When Gambling (Love and Warfare Series Book 2)

by Anne Garboczi Evans

  “Can’t blame me for the plot against your life while you were there, anyway.” Eric pressed his free hand down against the mattress, his body taut.

  “Thank you for saving my life.”

  “You’d have done the same for me.”

  The silence reverberated through the room. Then the legate bent tense legs and lowered himself onto Gwen’s abandoned stool. “Tell me about your shipping ventures.”

  Eric remained stiff, but he leaned back against the wall. “It’s only a few thousand denarii worth of goods for the rising shopkeeper. You’d have no interest in it.”

  “The idea of plating iron with gold to bring down the price for shopkeepers was impressive.”

  Eric shrugged. “Until the Ocellis pillaged my ships.”

  “I can repay your debt to Lycaon Vibianus. Finance your next venture.”

  “No!” Eric squeezed his hand around hers, tight enough to cut off blood flow.

  Eric bend? He was more likely to get them thrown out of the Paterculi house before his knife wound healed. Cara stifled a sigh.

  “You have an excellent idea. If it wasn’t me, you’d easily find other patrician backing,” the legate said.

  “Then I’ll find other patrician backing.” Eric loosened his grip on her, but every other muscle in his body remained rigid, his frame taut as a strung bow.

  “Son, you saved my life. Surely you can allow me the pleasure of a few thousand denarii of backing?”

  “So I can let you win your wager?” Eric crossed his arms and iron bars clanked shut over his chest.

  Wager? Eric, Lucia, and she had almost starved over a stulte wager? Cara suppressed a groan, but Eric had stepped in and married her, a plebeian girl with child, so it’s not as if she had the right to insist he act rationally.

  “I lost that wager months ago, Eric,” the legate said, “and I’ve never been more glad to lose.”

  For a long moment, Eric searched his father’s eyes. Then he sighed. “Very well, I am thoroughly sick of Atticus Orca. My thanks for your backing, and I will reimburse you.”

  The legate nodded and stood. At the threshold, he turned back, his hand on the doorframe. “In case you didn’t know, I’m proud of you, son. You’ve done good work.”

  “You’d be more proud of me if I led an army, like you and Wryn.” Back stiff, Eric leveled his stare at the legate, no friendliness in that gaze.

  The legate turned his head, a penetrating look in his eagle eyes. “You do remember I earned this legate post through restructuring Germanian trade. Spent years trying to convince governors and emperors that trade was as important to the success of empires as armies and wars.”

  “Well, I …” The sheets shifted as Eric shuffled his position.

  The legate ran his iron gaze over his son’s face. “And it’s you who inherited my tendency toward stiff-necked idiocy, not Wryn.” He turned and the curtain swished behind him.

  As the legate’s footsteps faded, Eric flopped back against the wall. “He’s not that bad, you know. Unyielding to the extreme, but a good father overall.”

  “Is that why you changed your mind?”

  “No, I accepted his help because I felt like a brute for even considering forcing you and Lucia to live in a hovel another two years for my pride.”

  “Eric!” She grabbed his arm. “Didn’t any part of you wish to enjoy the fruit of your labor rather than mindlessly toil for Atticus Orca?” She hadn’t wanted him to do it just for her.

  “That,” he stabbed a finger at her even as he laughed, “is what you should have yelled at me days ago and I might not have felt so guilty that I gave in.”

  “Ha.” Sliding her hand into his, she let laughter into her eyes. “And you thought I didn’t know how to sear your ears in displeasure like the women in your family.”

  “You call that searing?” Eric widened his eyes, shock on his face. “Tell me again how many multitudes of sheep I had to sacrifice to Fortuna to receive the good fortune of getting you as wife?”

  Chapter 30

  The smell of fresh straw and horse filled the Paterculi stable. Cradling Lucia in her arms, Cara breathed deeply. Today, she’d see Father.

  Eric cinched the saddle tighter on a black stallion. “Which horse do you want?”

  “I don’t know how to ride.”

  “Now that I shan’t complain of.” Eric vaulted up into the saddle. Spurring the horse forward, he leaned over and caught her around the waist.

  She screamed but he pulled her and Lucia up perfectly, sliding her up on the mount’s high back. “Are you sure that was safe?”

  He pressed his hand to his right side. “Not to worry. I already reopened this knife wound. I won’t show off anymore.”

  “Eric!”

  He slid his arm underneath Lucia, his calluses scraping across the stomach fabric of Cara’s dress. “Hercules would have done it.”

  “Hercules also accidentally killed his wife and children. Remember that, oh silver-tongued weaver of tales?”

  The breeze blew the patterned design of Cara’s palla back and flapped the silky folds of her dress as they galloped through the Camulodunum streets. Silk had felt so natural at the Paterculi house that she’d forgotten to change.

  Last time she’d wear silk because soon they’d move to their own house. Even though the shipping venture would finance something respectable, she couldn’t exactly wear silk while washing dishes and cooking meat, real meat, not weevil meat.

  She’d put in late nights and early mornings on Eric’s shipping venture. Though Eric would miss next month’s Olympic Games, according to her figures, the next time the games occurred, they’d have enough to travel to Greece. Today, she galloped through Camulodunum on a patrician-quality steed, wearing silk, leaning back against the chest of probably the most handsome patrician ever to exist.

  Was it so terribly wicked to enjoy that?

  The stallion’s hooves pounded against the ground. To the right and left, brown-clad townsfolk jumped back. She watched as recognition lit in people’s eyes.

  Eric pulled the horse to a halt at the cross street. “Left?”

  The whispers started.

  “Is that the blacksmith’s daughter?”

  “See how the patrician holds her in his arms. So very much in love with his wife.”

  “It’s like one of those tales about the fairie folk, a patrician marrying a blacksmith’s daughter, all for love.”

  “Fine, healthy babe they have, too. May good fortune swiftly bring them many more.”

  Cara collapsed back against Eric. Wasn’t getting up thrice a night with one beautiful baby enough for at least a few years? She nodded and Eric turned the steed left.

  They galloped down Light Street now. Men and women parted, small children and grungy mutts scrambling to either side.

  Eric yanked the stallion to a halt in the alley behind Father’s shop where the shop’s back wall blocked the view of the door. He swung off and reached for her.

  Even in this back alley, curious eyes peered out doorways. A woman raised her hand in greeting. Brighid, the one who had repeated Conan’s words that morning at the riverbank stood three paces away. She smiled. “Salve, Cara.”

  How fickle the praise of men. Cara raised her hand. “Salve.” Then she slid down into Eric’s arms.

  The ash-covered dirt felt hard under her feet. She grabbed Eric’s hand. “Let’s go in.”

  “Give me a moment.” His brown eyes looked strangely discomforted.

  “If you tie the horse there, it won’t stray.” She nodded to the beam reinforcing the back of the blacksmith shop.

  Eric swallowed, the sound of it penetrating the still air. “Your father’s in there.”

  “It wasn’t even your fault, that – ”

  “He doesn’t know that.”

  Laughing, she stretched and touched her lips to Eric’s. He kissed her back, but barely, his gaze on the shop. As if a blacksmith could do anything to a patrician anyway, but unlike
Victor, Eric cared. “Come when you’re ready then.”

  Balancing Lucia on her hip, Cara circled around the building to the open door at the front of the building.

  Father bent over the forge fire, a hammer in his hand.

  “Father!” Cara ran forward.

  Releasing the hammer, Father turned.

  She threw her arms around his neck, Lucia between them.

  “Cara girl?” Father ran his hand over his eyes and looked again. “But look, I’ve got soot over your elegant dress.” He gestured with blackened hands to the pale blue marriage stola that draped over yellow silk, its high neck touching Eric’s pearls.

  “I don’t care.” She held Lucia up. “Look here, your granddaughter.”

  Father reached for Lucia and ran his sooty fingers over the babe’s fine waves of hair. “She looks like you when you were that age.”

  Cara laughed and Lucia cried. “She’s teething, I think.”

  “What she needs is a good crust of bread soaked in ale.”

  “Father! She’s too little for bread. Or ale.”

  “All babble. It’s a time-honored tradition. Your mother gave you crusts soaked in ale when you teethed.” Father carried Lucia to the room behind his workshop as the baby gurgled at him.

  With a groan and a laugh, Cara ran her gaze over the once familiar room. Cups and bowls sat on the shelf above the hearth fire. Ashes from the forge spread out around it, the anvil red-hot. She sucked in the familiar scents and smiled.

  Footsteps thudded across the entrance.

  “Eric?” Cara turned.

  Conan stood a pace inside the shop, staring at her.

  She gulped. Silence hung between them, arching over the ashes on the floor. Salve? How is your shop? I’m sorry about a year ago? No sound came from her mouth as her tongue refused to form the words.

  Conan ran his gaze over her, clear blue eyes appraising. “Have silks and pearls bought your devotion, or are you as faithless to your new man as you were to me?”

  Choking, she dropped her gaze to the packed dirt. Hot chills flushed over her as the darkness overtook her.

  Shame. Shame. Shame.

  Blood pounded against her veins. Her heart beat so hard she couldn’t breathe.

  Desperation twisted in her gut as the long gone words pounded in her head. I should have known. As if we’d trust the word of a harlot. I really am wanton.

  Another pair of feet thudded on the entranceway. Eric filled the doorway. He leveled his gaze at Conan. “I’d not call breaking a betrothal to you faithlessness, but wisdom, and you, have you stopped forcing girls into marriage? Or is that the only means by which a man like you can find a wife?”

  Pushing past Conan, Eric strode up to her. He pulled her against him, his forearm covering her like a shield. Behind her, the warmth of his chest lent a solid wall.

  Digging his thumbs into his belt, Conan opened his mouth.

  “Next time you insult my wife, I’m using my fists, not my tongue. Will thoroughly relish doing so, too, so go ahead.”

  Conan glared at Eric, his blue eyes hard as the iron Father beat on his forge.

  She glanced up to Eric. He glared right back at Conan.

  Turning on his heel, Conan spat on the floor and left.

  Cara flung her arms around Eric’s neck, and as he looked at her, love in his eyes, the shame faded. She brushed her fingers across his cheekbones, smooth shaven now. “I wish you’d been here three years ago when he first told me I had to marry him.”

  “You’d know how to read Greek by now if I’d been your friend since then.”

  Eric looked down at his wife, his hands around her waist. Nine months, a confession that he’d consigned her to that hovel through his choices, and a baby who squalled all night later, she still liked him.

  Cara’s hips swayed as she stepped closer. Her cheeks held the red tint of summer apples, her eyes glistening like polished amber. “Perhaps you’d win at tabula now and again. Oh wait, I’d still be better.”

  “I won last night’s tabula game.”

  She flaunted her shoulders at him. “Only because you kissed me too often throughout.”

  “Here’s some advice. When gambling, your gaze should focus on your opponent’s dicebox, not his lips.”

  “Too late.” Stretching up, she touched her lovely mouth to his, her skin so soft against him.

  Something creaked. The blacksmith stood in the doorway of the back room. How long he’d stood there, who knew?

  Eric dropped his hands from Cara.

  Her father walked through the doorway, Lucia in the crook of his arm. Grasping a soggy crust in her little fist, Lucia moved her lips into a smile!

  “Look, Cara.” Eric stepped toward his daughter. “Her first smile.” He brushed his knuckle against the babe’s face. “Do it again, Lucia.”

  “Lucia?” The blacksmith jerked his gaze up.

  Eric pointed back to Cara with his thumb. “After her mother.”

  Were those tears welling in the blacksmith’s eyes?

  Lucia shrieked. Eric closed his hands around her. “Baby girl.” Lucia’s cries quieted as she sucked his thumb.

  “I think she’s hungry.” Cara brushed against his side. She smiled at him, then disappeared with Lucia through a door across the room.

  The door creaked closed behind her, and the blacksmith settled his hand on Eric’s shoulder.

  Despite himself, Eric winced, but he met the man’s gaze, his own mouth closed, as he prepared to listen to whatever disgruntled words or interrogation Cara’s father intended to launch. After all, could he blame the man for loving his firstborn daughter?

  “Thank you for making my child happy. My child’s child, too.” Appreciation gleamed in the blacksmith’s dark eyes.

  Appreciation? Eric stared at the man. Within the last year, he’d gotten the most amazing woman in the empire as his wife, and a daughter who, if she took anything after her mother, would rival Athena in wits and Venus in beauty.

  Eric dug his thumbs into his belt. “I’d be a fool not to when I’ve been given such a gift.”

  Ides of Iulio

  Gwen moved behind the tallest hedge where, even if Mother looked out the villa’s windows, she wouldn’t see. Inside Fabius Agricola’s villa, the noise of the dinner party raged on.

  “You could do anything.” Gwen looked at Marcellus. “Become a tribune, move up the ranks. Governor, consul someday.”

  “I don’t much care for politics.” Marcellus touched his square hand to the brooch that held her tunica in place.

  “It’s not just. I’d give anything for tribune rank.”

  “Well then, what have you been doing while not becoming tribune, oh fairest of the fair?” Sliding his hand around her waist, Marcellus let his mouth touch hers as he had a hundred times before.

  She probably shouldn’t let him, but he smelled of olive oil and grassland. Far from drawing back, she wanted to respond, but she didn’t. “Trying to catch smugglers. Only Wryn’s disagreeable and won’t let me help him. I’ve discovered a good bit on my own, though.”

  “What?”

  Wryn said he thought Marcellus was involved, but Wryn’s thoughts were overshadowed by his own self-importance. Marcellus would never work with smugglers. “If I tell you, will you dust off some political ambition? My father could find you a position in the Britannia garrison.”

  “I leave for Rome on the morrow’s tide.”

  “No!”

  “Can’t be helped.” Catching her around the waist, he tugged her so close to him that every curve of hers touched every muscle of his. One hand behind her shoulder blades, he locked her waist against him with his other. He pressed his mouth against her. His tongue touched hers.

  She stomped her foot down on his sandal. “I didn’t say you could kiss me like that.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have given away so many kisses this last year.”

  “Given? You stole them.” She tried to glare at him, but how could one glare
when one’s heart flopped over itself?

  “I think I’ll steal another one now, then, because your father will probably marry you off to some well-landed patrician by the time I get back.” He moved his mouth over hers.

  She thrust the heels of her hands against his chest, pushing him back. “That well-landed patrician could be you. Why don’t you ask for me?”

  “You know what you want.” He tugged her back against him.

  She arched her shoulder. “Yes, but what do you want, Marcellus?”

  “I’ll be in Rome the next year, maybe two. Come see me there.” He traced her cheek with his hand.

  “My familia just arrived back from Rome. It won’t be easy to convince my mother to go again.”

  Marcellus’ eyes lighted in a laugh. “Or you could get to Rome by accepting one of those dozens of betrothal offers from men in Rome. Our host tonight, Fabius Agricola, wants you, and he’s headed to Rome.”

  Her heart dropped. “I sincerely hope that half the things you say, you don’t mean.”

  “And if I did mean them?” He slid his hand on her waist lower.

  She shoved his hand off. “You don’t. I’ll see you in Rome.” Marcellus might talk like he didn’t, but he did love her.

  He clenched his hand tight over hers, his voice choking. “I couldn’t bear it if your father betrothed you to that wretch, Fabius.”

  “Or any man beside you?”

  Hands in her hair now, he drew her close to him, kissing her cheek, her nose, her chin.

  She crossed her arms. “I want an offer of marriage by the next time we meet and I’m going to make you like politics, too.” Marcellus might have a horrid reputation with women, but she could change him.

  “You certainly have intrigued me with your plans to catch these smugglers. The Viri did you call them?”

  “Yes, and the Ocellis work for them, but I haven’t discovered who their leader is yet.”

  “Write me when you do.” Turning, he walked through the shrubbery. The moonlight shone off his brown hair. “Oh, and Gwen.” He shifted back. “I could not imagine a happier fate than a lifetime spent with you.”

  Her breath caught. See, he did love her.