things you can do to get rid of the babe, though they’re dangerous. Many women have died that way, and I don’t know.” Edna let her ladle fall into the boiling water. “I should have, I guess. I’d be a lot happier right now, but I looked at my littlest brother, and I couldn’t.”
The wind whistled through dirty streets, blowing the scent of refuse into the hovel. The water bubbled faster.
Gaze on Edna, Cara sank onto a ramshackle bench. Edna looked so strange with her stomach jutting out. “How long have you known?”
“From right at first. Over six months now.”
“I was with you six months ago.” Cara stared at her friend. “You didn’t look different.”
Edna rolled her gaze up to the leaky roof. “I have six siblings. You count to see if you’re late, and then the nausea never lies.”
“But that could be anybody. Why, I’ve felt sick every morning the last ten days. It doesn’t mean anything.” Despite the other emotions circling inside her, Cara wrinkled her forehead. Maybe if Mother had lived, she would have known things like Edna.
“You have to do something with a man first, witless. It doesn’t just happen.”
Cara prodded the dirt floor with her boot. “I may have sort of did that once.”
Edna stared at her. “Conan? Or you did this with another man when you knew you’d marry him?”
“Don’t judge me.” Cara slapped her hand half over her eyes.
Turning, Edna stuck a rod into the boiling water and fished for the fallen ladle. “You say you’ve been sick.”
“A little, it’s nothing.” Though, she’d lost breakfast five mornings this week. Surely Edna didn’t imply she was with child.
“Are you late?”
“For what?” Cara met Edna’s gaze.
“Bleeding, all that monthly stuff.” Only Edna talked so coarsely.
Cara pressed her hands against the bench. The rough wood pressed back against her fingers. “I don’t know.”
“Count,” Edna ordered.
One week, two, three, five, six? “I guess, two weeks late.”
“Are you ever that late ordinarily?”
Cara shook her head. “No, never, now that you say it.”
“Congratulations,” bitterness tinged Edna’s voice, “you’re with child, too.”
“I couldn’t be.”
“Oh yes, you could, deary.” Edna dropped the pole and it landed in the water with a splash. “You roll the dice, you pay the wager, and your number came up just as blood red as mine this time. First time as well. Too much in love to even take precautions or just an idiot? Conan would be proud – if it were his.”
The stinging words slapped across her cheek, and from Edna. Cara gripped the lip of the bench as her insides churned.
“Question of the hour, who’s the father?”
“Victor invited me to the farmstead, a party.” Cara’s feet went numb, her fingers tingled. A babe!
Edna paled. “Was it Victor?”
A babe! She’d be shamed everywhere. She couldn’t get a servant’s job and flee. No one would hire an unwed woman with child, and then she’d have a babe. One who cried all night, and needed clothes, and food, and everything.
Blood pounded through her. No, she couldn’t be having a baby. Pruella was having a baby, and now Edna, but not her.
The room faded in and out before Cara’s eyes.
Cold chills raced through her.
“I’m assuming the father’s a patrician, which eliminates the marriage option.”
“Yes,” Cara choked through chattering teeth. Attracting the attention of a patrician, who spoke of far off lands and Grecian myths, had sounded exhilarating at the time. Right now, however, she’d give every denarius she could obtain to have lain with a dull-witted mason or muddy-handed potter.
“What’s your plan? Marry Conan fast enough that he thinks it’s his? An innocent like you probably hasn’t even considered the mistress option.”
Deceive Conan? Cara’s heart sank to her trembling limbs. “No. The fire delayed our betrothal, and he doesn’t want to marry me until spring.”
“Spring?” Edna flicked her gaze across the room. “Betrothal’s as legally binding as marriage, only with no excuse for being with child. You’re getting executed for adultery, deary.”
“People don’t kill adulteresses anymore.”
“Usually.”
Cara clenched her hand, but Edna merely attempted to scare her. Still, Edna spoke the truth that, as hideous as being shamed for fornication was, an adulteress would suffer worse.
“Get Conan to ‘make a mistake’ with you. Then, for sure he’ll think it’s his.” Edna laughed bitterly.
Cara pressed against the wall and the broken boards dug into her skin. “Conan wouldn’t do that.” She hoped. She didn’t want to do that.
“Just seduce him. He’s a man. It shouldn’t be hard.”
“I – ”
“Or tell your Father you’re a harlot, and if he doesn’t turn you out, watch your name spread across this town same as mine. His business will suffer for it, too. People don’t patronize a smithy who can’t even control his own daughter.” Edna grabbed the cauldron handle.
Cara felt the blood drain from her face. The town would punish Father, too?
The cauldron tugged down on Edna’s arm. “Don’t play the mournful lover. You should have taken Conan when you could have had him.”
Even in the sweltering summer air, stabs of cold pierced Cara’s numb arms and legs.
As she walked back from Edna’s house, her bowels upended.
Her pulse fluttered so fast the street spun.
A babe? No father? She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t!
Edna didn’t know everything. Maybe Edna had miscounted.
Conan’s shop stood on the left side of Light Street. The rap of his pounding hammer carried through the air.
She could ask Conan to move the wedding up. Why delay the inevitable, even if Edna was wrong? Please, dear God, let Edna be wrong. Please. Please. Please!
Why would the Lord of all listen to a sinner’s prayer?
Cara dragged her foot across the threshold of Conan’s house. A babe? Even married, she’d dreaded the responsibility of a baby, but unmarried? She pulled the door shut, closing out overeager ears.
Dropping his hammer, Conan crossed the room. He leaned down and kissed her. “Missed me?”
“Conan.” Heart racing so fast she’d retch, Cara clenched sweaty palms. “Would you consider marrying this month instead of the spring?”
Conan laughed. Moving both hands around her waist, he pulled her as close as Victor had at Father’s shop. “Wanton enough to desire me over you?”
Back before he learned she’d kissed Victor, he never would have spoken to her like that. Tears welled in her eyes. He respected her this little when he didn’t know she was with child?
The pit in her stomach grew. Lie to Conan? What options did she have?
Not only Father’s shop would suffer, but also his soul if he ever learned what she’d done. Edna had said ways existed to get rid of a baby.
Surely God would judge her less harshly for deceiving Conan than extinguishing a life.
She tried to meet Conan’s gaze but failed. “I just thought it might be better.”
“I want to complete the wing on my house so I can have the perfect wedding entry I’d planned.”
She traced her gaze over the ashes on the packed floor. They seemed surreal, as if she stood miles away. “I don’t mind not perfect.”
She swallowed hard, her voice so quiet even she could barely hear it. “Can we please get married this month?”
“You tempt me,” he traced his fingers against her throat, brushed them across the neckline of her dress, explored further than he ever had before, “in so many ways, but wisdom demands we wait ‘til spring. For marriage anyway.” He moved his hand lower than her waist.
Since he wouldn’t move the wedding up, giving her an excuse to be with child, she’d have to tell both Father and him, and swiftly. Conan’s signature on the betrothal papers would sentence her as an adulteress.
Conan moved his hand past the border between her neckline and places where Father would not approve of him touching. Though the shop had no roof, the walls rose high, and the door was closed tight.
Seduction, Edna had suggested, but was it even called seduction if she just let him do what he obviously already desired? Edna said Conan would be proud if this baby was his. As long as he thought it was his, what was the difference truly?
His hands traveling all over her now, Conan leaned in to kiss her.
Her stomach revolted. No matter the consequences, some things she wouldn’t do. Cara pulled away.
Grabbing her upper arm, he yanked her back and kissed her anyway but then he let go. “Best get used to it. You’ll be my wife.”
Unfortunately, not true that she’d be his wife – not after he found out this secret. Cara turned and fled the house he built for her.
Conan’s voice followed her. “Soon as I get these next two walls finished, I’ll stop by your father’s house and sign that betrothal.”
Chapter 11
Seven weeks since the incident at the farmhouse. Cara’s heart thumped wildly in her chest. Father’s anvil lay cold. Conan and he sat at a small table, a parchment detailing dowry provisions spread in front of them.
A small iron band lay to the right of the papers, the betrothal ring Conan meant to slip on her finger this afternoon. Any moment, the two witnesses needed to seal a betrothal would arrive.
Attempting to postpone this adulteress-creating betrothal she’d tried everything from urging Conan to rebuild his shop to soliciting new blacksmith orders so Father wouldn’t have time away from his anvil, and only bought herself three weeks. She’d have tried crying, but that had failed with both men last time.
Walking up to the table, Cara looked at Father. Her legs trembled. “Why do this now? Conan doesn’t wish to marry ‘til spring.” Until Conan signed those betrothal papers, she was merely a harlot, not an adulteress.
“Conan, Pruella’s father, Aidan, and I took several hours off work to get this done. No more delays, Cara.” Father’s glance was severe.
Conan’s, too. “We’re already more than a month overdue because of the fire.”
“Please, a few more weeks?” Anything to give her a reprieve from having to tell this news. Cold chills slithered through Cara’s limbs.
Her veins stretched with the blood that her pounding heart pushed through them.
Perhaps Edna was wrong, but she’d only grew sicker and later. If she didn’t tell before Father signed the betrothal, Conan could charge her with adultery.
Incidentally, Pruella’s mother had spoken falsely. Losing your virtue wasn’t wicked; it was witless. If only she’d known that seven weeks ago.
“No,” Father said.
With a thud, Cara’s heart pounded to a stop.
Her stomach heaved.
Better to tell this news now than when Pruella’s father and Aidan entered this room. Cara opened her mouth. “There’s….”
Father passed the parchment to Conan. He took up the writing instrument. Edna had spoken truth. Though almost never enforced, the official punishment for a woman caught in adultery was death.
Screwing up her face, Cara dug her nails into her palms. Her throat constricted as if to choke her. “There’s a babe.”
Father furrowed his brow, confused, but anger flashed across Conan’s face. He dropped the writing instrument. “You’re with child?”
Biting her lip, she nodded.
“I should have known.” Condemnation shone in Conan’s blue eyes.
Father grabbed Conan by the shoulder. “How dare you violate my daughter.”
Conan’s stool tipped as he jerked back. “It’s not mine.”
For a moment, Father hesitated, but then he grabbed Conan by the tunic. “You’ll not only violate my daughter but also deny doing so?”
Conan shoved at Father’s hand. “I swear it’s not mine. Ask your daughter.” His voice rose, pounding against her.
“Cara.” Father’s voice was sharp as a javelin point.
Her hands trembled as she lowered her voice. “It’s not his.”
“Oh.” That expression on Father’s face, she’d never seen it before.
She looked at the soot under her feet.
The walls tilted before her blurry eyes.
Her head pounded.
She’d awake from this dream, surely?
“Is that why you wanted to marry me this month? You wanted to lie to me and cover up your harlotry?” Conan glared at her, hands balled into fists.
“If I wanted to lie to you, I’d have let you lay with me when you tried three weeks ago, but I didn’t, and I begged you to release me from these betrothal plans. Begged!” She raised her hands, not anger, but desperation in her voice.
“Tell me, who?” Father gripped the table so hard it looked like it would splinter.
Cara shook her head. The sordid truth had escaped, but Conan needn’t know the man’s name.
“Who is it?” Father boomed.
She pressed her sweaty palms against each other. “I’m not telling.” Until Conan leaves.
“Oh, you are telling. And I’m dragging him to this house, and if he’s still alive by the time he gets here, we’re going to discuss betrothal and – ”
She glanced toward the wall. A bronze mirror reflected her face, her eyes enormous puddles, so dark, not a ray of light penetrated them. “You can’t do that, Father. You can’t make him do anything.”
Now she couldn’t tell Father either. If Father raised his hand against a patrician, he’d lose everything – his shop, his livelihood, maybe even his life.
Father looked at her, his dark eyes so deep. “It’s a patrician, isn’t it?”
Against her will, she let her chin sink and rise. Her chest constricted, blocking her breath.
Her fingers numbed.
How could she have done this to Father?
A groan slid through Father’s teeth. “I told you those kind were only out to ruin girls like you.” He turned to Conan. “Are you going to let Cara be publicly shamed?”
“It’s her shame, not mine.”
“Yes, but you know those kind of men. The patricians with their deceitful words, preying on the young and foolish.” Father looked right at her. Then, hand on the table, he turned back to Conan. “We could still sign the betrothal today. Move the marriage up. Make everything all right.”
Her heart pounded in her chest. She didn’t dare breathe. She’d gratefully toil at Conan’s shop and bear him baby after babe, and, worst of all, obey him for the rest of her days if he would only forgive her for one day’s sin.
“Go ask the father of her babe. See if he wants a lifetime of responsibility as much as a night’s pleasure.” Throwing his stool back, Conan stormed out of the shop.
Tears welled in Cara’s eyes. Oh to grab Father’s tunic and cry as when she was ten and mother died. “Father – ”
Father flipped his bench back. “How could you do this, Cara? We raised you better than this.”
“We?” Cara felt her back go taut. “Mother died six years ago.”
“Yes.” Father raised his hand. “She was a good woman. You dishonor her memory. You – ”
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br /> “Were you even married when she had me? I thought soldiers weren’t allowed to marry, and I can count how many years have passed since you left the ranks.”
“That was different. It was everything but the law. We were faithful, we….”
Cara hugged her arms against her chest. “Not exactly the virtuous girls who linger at the back of the soldiers’ wagon trains.”
Fury flashed across Father’s face. “I married her soon as I was able. Is your man going to do the same?”
A patrician’s bride? It sounded like some magical Greek legend.
“Forget I asked. Patricians marry for prestige, someone to swell their coffers and win them political connections.”
Tears spilled from her eyelids. Her breath came in hacking sobs.
Flinging the table out of his way, Father stomped toward the door, but he paused at the doorframe, dark eyes swimming with sorrow. “If it had been someone in town, I would have made him marry you, little girl. You know that, carissime?”
She raised her hand, palm up. “What’s to do now?”
“Start a Pict revolution and wipe out every patrician male.” Father slammed the door behind him.
Sinking to the hearth, Cara stared at the ashes beneath her skirts. Stared at them until the urge to retch overcame her.
There was nothing to be done. He wasn’t even in Britannia.
Thinking of yesterday, Cara shuddered, but today had to be better. After her requisite morning retching, Cara grabbed two buckets and headed to the river. Her stomach might churn, but at least it didn’t bulge out. She still had months left until anyone besides Father or Conan knew.
What about the winter?
Her breath choked within her.
The bucket handles slipped between her slick hands.
She sucked in air before a spell could overcome her. She’d woken screaming from one last night.
No need to worry about the winter yet. Not now, when the sun streamed down, and the morning breeze blew around her cheeks.
Her heart pounded, but Cara forced herself to gaze at the sunshine sparkling off the river water. Women gathered around the bank, dipping pitchers into the flowing stream.
When Gambling (Love and Warfare Series Book 2) Page 14