Many eyes peered through the windows, people clambering on shoulders to see inside.
The elder coughed. “Now for the kiss that seals the marriage, to make you man and wife.”
Kiss? Her stomach dropped. Eric stared at her, frozen.
What perverted mind had invented a kiss for a betrothal ceremony? A public kiss for the world to know what? How skilled you were? Now with this unborn child, those hundreds and hundreds of faces staring at them had even more to speculate about.
The elder coughed, more loudly this time.
Eric slowly reached for her hand, painfully slowly.
He wouldn’t back out now, would he?
Eyes bore into them, the low hum of whispers starting anew.
“The man’s insane, marrying a village harlot.”
“Now’s the time for him to run.”
Eric touched her hand. His reluctant fingers seared like a brand. Cara squirmed. Eric found her gaze. He looked moments away from retching.
“The time is now.” The elder brought his sharp chin down.
The legate leaned forward. “Pronounce the marriage.”
“But to make the marriage official, sir,” the elder said, “until he kisses her, he hasn’t agreed.”
“We are all well aware that he’s kissed her. Pronounce the marriage.”
Angry red flushed over Eric’s ghastly white face.
She leaned toward him, her whisper rising to his furious countenance. “You don’t have to marry me.”
He looked at her. Was that tenderness in his brown eyes? “Where would that leave you?”
“Nowhere.” Her eyelashes brushed her cheeks as she gazed down at her brown dress, so very far from white. The shame, it would all sweep back if he accepted her offer, all the people in this building hurling insults about why the legate’s son would never want someone like her.
Why would he want her? He with that white toga wrapping around his broad shoulders, his stainless tunic falling beneath his clean-shaven face.
“We’re doing this.” Eric circled his arm around her waist, but he looked past her to the legate. For an instant, he met his father’s gaze, and a smoldering fire sprang into Eric’s eyes. Then he grabbed her chin, pushed his mouth down against hers, and kissed her, hard.
“And you are now joined as man and wife,” the elder said.
As Eric dropped his arm, she trembled. That’s how Conan had kissed her when he raged over her wager with Victor.
Eric was much, much bigger than Conan.
Ceremony over, the crowd dispersed, farewells said, now afternoon mist replaced the morning’s sunshine. A wagon and hitched horses stood behind the church. Cara’s heart pounded faster than the gusting wind.
In front of her, Legate Paterculi glared at his son. A legate, a leader of armies, and he stood three paces from her, incensed. Wasn’t this when heads started rolling?
On the other hand, Eric glared, too, and she was married to him, not the legate. Cara’s gut churned. Cold sweat built under her dress.
Heated words in deep, low voices passed between the two. The legate grabbed Eric’s arm. Eric looked ready to cuff his father across the face. Had Eric forced his familia to accept this marriage?
The legate certainly seemed none too happy about it. “Ready to apologize?”
“When the River Styx dries up.” Yanking away from his father, Eric leaped on the wagon board and grabbed the reins.
Turning, the legate held his hand out to her.
She stared at the man who could probably have one executed just by speaking the word. Her head pounded as she dragged herself forward.
Though the legate touched her hand gently as he helped her up, she’d have thought he meant to break her bones by the tone he used as he glowered at Eric. “In truth? Too much of an ingrate to even help your own wife?”
“Yes, my wife.” Eric’s voice smashed against his father and rebounded back against the building fog. “Even the Stoics have no rules for what a man does with his own wife.”
No rules? Cara’s legs wobbled as she lowered herself on the too-small wagon board a handbreadth from Eric.
Cold chills swept across her arms.
Her head pounded.
Darkness closed in around her.
Why had she always loved that Eric didn’t like rules?
“Here.” The legate hurled a ring of keys at Eric. “The villa had better be in pristine condition for the new owners.”
She turned her trembling gaze to Eric.
With a snap of the reins, he drove the steeds forward, glaring at the road ahead; and she was his wife.
Chapter 15
Mind numb, Eric unhitched the horses, gathered wood, and built the fire. Freezing wind whistled through the pine grove.
When the spark of tinder, carefully nursed with kindling, had risen into flame, he took the cold blanket from the wagon.
Throwing the chilled wool next to the fire, he slumped against a tree trunk. He’d thought giving speeches in front of the rhetor’s class humiliating. That didn’t compare to his own wedding.
What of Father’s words at the end? Eric glared into the flames. As if he regularly got girls with child. He’d only ever kissed one girl, his now wife, and if he’d had enough wits about him even to remember that fateful night, he certainly wouldn’t have let things progress past kissing.
Cara moved to the far edge of the clearing.
“Aren’t you cold?” He raised his voice through the icy air.
“A little.”
“Come closer then.” He gestured to the blanket.
She fixed her gaze on the frost-covered leaves below. “I’m not so very cold.”
Splendid. Married all of half a day, and his wife already wouldn’t look at him. Father had at least gotten to know his not-favored son for a few years before he decided that he hated him.
Cara’s teeth chattered. She’d freeze to death sitting there.
With a sigh, he stood and crossed the clearing. He squatted next to her. “The point of building a fire is to sit by it.”
She drew her cloak tight around her small shoulders. “I’m not cold.”
Gwen did this, too, said the opposite of what she meant for hours. Why freeze here for hours when a perfectly good fire he’d labored a half hour over burned ten paces away?
Sliding one arm behind Cara’s back and his other underneath her drawn up legs, he scooped her up. She weighed nothing, her chin barely level with his shoulder as he carried her back to the fire.
Even pressed against the warmth of his chest, Cara’s cheeks blistered red from cold and she shivered, her small body shaking.
He looked again. That shiver came from cold, right, or had she just trembled at his touch? The way he remembered it, she’d touched him a prodigious amount when they played tabula.
Then again, the way he remembered it, he didn’t drink or get girls with child.
Her gaze darted up to him as skittish as a wild thing.
Collapsing against the tree trunk, he pulled the blanket up over them and circled her with his arm, blocking the wind.
She gazed up from his chest. “Thank you for marrying me.”
Gratitude? Scarcely an amorous emotion to begin a marriage with. “I’d save my thanks if I were you. You’re the one stuck married to me.” He smiled at her.
Instead of laughing, she tensed, her body stiff against his.
“I – ” He what? Was sorry he wasn’t her blasted carpenter who she obviously would have preferred to spend this night with? If she wanted that carpenter so much, she should have had the carpenter’s baby.
All right, that was harsh. She’d been drunk. He was sorry about ruining her betrothal for her, but apologizing for not being Wryn had never gotten him anywhere with Father, so why start apologizing for not being this carpenter?
At last, Cara relaxed against him. Her eyes drooped closed, her breathing slowing in sleep. She felt so different than him, softer, more delicate, the hint of –
Why was he thinking about this? He’d ruined her betrothal to that obscenely diligent carpenter, she wouldn’t look at him, and the only emotion she’d expressed toward him was gratitude.
Gratitude? Given the unenviable situation he’d gotten her into, anything with two legs and a tunic who agreed to marry her would have earned her gratitude. Also, it was frigid out here.
A burning log splintered, caving into the flames.
The pentathlon had ended now. Who had won? Victor perhaps. He could have beaten the others at wrestling and the discus throw at least, perhaps brought home the laurels and started his training school.
No chance of that now. Ever.
He turned his head, shifting Cara’s body against his chest and looked at the road. Miles stretched ahead, leading to an abandoned villa overrun by weeds. They would spend a fortnight there, since Father had thrown the keys at him and ordered him to clean the place before the new owners arrived. What would they do after that?
Nothing. The bark cut into his back as the wind howled. He pulled the blanket tighter over the delicate shoulder of the wife he had whether he wanted her or not. He’d need to find work to provide for her, too.
As much as Father expected him to return to Camulodunum after this fortnight honeymoon, bow to his wishes, and beg for a tribune position, he wasn’t going.
Late the next morning after hours of jostling on the uncomfortable wagon seat, Cara spied a villa. Vines overgrew the iron gate where an older man and woman stood, seemingly awaiting their arrival. A guardhouse stood to the right, and a handful of men in Celtic trousers gathered around a fire at its entrance.
Yanking the horses to a halt, Eric leaped off the wagon. He held his hand up for Cara.
Slowly, she slid her fingers into his. Unlike the last hours of driving, he looked at her. His brown eyes were moody, discontent etched across those firm cheekbones and dark eyebrows. He’d answered her earlier attempts at conversation with grunts.
Placing her other hand in his as well, she tried to smile.
Eyes still restless, he dropped her fingers. Circling his hands around her waist, he swung her down from the wagon. His big arms made the movement as effortlessly as last night, his hands that hurled javelins spanning her body.
Her feet touched the ground and she didn’t even come up to his shoulder, far from it.
“Well.”
She looked up at him, past the solid bulk of his chest, his immense shoulders, and muscled neck. Even the cloak clasped on either side of his shoulders dwarfed her. “Yes?” Her voice trembled before the frigid wind caught it, tearing it away.
“Eric, my boy.” The old woman ran forward and slapped her gnarled hands on Eric’s arm. “I cannot tell you what filled me with greater joy, receiving the news that I would see you in a day’s time, or that you get the task of making this sorry ruin spotless for the new owners, rather than I. All right, I lie. It’s the cleaning.”
“Salve, Cornelia.” Turning from Cara, Eric grabbed the horses’ reins and handed them to the old man.
The crone cackled. “What new trouble have you stirred up these days? Being punished for thrashing your brother again?”
“If I did, he’d deserve it.” Eric moved to the wagon bed.
“Any more gardens set afire or atrium walls broken?” The crone touched the splintered edge of the wagon bed.
Eric grunted. “Not for three years, and the wolf cub was supposed to run for the woods, not the house.”
The crone tsked. She turned her wrinkled chin. “Who’s the girl?”
“My wife.” Reaching over the wagon bed, Eric captured the basket.
“Married? Patrician men don’t marry until twenty-five, maybe thirty.” The crone ran her gaze over Cara’s brown dress and plain cloak. “You with child, girl?”
The wind flapped through the few leaves that still clung to the branches above as Eric’s tanned face flamed the brightest crimson. Was he embarrassed by her? He had the right to be.
“Well, I never.” Shaking her head, the crone turned to Eric. “I’m duly impressed, I’ll have you know. I thought the Paterculi statesmen succeeded in breeding out all the degenerate blood generations ago.”
Eric clenched his fists and the red that blazed across his cheekbones this time held rage. He opened his mouth, but the old man took the crone’s hand and the two of them scrambled up on the wagon bench.
Could she ever bring a smile to his lips, inspire him to laugh, and speak of things he loved, like Greek pentathlons? Or would he always find her unworthy of his favor? Cara fingered the edge of her sash as the wagon wheels rumbled away. “Who was that?
“My old nurse.” Eric jammed the key into the gate lock, like a knife into an enemy’s ribs.
“She doesn’t seem nurturing.”
Eric gritted his teeth. “She never was.”
Grunts and terse words, did that mean he raged at her? He hadn’t kissed her again since that unpleasant wedding kiss. Given that kiss, his mood, and how rough he’d been at Victor’s farmhouse, that was quite all right by her.
One more day of nothingness out of the endless days of nothingness that stretched before them had passed. He still hadn’t come up with a plan to find work. The pale autumn sun moved down in the arc of the latter half of the day. Legs crossed on freezing earth, Eric leaned his elbows on his knees.
Two paces away, on the bank of the creek, Cara sat, dangling the tips of her slight fingers in the cold water. Her gaze focused on the dying stubble at the edge of the villa’s fields. Stillness hung over the chaff, not so much as a crow’s cry breaking the monotony.
Did she hate him for all this? Having to leave her home, familia, and that accursed almost-betrothed, to be left with what? Him.
Across from him, Cara flicked the water, sending droplets high. A tendril of hair slid free from the ribbon binding her hair. The lock glistened in the cold air.
She’d let him touch that hair the day he flicked a spider in it on the training grounds, but that was before he’d ruined her betrothal. “Angry?”
As she pivoted, Cara’s skirts bunched around her knees, revealing the ankle of her boots, laces knotted tight. She shook her head. “Of course not. It’s just… quiet.”
Not angry with him? An improvement from yesterday at least. “I know.” Eric dug his chin into his hands. The gray clouds above them shifted, covering the sun.
“Why do people live outside towns?”
“The glories of nature.” Rolling his eyes, Eric pointed to the dead-looking tree trunks and muddy stones. “Trees, rocks.”
Drawing her arms across her bosom, Cara shivered. “So many trees. It’s as if they’re coming for you, marching through the stillness.”
He stared at an oak trunk. “I wish they would. At least that would give us something to do.”
Shifting on the muddy bank, Cara chafed her fingers against each other. “Did you used to come here as a child?”
He nodded. How many years had Cara known this carpenter? How many weeks, or months, or years until she ceased loving him?
“What does one do in the country?” Cara glanced around the taciturn wasteland. Her gaze stopped on an apple bough with only a dozen brown leaves still clinging to its branches. The upward movement revealed the skin of her throat.
Even when he’d kissed her, he never touched that smooth brown skin. Well, that he remembered.
“Climb trees?”
Eric laughed. “Plant grain?”
A laugh rose from Cara’s lips too, echoing out across the flowing creek. “It’s almost winter.” The cold made red spots on her cheeks. Her unblinking eyes were brown like the oak boughs that towered above them, but he’d seen them light into life before, like wood thrown on the fire, which flames up, shooting sparks.
“Skip rocks.” He selected one.
Cara groaned. Her cloak fell down around her shoulders, the darker brown hem cutting across the lighter brown of her dress at her bosom, and piling in folds around her crossed l
egs.
“We could – ” The rock he’d grabbed sat in his palm, but he wasn’t the carpenter she loved. How much did that matter to her?
“Could what?”
“Do what got us exiled here in the first place.” He held his breath.
Pulling her mud-tinged boots under her cloak, Cara squirmed on the creek bank. She twirled the iron ring on her finger, and she looked at the bemired bank, not him, as she spoke. “It sort of hurt. But if you want to – ”
“Mea culpa.” Why had he asked? She probably even now daydreamed about that carpenter she’d actually wanted to marry. He’d ruined that. She and Father both would find themselves more contented if Wryn hadn’t been a twin.
Eric constricted his fist around the rock. No matter how hard he’d tried his entire life, he’d never been Wryn. Now, he’d never be this carpenter either.
Wind whistled through bare branches above them. “Your father is selling this villa?” Cara didn’t quite look at him.
Eric nodded. If the carpenter had been her newly-wedded husband, he’d wager Cara would have looked at him.
“It was kind of your father to let us stay here meanwhile.”
“Nothing’s free from Father. I’m supposed to clean the entire place and pack everything for Camulodunum.”
Inexplicably, Cara turned her lips up. “Oh, let’s do that.”
The prospect of scrubbing filth on hands and knees warranted more smiles than him? Eric flung the rock into the creek. “Very well.”
To think, he’d considered the idea of marriage to her troublesome when he’d thought her enamored of him.
The villa lay in disarray. Cara gathered rotting chicken bones and threw them on the refuse heap.
Behind her, Eric hauled crates forward.
Cara eyed the filth-covered floor. Stripping a moth-eaten sheet from a bed, she tore the fabric into pieces and dipped them in the atrium pool. Falling to her knees, she scoured the tiles. As the slime receded, a beautiful mosaic appeared beneath it. A man held a sword, a three-headed monster rushed at him, and above, a pagan deity reached down from the sky.
When Gambling (Love and Warfare Series Book 2) Page 18