When Gambling (Love and Warfare Series Book 2)

by Anne Garboczi Evans

  “And Conan’s thoughts on it?”

  “I should have told him months before that I didn’t want him. I only told him that night before Victor’s party, at the feast at his shop. He said he didn’t care. I had to marry him.” She’d hated Conan for that, but in truth, he’d acted no differently than any other man in Camulodunum would have.

  “That – ” Eric swore, not a mild oath such as Father uttered in front of the anvil, but one of the most shockingly strong curse words she happened to know.

  “Who?” She flicked her gaze up.

  “The blasted carpenter. Though Victor’s a lout, too.” Eric crashed down next to her, his knees in front of him.

  “It was my fault. I let him talk to me about betrothal for two years, never gave him an answer, then I kissed Victor.” All her fault. She rubbed tears off her cheek, but more flowed down. “I wish, though, that he hadn’t told everyone at his feast without asking me, and forced me to kiss him.” She shivered. If Eric left, would he help her return to her father first? She’d not starve then, just face the Camulodunum shame.

  “That – ” Eric swore again, a word she didn’t even know the meaning of, but it sounded even dirtier than the last.

  She winced.

  He turned his gaze to her. “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not. That fiend is beyond belief.”

  “I’ve never heard you say such words.”

  He turned red. “Working with dock laborers, it rubs off after a while.”

  She searched Eric’s eyes, irritation more than wrath in them now. She dared to suck in a breath. Might he stay?

  “Anyway, that – ” Eric held up his hand, stopping himself, “wretch, I shall content myself with wretch, though the word in no way conveys the man’s utter lack of decency. That wretch took advantage of your situation.”

  “Maybe Conan thought he rescued me, what with my reputation and kissing Victor and all?” Cara dug her fingers through the fabric of her skirt into her leg as she waited for Eric’s thoughts to turn back to her, and anger to return to his face.

  “It was a kiss, not a babe. Despite your father’s words, that carpenter had no right to force you.”

  “I’m sure Conan didn’t mean it like that. You asked my father’s permission, not mine, that evening in the shop.” Eric should rage at her. Where was his rage? Conan had called her a wanton and a harlot, and he hadn’t been trapped into marrying her.

  “Because you proposed marriage to me that morning.”

  She squirmed on the packed dirt. “I’m sure I didn’t say it like that.”

  “You accosted me in the street and yelled for the entire festival crowd to hear, ‘I’m carrying your babe. Do something about it.’ What exactly was I supposed to take from that?”

  She glanced down at her drawn-up feet. “Everyone in town called me a harlot for the last five weeks. I didn’t have much dignity left to lose.”

  “How did everyone know? You weren’t even showing yet.”

  “I had to tell to stop the betrothal so Conan wouldn’t charge me with adultery.” Gaze on the dirt, her shoulders slumped. “Then he told all Camulodunum.”

  “That wretched, exceedingly wretched, wretch of wretches.” Eric thudded his fist against the wall, shaking the hovel. “His shop probably burned down from a divine thunderbolt.”

  “No, just his woodwork catching on fire. It was the night you and I, at Victor’s farmhouse….” She swallowed hard as all her secrets spilled out. He’d know her fully now, and he’d not want the true her. “We were supposed to hold the betrothal and marriage that month before I even knew I carried a child, but Conan worked too hard rebuilding to marry me.”

  “Without that fire you’d have been married to him?” Eric jerked straight up. “And Lucia, he probably would have sold my daughter off to the highest bidder, against her will, at age thirteen. I’m not just glad that wretch’s shop burned, I’m so ecstatic he lost his shop I could write dactylic pentameter about it.”

  “Eric.”

  “Watch me.” One after the other, Greek words tumbled out of his mouth as he composed a rhyming ditty, creating a temporary distraction from her dirty soul lying naked in front of him.

  “What does it mean in Latin?”

  “It’s mostly calling him terrible names, Catullus style.”

  “Can you translate it?” For the briefest of moments, she dared to meet his gaze.

  His ears turned red. “I could, but I really shouldn’t.”

  At those words, the overwhelming burden fell back on her shoulders, bending her in two. “I’m so sorry, though, Eric. I shouldn’t have done this to you.” He could see the true woman now, and how would he ever feel the same about her?

  “I love you, Cara.” Eric slid his arm behind her and drew her close to him. He pressed his mouth to hers. His hands and chest smudged grease across her clothes, the stubble on his cheek scratching her skin.

  Blood pounding in her temples, she pressed herself so tight against him she could feel the quiet thud of his heart. Love? Dare she believe he’d stay?

  He cupped her cheek. “I couldn’t imagine life without you, Cara.”

  “Even though I lost you wealth untold?”

  For a moment, he looked like he’d say something. Then he shrugged and smirked at her. “Next time, guess I’ll know better than to get drunk around beautiful women.”

  “Beautiful women?” She tilted her gaze up.

  “You, Cara. You.” He brushed her lips.

  “I’m not beautiful.” A little comely before this maybe, but right now with calloused hands and a sagging midsection, dark circles under her eyes, and a dirt-stained dress, not even that.

  He cocked his head. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. Don’t you know that?”

  Gaze lowered, she shook her head.

  “Guess I don’t kiss you enough to show you.”

  “Are you angry with me, Eric?” He didn’t look it, but surely he must be. He deserved to be. She didn’t mind as long as he didn’t leave.

  “I’m not elated that you used me, while in a drunken state no less, to get revenge on that wretched carpenter. Though I have to say, I am a little flattered it wasn’t a mistake on your part. Am I charming when I’m drunk, or a bumbling fool?”

  She pressed back against the wall, but his arm around her stopped her skin from touching the splintered wood. “I was afraid you’d leave when you found out I planned it.”

  His brown eyes widened. “You’re so intelligent, and you sum numbers and win at tabula, but sometimes you miss the simplest of things.”

  She puckered her forehead.

  “It’s true.” Eric gestured around the hovel, which they needed to come up with six-hundred denarii to keep. “This is us, you, me, Lucia. I’m never going anywhere.”

  “Never?” She touched his chest, her hand pressing against muscle as she angled her gaze up to him. Dare she believe him?

  “Never.” His tone had the finality of a magistrate pronouncing a verdict.

  Never? “I thought you’d left that day at your father’s villa when we fought, and then you were gone, and I couldn’t read your note.”

  “Cara!”

  She burrowed back against the brawn of his shoulder. “It wasn’t such a far-fetched conclusion.”

  He shook his head, wonder in his eyes. “I really do need to kiss you more often.” He brushed the hair back from her face. As she looked up, he moved his mouth over hers. His lips caressed her, the touch of sun-chapped skin so tender against her.

  He spread his fingers across her back, tugging her against him like the gentle river swells that push a coracle toward shore on a summer day.

  An earsplitting scream rose from the pallet. With the crinkle of fabric, Lucia rolled over.

  Cara groaned. “I just fed her.” Extricating herself from Eric’s arms, she stood for the hours-long ritual of tempting that child back toward sleep.

  Eric closed his hand around the baby first. “I’ll take h
er.” Then he walked out into the darkness, the spring breeze wrapping around him and the squalling baby.

  “I don’t deserve you,” Cara whispered into the night.

  Warm summer sunshine soaked into Cara’s hair and face as Lucia rested on her knees. She tickled under the babe’s chin. “Smile, little girl.”

  Lucia pressed her plump baby lips together and scowled.

  “Life isn’t that abominable, baby girl.” After all, Eric loved her. Despite everything, Eric loved her, and now they had to convince Lycaon to give them time to come up with six hundred denarii. Eric had said he’d stop work early today to pay Lycaon a visit.

  Footsteps stopped in front of her. Cara looked up. Blue silk hung down from a woman’s shoulders, the fabric as out of place among these dirty hovels as the gold necklace that fell past the low neckline of the woman’s tunica. She held a child in her arms.

  Cara stared. “Edna?”

  “I have something to tell you.” With the toe of her fine leather sandal, Edna kicked a bit of refuse.

  “Salve!” Cara scrambled to her feet and embraced Edna.

  Edna tugged away. “Why does your child have red marks on it?”

  “Bed lice, I think. I boiled the wool for an hour and collected new straw, but Lucia still gets bit.” Cara motioned Edna indoors.

  Stepping over the threshold, Edna wrinkled her nose. Her hands glistened white, a jeweled bracelet at her wrist. “Why are you living in a hovel? Eric’s a Paterculi, and he married you, didn’t he?”

  A sigh passed Cara’s lips. “His family disowned him because of me. I feel horrible for him.”

  “Untrue. The Paterculis have turned over every stone looking for Eric ever since they got back from Rome last month.”

  “What?” Cara stared at Edna’s painted lips.

  “They’ve even got men scouring Northern Britannia and Gaul.”

  “Why? Eric’s familia disowned him.”

  Edna snorted, the same snort as before, during Camulodunum days. “They didn’t disown him.”

  “They must have.” Cara’s head spun. “We haven’t had a denarius of help from them, or offer of work, or – ”

  “Does no gossip reach this godforsaken squalor? The Paterculis offered it all. Eric refused to take their aid.”

  “But – ” Cara’s wits fogged over as she looked from Edna, strangely resplendent in silk, to the sagging walls. Surely if the Paterculis had offered help, Eric would have said something.

  “Dear, your husband chose this.” Edna gestured to the worn straw pallet and smoking chimney.

  Eric couldn’t have chosen this. No one would choose this.

  Sandals thudded across the threshold. “I’m off to see Lycaon then. Discover how much time I have to fix this mess.” Eric stopped when he saw Edna. He wore no jerkin, just the Celtic trousers, his leather belt cinching them at his hips. His hair had grown out again, the brown waves matting around his ears. His jaw was shaven for once, but only poorly.

  Edna flicked her gaze to Eric before focusing on Cara, a smug look in her blue eyes. Could Edna possibly speak the truth? Could Eric have chosen this?

  Eric held up his folded tunic. “I actually have to change.”

  “I’ll try not to get robbed on this miserable little street while I wait.” Stepping out the door, Edna shoved it shut behind her.

  Cara shifted her gaze to Eric. “Edna says your familia didn’t disinherit you.”

  For one instant, he froze. Then Eric pulled the tunic on. “That’s correct.”

  “Why have we had no help from them these last nine months?”

  He shoved his arms through the tunic sleeves. “I rejected their help.”

  Rejected? Her gaze fixed on him as the previous months played through her wits. That time they’d had no food, the days he’d almost frozen in his threadbare tunic, all the hours he’d dealt with that exasperating dock overseer. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  “Never came up.” Eric didn’t meet her gaze.

  Understanding seared through her consciousness. “You thought I’d try to argue you into reconciling with them.”

  “You’re going to, aren’t you?” Eric tugged the trousers off.

  “Yes!” She raised her hand. “These last nine months you could have had a house without bed lice, and wouldn’t have had to work sunup to sundown, and – ”

  “I’m not taking anything from my father.”

  “ – and you in your stubborn pride said ‘no’!” Shock ran through her every ligament. No?

  “He’ll never forgive me for not being Wryn.”

  “So you decide to live in a hovel? And that makes you feel better, how?” She stared at the simpleton she’d married.

  “It’s my money, earned by the sweat of my brow. I’m not beholden to him for any of it.”

  All right, maybe not a simpleton, but something ailed that man’s wits. “He offered you money, why not take it?”

  “Never!” Eric spoke the word more firmly than any he’d ever said to her, his mouth pressed together like iron.

  She stared at him. “You’ll accept enough to pay our debt to Lycaon anyway?” Then Eric wouldn’t have to spend another winter at the docks.

  “Never,” Eric said the word again, his deep voice firmer even than Conan’s when he’d ordered her to marry him.

  This was Eric, though, and, unlike Conan, he listened to reason. Perhaps a softer tactic? Cara touched Eric’s shoulder. “What happened between you and your father?”

  “He raged when he found out about you and Lucia and said I’d never survive on my own. I decided to prove him wrong.”

  The legate probably wanted a good match for his son, not some plebeian girl. He’d looked so angry that day he’d signed the betrothal papers. With her gaze, Cara traced the edge of the pallet where Lucia kicked her feet. “Then it is my fault that you’re living in poverty.”

  “I don’t regret it. I got you.” Eric reached forward, touching underneath her chin, and kissed her. A swift kiss, but lovely all the same.

  “What if you apologize, then will your father accept you back?” Then she wouldn’t feel this twisting in her gut that she’d lost him his inheritance.

  “Apologize?” Eric belted the tunic on. “That’s what I swore I’d never do, and I’m not following his rules.”

  “What kind of rules?”

  “I don’t know. He’ll probably say I have to take a tribune position.”

  Work? That was the rule? Here’s a well-paying position, all yours, take it. Cara felt her mouth and eyes gape. “You want a tribune position. You told me how much money they make and how you’d gladly take one.”

  “Not a tribune position from him, I won’t.”

  “It’s not even money, it’s work he’s offering. We do owe Lycaon Vibianus six-hundred denarii.” She tried to direct a pleading gaze at him.

  Eric didn’t even look at her. “I’ll take care of the Lycaon business this afternoon.”

  “Six-hundred denarii is over two years’ wages for us. What if Lycaon wants the money now?” She raised her voice.

  “My father’s stubborn as a pack of mules, and impossible to have a rational conversation with, and I’m not taking his help.”

  “But Eric, please – ”

  “You can harangue me all day. I’m not doing it.”

  With that remark, Eric walked out the door to see an irate equestrian about a lost shipping venture that would sink them ever further into poverty. He’d toiled nine months on the docks under overbearing overseers, starved and frozen in squalor and barbaric trappings, while he could have enjoyed patrician splendor and turned his energies to elite work as the manager rather than the managed.

  With a sigh, she subsided against the wall. The legate was scarcely the only stubborn male in the Paterculi line. Eric’s stubbornness only hurt himself. She’d convince him of that, and then he could have his birthright back. After all he’d given up for her, he deserved at least that.

  With a
swish of silk, Edna reentered the hovel. “Was I right?”

  “Yes.” Cara groaned. “But enough of me, how are you?”

  “Victor got betrothed a nine-month ago. The marriage is set for the fall.” No emotion crossed Edna’s face as she spoke in a voice as level as snow-covered fields.

  Cara’s own throat constricted as she bent and scooped Lucia up, but Edna shed no tears. “Where does that leave you?”

  “Same place as before. As Victor’s mistress.”

  “You’re going to accept that?” The summer breeze blew through the open door, flapping Cara’s worn dress.

  “He’s as faithful as my father ever was to my mother, and she got starvation and hard toil out of the arrangement.”

  “If you knew this from the start, why break your betrothal to Alexandros?” Cara searched Edna’s eyes.

  Edna stood straighter, her fine leather sandals out of place on this dirty floor. “Alexandros despised me and I love Victor.”

  “Quite the definition of love.” Cara rolled her gaze up to the broken roof boards above.

  “You’re turning into Pruella.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Victor’s merely marrying the girl for political connections. She only turned thirteen this month.”

  Cara dropped her hand from Lucia. “You’re competing with a thirteen-year-old?”

  Edna shrugged. “I never had a dowry, let alone a patrician-sized one.” The scrawny child Edna held turned her big-eyed gaze around the room, no noise coming from her lips. The baby must approach a year now.

  Cara ran her finger along the hem of Lucia’s dress, searching for easier conversation. “How’s your babe?”

  Edna shrugged. “I wish it was a boy.”

  “Why?”

  Edna jostled the child with as harsh an air as she had used on her little siblings. “Men want sons.”

  Eric didn’t. Silence hung between them, the lazy stir of summer air puffing through the doorway. Cara ran her gaze over the hard lines of Edna’s face. Edna always had a hard streak, but now she looked carved of marble, not the faintest hint of emotion in those kohl-lined blue eyes. “You’re truly comfortable with an illicit relationship?”

  “Did I ever get a choice?”