“You could leave Victor.”
“And support two children how? If it’s illicit you’re concerned about, there are plenty of things worse than being a patrician’s mistress.” Edna’s child let forth a weak cry, and Edna shoved her higher on her hip.
“Two? Are you – ?”
Edna shrugged her exposed shoulders, rustling the blue silk that jeweled brooches held in place. “It’s the way of the world. Tales of fairie folks and happy endings are for bairns on snow-covered nights.”
Pain tugged at Cara’s heart, twisting icy tendrils around it. Edna had acted no worse than her, better even. Edna at least had no almost betrothed, and no one could question Victor’s complicity in creating that child of theirs. Still, Edna paid the price for her sins, while she’d been spared. Cara touched her friend’s shoulder.
Turning on her heel, Edna walked out the doorway.
“I thought you had something to tell me.”
“Victor would kill me if I told.”
Kill?
Eric rapped against the door of Lycaon’s house. Cara had spoken truth. If he didn’t plan to ask his father for help, which he did not, he needed a plan to come up with six-hundred denarii. A good plan.
The sweltering afternoon heat moistened Eric’s brow as a sparrow hopped along the brick wall. He’d ask Lycaon to charter another ship with him. Give Lycaon all the profits until he worked off the six hundred denarii. A few ship voyages should pay the debt.
A slave opened the door and motioned Eric into Lycaon Vibianus’ tablinum.
Sunshine streamed through the open window. Eric took a seat in front of the table.
Lycaon hit the tabletop with his sinewy hand. “I want the full six hundred denarii. Now.”
“You’ve been to my house. You know I don’t have that kind of money.”
“What of it?” Lycaon raised his spare shoulders. “Go to your father. Six hundred denarii is a pittance to him.”
“Charter another ship with me. I’ll give you all the profits until my debt is paid.”
Lycaon glared ahead, his black eyes dark as he clenched a parchment. “I’m up to my ears in debt, and with those ships gone I don’t know how I’ll pay it.”
“My father has no part in my trading ventures. I’ll find a way to pay.”
Lycaon snorted. “I’ve no time for your rich boy games. Your father’s Londinium steward is traveling for the next fortnight. The day he gets back, I expect full payment.”
No! Eric pressed his feet hard against the tile. “I need more time.”
“A deal’s a deal. I suggest you start composing an apology note for that fabulously wealthy father of yours.” Lycaon pointed one ink-stained finger to the door.
Eric’s heart pounded as he stood and left.
The summer breeze twisted around Eric as he strode down the broad street on the patricians’ side of town, but its cheer brought no comfort. Afternoon shadows grew longer as he walked. He’d not go to Father, but he also didn’t care to go to jail for reneging on a debt. He needed a plan. A good plan.
A horrible plan would work too, as long as the plan paid the six hundred denarii. He knew a man who excelled at crafting horrible plans.
All too soon, Eric found himself at the last place he wished to be. The smell of the docks assaulted his nostrils as he knocked on the dock overseer’s office door. “Atticus Orca.”
“Come in.” Atticus Orca’s straggly hair hung down toward his narrow nose.
Eric dug his thumbs into his belt. “I want a scribe position.”
“What?”
“I’ve translated Hebrew for you for months, and half the time the Greek, too. I want to get paid for it.”
Atticus Orca moved his pointed chin back and forth. “I could save money not hiring the work out anymore, but you’d have to do the money-counting, too.”
Money-counting? It’s not as if Cara would aid him with her opinion of him defying his father, but he’d muscled his way through a speech without completely failing. “Very well. I also need you to front me six hundred denarii to pay a debt.”
“Six hundred!” Atticus Orca jerked his hand up, the sunshine catching on his gold rings.
“I know you have the money, and you won’t have to pay me above dock pay until I’ve worked off the debt.”
“Or I could hire another man who wouldn’t want six hundred denarii up-front.” Atticus Orca crossed spindly arms.
“Another man who reads and writes Hebrew? You’ll pay good coin for that.” Eric spread his legs with more confidence than he felt. Please let him take this offer because he was out of options. Besides jail.
“I want a two-year commitment from you.”
“Two years!” Eric stared at the table piled high with wax tablets.
“Yes. I pay this debt for you, and you do my scribe and money-counting work for no pay for two years.”
“No pay? How am I, or my wife and child, supposed to eat?”
Atticus Orca narrowed his eyes into slits. “You keep laboring at the docks. Do the other work for me at night.”
Two more years of this. He wasn’t half sure he could make money counting come out correctly. His other options were jail or asking Father for help. Asking Father for help ranked below jail. Eric swallowed. “I want time and a half pay at the docks then.”
“What?”
“I’m your best worker. I earn the extra pay. You know it, or you wouldn’t attempt to keep me at your docks.”
“You strike a hard bargain.” Narrowing his eyes, Atticus Orca stared at him, but he nodded.
Eric groaned. “No, you do. If I find a way to pay you back during the two years, you release me from my debt, agreed?”
“How are you going to come up with six hundred denarii?”
By finding another backer for a Dacian shipping venture, avoiding pirates this time, and after six months of successful shipments, paying back the debt. “I don’t know but if I do, I’m released. Agreed?”
Atticus Orca nodded and Eric took his wrist in the pledge.
As he walked out of Atticus’ office, he glanced through the shadows to the docks he’d hoped to abandon this week. Another two years of this? Cara would have every right to fury. It’s not that he wanted her to live in a hovel, but after Father’s degrading words to him over Lucia, he had to succeed on his own.
Speaking of Lucia, ecce had he’d ever wasted his jealousy over that wretched carpenter. Cara had hated the man so much that on that fateful night at the farmhouse –
Something flickered before Eric’s eyes. That night. Victor? After that chalice of wine, Victor had asked something. Something dark. He’d thought of Wryn and gone for his knife. Why had he thought of Wryn?
Nothing.
Eric shook his head. Scarcely important now. Besides, he needed to save all his energy for telling Cara he’d just consigned them to two more years of this.
Chapter 26
Shadows lengthened across the dark streets as Eric strode up to their hovel. He grimaced at the thought of the eruption he’d encounter when he told Cara he’d signed on for two more years of this. How long did Cara hold grudges? He hoped not as long as Gwen.
As he swung open the door, Cara whipped around.
Not good. Lucia lay sleeping, so no temporary distraction there.
Running forward, Cara jumped into his arms. “I love you.”
He fell back but held her up against his chest. “I thought you still raged at the ‘insanity’ of me refusing my father’s money. I just agreed to do Atticus Orca’s accounts for two years to pay Lycaon’s debt, so I haven’t changed my mind.”
“I do think you’re insane. Even more insane for dooming yourself to this hovel for two more years.” Cara pressed her lips against his neck, his chin, his cheekbones.
“I’ll warn you in advance, you won’t budge my mind with kisses.”
“Anyone who would reject his own father’s well-deserved help has too much pride ever to budge.” Cara placed her hands o
n his jaw and caressed her lips over his, her mouth so soft.
“Then why are you kissing me?”
“Because you’re incredible, and I love you, and I really love you.” Still in his arms, she ran her fingers across his chest.
“You are so different than the women in my family.” He felt like the cruelest man who’d ever lived. How in good conscience could he force his wife and child to live in a hovel for another two years?
No, he’d never ask his father for aid!
He, Eric Paterculi, was a cruel brute. Also, Cara was still kissing him.
Another groan escaped her husband’s mouth as he sat by the fire, dozens of tablets spread out about him.
Cara rocked Lucia back and forth on the pallet as the babe’s eyelids slowly drooped. Seeing Edna yesterday had reminded her once again how fortunate she was that Eric was not like other patricians.
“Couldn’t the man have given me the translation work first, rather than a six-month worth of uncounted profits?” Eric bit the end of the stylus.
“You’d be free of Atticus Orca if you reconciled with your father.” Cara wiped a dribble of milk from Lucia’s cheek. For someone who’d always impressed her with his ability to listen, Eric proved quite irrational now. Did part of men’s wits blow loose when pride came into question?
Stiffening, Eric dug the stylus into the tablet. “I’m not contacting my father.”
Cara sighed. “I’ll do the money-counting for you then.”
“Scarcely a wise move for a woman who wishes me to take my father’s aid.” Eric leaned further over his crossed knees and scratched out the line he’d just written.
“Maybe I’ve given up on changing your mind.” Laying Lucia down, Cara crossed to him.
“Have you?”
“No.” She wished him happy and Atticus Orca made Eric miserable. Pulling the stylus from his none-too-reluctant fingers, she skimmed it across the numbers.
“I knew it.”
Familiar numbers settled underneath her stylus as she moved through tablet after tablet.
Eric watched her. “Those shopkeepers who wouldn’t hire you were idiots.”
At least one man in the world appreciated a woman’s work, and unlike Victor, didn’t reject a child for being female. She smirked at him. “Is that why you wanted a daughter? To do your trade accounts for you?”
“I need a reason to think girls are extraordinary?” Eric ran his gaze down her, a teasing light in his eyes.
“Men are supposed to want sons.” Edna, Conan, Aidan, and Victor had all said it.
Eric shrugged and took up one of the tablets. “I’ll take all daughters.”
All? “You could teach a son to follow in your footsteps, be like you. Don’t you want that?” She certainly wanted that.
“With my luck, he’d turn out as much a disappointment to me as I to my father.” The firelight flickered as Eric ran his finger down the tablet’s numbers.
“Britannia has a madman for legate then because any man’s heart should pound with pride to claim a man like you as son, like Zeus with Hercules.”
“You’re just saying that to manipulate me into taking my father’s aid.”
“No, I’m not.” Indeed, what more could any man want in a son than Eric? When Eric told her tales of the twelve labors of Hercules, she imagined that hero looking exactly like Eric.
“You truly think I have the courage and strength of Hercules?”
“Yes.” She smiled at him and took up the next tablet.
“Kiss me then.”
She startled, stylus slipping between her fingers. “We need to discuss your father and finish these accounts.”
“Do you think Megara would have argued with Hercules, or kissed him?” Eric’s eyes glinted by firelight, taunting her.
“Um – ” Megara was Hercules’s wife, true? Why did Eric complain so greatly about her telling him the truth? He was wondrous.
“Or prove yourself a liar.” Eric crossed his arms over his bare chest, victory smile already turning up his mouth, so sure she wouldn’t do it.
Eric had said his father’s steward didn’t return to Londinium for another fortnight, so waiting one more night to discuss this would delay nothing. Besides, Lucia had fallen asleep.
Cara grabbed his crossed arms and pushed them out of the way. She moved her lips onto his with the vim to prove herself no liar. He wrapped his hands around her waist, and though in the ninth labor, Hippolyte had only lost her girdle to Hercules, she was fast on the way to losing much more.
Someone pounded on the door. The hinges creaked. Edna poked her head in, a brown palla obscuring her figure. “If anyone asks, I wasn’t here.”
Eric looked to Cara. “Don’t any of your friends respect closed doors?”
“Edna.” Cara stood and straightened her dress.
Edna directed one glance toward Eric, then grabbed Cara’s arm and tugged her outside.
In the shadowy darkness, as evening wind whipped around them, Cara looked into her friend’s eyes. “What is it?”
Fear flickered underneath Edna’s kohl-tinged lashes. She dropped her voice. “Victor plans to kill Eric’s father and brother. Victor’s father and his household are staying on Hermes Street at this moment for that very purpose.”
“Kill?” Blood rushed through Cara’s veins. “Why? When?”
“I don’t know.” Edna’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. “Soon, two days mayhap. I’m not sure. He made some kind of sketch of it with the date.”
Grabbing Edna’s arm, Cara motioned to the open doorway. “Come in, talk to Eric. We need to know more. Stop Victor.”
The moonlight glinted on Edna’s bare arm as she shoved Cara’s hand off. “I don’t know anything else, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. Victor would murder me if he knew I said this much.”
Murder? Sweat built on Cara’s cold hands.
Twisting on her heel, Edna ran into the darkness.
The stillness wrapped around Cara like a cloak as she trembled. Murder? Death? And Victor? Edna would never accuse Victor of all that if it wasn’t true. Cara touched the hovel’s rotten walls.
The ground shifted beneath her feet. Thoughts pounded in her head.
No, not another spell. Not now!
Her stomach urged her to retch. Steps reeling, she plunged into the hovel. “Eric.”
He smiled at her. “I’m almost convinced you’re a truth-teller, but not quite. Care to continue to persuade me?”
“Victor’s going to kill your father.” She grabbed the edge of the table as her knees gave way.
“What!”
“Edna said so. Your twin brother, too.” She swallowed bile. Kill? Murder? The room faded in and out. The thoughts, she couldn’t stop them. She’s just a harlot. Unlovable. Why would Eric want her?
False! False! The thoughts continued to roar around through her mind as the darkness closed in.
Eric went for his knife. “Would Victor – ” He froze.
“What?” Her voice sounded far away even to herself. A pounding sound grew louder in her ears.
“I just remembered something. That night at the farmhouse, it’s been coming back to me. When I went for my knife, I heard Victor’s voice. He said, ‘Does your father know the Ocellis are smugglers and pirates?’ I think he interrogated me that night I was drunk.”
The thoughts buzzed louder, pounding against her head. Cara felt her knees buckle.
With one stride, Eric caught her. “I have to warn him. When’s this to happen? How?”
“Two days’ time mayhap, or not, and that’s all Edna would say, perhaps all she knows.” Even pressed against Eric’s chest, she still couldn’t quiet her thundering heart. He stood rigid, blood pounding through his veins. The room tilted back and forth.
“Don’t faint, Cara.”
“If I had control over it, I wouldn’t.” Ragged breaths escaped her lips, her head throbbing so hard her wits could barely ponder. The thoughts, oh, the thoughts. Condemnation,
dread, shame. Anything anyone had ever said about her. Anything she’d ever thought about herself.
“Look at me, Cara.” Eric brushed hair back from her face. “I need you to halt this plot.”
Her? Even though her hands touched his chest, they trembled. Chills consumed her and the thoughts pounded so loud her body shook. “Why do you need me? You’re Hercules. You worked day and night to put food in our bellies. You masterminded the trade plan. You gave that speech and found Lycaon. You used your knowledge of Greek and Hebrew to force Atticus Orca to hire you and pay our debt. What did I ever do, except get us into this mess?” She wasn’t half sure why he loved her, either.
“I’m no Hercules. Do you know why my father railed against me? Because I failed every task he ever set me. I was raised in luxury. Do you think I would have known to haggle for the grain that had gone bad? Do you think I knew how to weave wool like you did for Lucia? I’ve never given a successful speech in my life until you told me I could, and you did the money-counting for Lycaon’s shipping venture. Also, I was well on my way to losing that position Atticus Orca gave me until you rescued me tonight.”
“But – ” Cara stared at him.
“If we want to compare to gods and goddesses, you’re Athena, and I need you to calm down and help me save my father and brother’s lives.”
“I can’t calm myself. It just overtakes me sometimes. My heart pounds, my palms sweat, and my senses leave me.” Cara drew in a ragged breath. “Like that second day you worked at the docks when we hadn’t eaten and I thought we’d starve.”
“What helps you when the spell overtakes you?”
“I – ” She tried to think through the thoughts pounding in her wits. She’s a harlot. She’s worthless. Even God would never love her. “Sometimes when you touch me and speak of other things, like when Marcellus’ chariot broke. Sometimes then, the spell fades.”
“All right, I’ll try that.” Hands on her waist, Eric swung her up onto the table behind them. He placed his big hands on her knees and smiled at her. Even his eyes didn’t betray a hint of the danger that surrounded them. “Now to bribe Edna.”
Cara sucked in air through strangled lungs. “We’ve got nothing to bribe Edna with, and she loves Victor, so no bribe will be enough.”
When Gambling (Love and Warfare Series Book 2) Page 31