An Hour Later
“Two more days until we head for Londinium.” Eric leaned back against the plaster wall, his feet on the tablinum couch. “Get the ships chartered, buy a house.”
Cara selected the Aeneid scroll off his father’s shelves and sat down on the other end of the couch. She smiled at him. “I know the perfect way to celebrate.”
“How?” He caught her hand. The knife wound only itched, now, and she looked so beautiful in the fading sunlight.
“Your familia left for a dinner party at Fabius Agricola’s house an hour ago. Now that Lucia’s asleep, and the housekeeper said she’d listen for her, we could go to the dinner.” Cara smiled. “See the tapestries and the statues from far off lands.”
Oh yes, the political dinner Wryn had invited him to that he’d pointedly declined. Eric groaned. “You can go. I’m not going.”
“But Eric, I want to go with you.”
“You should go.” The curtain swished and Wryn’s shadow cut across the room. Striding across the space, he grabbed two tablets and a scroll off the table and turned to the doorway. “Neglect politics and you’ll never amount to more than a trader with an obsession for physical endurance.”
“I saved your life with that athletic prowess, I’ll have you know.” Eric kicked his feet down on the tile.
Wryn swung his gaze over. “You may have blocked a discus, but I’m the one working on solving the Viri conspirators’ ring.”
“Much good you would have done dead.” Eric felt himself stiffening, despite that Father had praised trade.
“I got the tribune assignment to the Moesian legion. If this Viri piracy ring runs across the empire, I intend to discover it.” Wryn stuffed his scroll into his tunic.
Brow digging down, Eric opened his mouth, but then he felt the swish of silk.
Cara slid onto his legs. Both hands on his shoulders, she let her eyes laugh as she touched his jaw. With a backward glance, she met his brother’s gaze full-on. Then she touched her lips to his and kissed him, her mouth curving up in the fading sunlight as she gave him the first kiss she ever had in front of his familia. “He really is as annoying as you said he was.”
Wryn’s cough broke the air. The tips of Wryn’s ears burned red, but he crossed his arms. “I’m off to learn more about piracy in the Mediterranean from the legate who is speaking as well as interrogate a key suspect. But by all means, confine yourself to the tedium of this domus if you’d rather.”
“Would you call this tedious?” Eric slid his arm around Cara’s waist. She met his kiss halfway. Her lips tasted of cherries, smooth against his own, as she pressed her hands against his chest. They rounded delicately in a curve that would have easily won Paris of Troy’s mythological beauty contest.
Neck as crimson as the setting sun, Wryn turned on his heel and fled.
Cara broke the kiss and twisted on his legs, her back to his front. Leaning over, Eric kissed her upside down.
With a push to his shoulders, Cara moved off him. “We are going to that dinner party.”
“I can’t, now, after I boasted I wouldn’t to Wryn.” He caressed his hand across her cheek. Her bare shoulders caught the fading sunlight. No stola covered the pale blue silk of her tunica now and silk was a thousand time thinner a fabric than brown wool. He touched that bare shoulder.
Eyes laughing, she grabbed his hand with both of hers and pulled it off her shoulder. “I ate weevil-laced porridge beneath the molding roof of a hovel for almost a year for your pride. Tonight, we listen to foreign melodies as we recline by candlelight and gaze at intricately chiseled statutes at the dinner party.”
Her laughter possessed the music of Orpheus’ harp and her smile rivaled the rising stars in beauty, but her chin had a determined set to it.
Leaning back against the wall, he rested his hands behind his head and perused her. “What if I said that I hate these political dinners and I’m absolutely not going?”
She hopped off the couch. Gliding closer, she bent over him, the neckline of that silky tunica a good bit lower than her wool work dress. She touched her lips to his. “You’re not going to say that. You’re going to say, my dear wife, I would love to escort you to that dinner party.”
Though he’d made up his mind never to attend a political function again, somehow a half hour later he found himself underneath the gaping colonnades of the Agricola triclinium listening to a legate drone about sea voyages on the Mediterranean.
When Cara reclined beside him, though, her hand on his as she pointed eagerly to the Persian jewels and the Egyptian basket weave, he found no reason to repine.
The End
Excerpt: To Deceive an Empire
Love and Warfare series book 3
Please enjoy this exciting excerpt from To Deceive an Empire, book 3 in the Love and Warfare series by Anne Garboczi Evans.
107 A.D. the Nones of Martius, Rome
Aknot of girls gathered under the peristyle’s awning, their faces illuminated by candlelight on this summer evening. Gwen Paterculi dug her fingers into the marble colonnade until her nails broke.
“Did you hear Caius Marcellus has returned to Rome?” Claudia giggled and elbowed the girl next to her.
The girl, Hermina, turned shrewish eyes to Claudia. She took a lilting step, swaying her linen chiton around her obscenely captivating body. “He’s a seducer that one, but I have a mind to catch him.”
Gwen jabbed her toe against a statue of Flora. Marcellus loved her.
“Where did he go?” Claudia’s red tunica fluttered in the wind.
“Oh, some island I think.” Hermina jounced her elaborately curled hairstyle. “I leave political work to the men.”
With a swish of her tunica, Gwen stepped into the girls’ circle. “It was Sicily.”
Hermina turned her nose up. “I don’t see why you’d track Marcellus’ whereabouts. Doesn’t your familia loathe him? A pity that you’ll never have a chance of gaining his affections.”
Gwen clenched her fist. Marcellus had promised.
Aulia, her best friend, shoved Hermina. “I’m sure the advantages of the Paterculi name more than outweigh the elimination of one man from the marriage pool.”
“Ah, but such a man.” Hermina slanted kohl-painted eyelashes.
“Marcellus has a reputation for violence and strong drink. Just this past three-month that he resided in Sicily, dozens of women claimed him as the father of their illegitimate child.” Aulia smoothed her embroidered tunica. “Why do you all want to marry him?”
From behind Gwen, a familiar male voice snorted. “He’s a smuggler and a pirate.”
Gwen whipped around. Her gaze alighted on her brother, Wryn, though he preferred to go by his official Roman name, rather than the Celtic one Mother had given him. “You have no proof.”
Wryn crossed his muscular arms. “I couldn’t make the assassination charges stick to Marcellus’ friend, Victor Ocelli, either, but that doesn’t mean Victor didn’t try to kill me.”
Gazing downward, Gwen nudged the statue of Flora with her foot. Her Marcellus would never break the law. Four out of the ten times Wryn suspected Marcellus of smuggling, he’d actually spent the day with her, though she’d rather not confess that fact.
“Speaking of eligible men,” sidling left, Hermina ran her finger up Wryn’s arm. “Salve, Tribune Paterculi.”
Wryn rolled his gaze to the starlit sky. “I have no interest in you.”
Twisting, Gwen marched through the peristyle gardens. She trampled the thick grass past the myrtle trees and to the far side of the villa where juniper hedges blocked casual observation.
He stood there, in the shadow of the third row of junipers just as she’d known he would. Gwen had passed him in the triclinium earlier, and he’d winked at her and held up three fingers.
“Gwen.” Marcellus strode forward with his square hands extended. The moon reflected off his smooth-shaven jaw, those piercing green eyes she never could quite read shining with a smile. As a
lways, a bandage covered his upper arm, the linen knotted tight.
She crossed her arms across her chest.
“How is my love tonight?” He slid his hand over hers, his callused skin hot against her. He tugged at her hand as if to spin her into his arms.
She planted her feet. “You didn’t even write.”
“You want correspondence with my seal showing up at your father’s house?” His green eyes looked so thoughtful and active, like an ocean storm. Flat eyebrows cut across his handsome face and his firm jaw angled beneath bronzed cheekbones.
The night breeze whipped through the cloth of her tunica as she looked at him. Marcellus had a point, but that didn’t make matters better.
“Now tell me what’s put a frown on the prettiest lips in the empire?” He pulled her against him, his chest so hard against her body, the muscles of his forearms barricading either side of her as his hands met behind her waist. “Dare I hope it was my absence?”
She laughed. The sound carried on the still night air as the joy of seeing him after so many months swept over her. With a light slap against his tunic, she wriggled underneath his arms. Her hair caught against his forearms, her black curls falling across his tanned skin.
He slid his finger into a loosened curl and held the lock up. “Lovely as the night. Are you sure you’re not some goddess come from Mount Olympus to tempt mere mortals?” His bare hand reflected the moonlight. Why didn’t he wear the Marcellus signet ring?
“You just want me to forget I’m exasperated with you.” She didn’t believe in the Olympus gods, nor should he.
“Perchance, or perhaps the loveliest girl in Rome would inspire any man to heights of vocal expression.” He twisted his mouth up, that grin which she’d fallen in love with over the last almost-two years tugging at his lips.
“Ecce.” She shoved her hands down against her hips, wrinkling her white tunica. “You called me the most beautiful in the empire a moment ago. What lowered me to merely Rome?”
He took one step closer and wove his arm through hers, encircling her waist. His muscles bulged against her, firm from many days of military exercises as a war hero in Dacia. Heat flashed across her body as he drew her in. “Ah, but I called your lips the best in the empire, and until I’ve tasted them, you’ll have to settle for the prettiest girl in the city.” He tangled one hand in her hair as he drew her face toward him.
“No.” She twisted her head.
The strength of his hand paralyzed her as he pulled her closer.
She drove her foot down against his sandal. “I said no.” As his grip loosened, she shoved his chest with both hands.
He fell back, lowering his gaze.
She refused to let her heart soften. “Don’t take liberties with me.”
“You let me kiss you before.”
She shrugged. “That’s when I saw you more than once every seven-month.”
“You only arrived in Rome two weeks ago yourself, and you know your father avoids any events the Ocellis attend.”
“That’s because they tried to kill him, and my brothers.” Angry heat rose across her face. She’d told Marcellus a thousand times not to associate with Victor Ocelli, but he did as he pleased.
“Fair enough, but since I mostly attend the same events as Victor Ocelli, seeing you becomes difficult.” The hedges cast long shadows in the moonlight. Marcellus sat down on a marble bench. Elbows on his knees, he gazed at her, those green eyes tracking her every movement.
“Seeing you once every seven-month doesn’t please me.”
“You think it pleases me?” He raised his hand as the lonely stillness closed in around him and her and the cold marble.
He acted so frustrated, but Marcellus was a man. Men had the power in this world. If he missed her thus, he could ask for her hand in marriage.
Planting her feet deep in the soft dirt, she dug her thumbs into her belt. “I’ve heard enough stories linking your name to women in these past months to last a lifetime. I don’t see why you even bother with me.”
He laughed. “You believe all that foolish gossip?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Her gaze searched his face, bronzed darker than his light hair. A soft wind whistled through the myrtle branches.
“Because I love you.” His voice echoed in the stillness.
“Easy enough to say.”
Marcellus touched the space beside him. “Two years and a hundred conversations and you still don’t trust me?”
More like a year because of the time they’d spent in separate cities. Gwen sat down, her body a handbreadth from Marcellus. “I do trust you, but if you’ve kissed me all these months and meant nothing by it, I’ll stab a knife through your ribs myself and not wait for Wryn to do it.”
He laughed. “Spare me the knife, delicia. I could, however, name quite a few patrician men, I’d like to see run through.”
This is why she loved him. Unlike other men, he always agreed when she fumed against the oppression of patrician males.
He shot his arm around her waist and captured her lips. He kissed her. He kissed her like a girl ought to be kissed, his lips pressed against hers, the taste of honey on his tongue.
Only maybe it wasn’t how a girl should kiss a man. Maybe she shouldn’t kiss him at all since he kept company with the Ocellis and they were the lowest scum in the empire.
Marcellus rested his hand between her shoulder blades. He pulled her into his lap. She felt the heat of his legs beneath her.
Her skirt fell between his thighs. She shifted. His hands felt hot on her waist and began exploring even lower. His kisses strayed from her mouth to her neck.
She slid her hands off his shoulders. “Will another seven months pass before I see you again?”
He moved his hand up her knee, even as his voice found a tinge of irritation. “How can I tell? I’ll be at the Tellnus event in two days, but will you?”
Would Father let her attend that event? When they visited Mother’s Celtic village every summer in Britannia, she’d ridden horses and done as she wished, but not in Rome. Gwen pulled a scroll out of her tunica and laid it in his hands.
“What’s this?” The edge of his hand touched hers as he took the scroll.
A sizzling sensation bolted up her arm. “The Romans epistle, from the scriptures of the followers of the Way.”
He glanced at the Greek letters. “Splendid. Now the Emperor has another reason to execute me.”
Another? She furrowed her brow. “It’s a scroll worth getting executed for.”
“Then it must be a good scroll, delicia.” He touched the small of her back.
“You’ll read it?”
He pressed his mouth to her lips. Her legs still fell between his, the heat of his body surrounding her.
She rose.
He shot his hands forward.
She dodged. “I expect you to ask for my hand in marriage before another fortnight passes.” Turning, she clomped past dark hedges.
A juniper branch brushed against her arm as she forced her gaze ahead. If she turned back, he’d tug her into his arms, tell her he loved her, tell her that she rivaled the stars in beauty. Her heart pounded within her as her steps slowed.
How many times had she met Marcellus in darkened gardens like this one over these past two years?
A pebble slid into her sandal. With a quick kick, she flung it out. No more garden kisses. She’d turned eighteen last week, six years into marrying age. If Marcellus loved her, and he did, he could ask for her hand in marriage.
“Who was that?”
She jerked her gaze up. Wryn. She dug her teeth into her lip as her palms sweated. “Who was who?” Darkness shrouded everything. Wryn couldn’t have seen much.
“The man you just kissed in the garden.”
Then again. “Does it matter?” She crossed her arms, but her voice shook. If Father found out Caius Marcellus had kissed her, not only was Marcellus all too likely to get a knife stabbed in his back, Father would lock her awa
y forever. Which led to another problem, once Marcellus asked Father for her, how would she convince Father to say ‘yes’?
“Of course it matters.” Wryn narrowed his gaze. “Were you sitting next to him or on top of him?”
She twisted around. Marcellus had disappeared into the hedges. Good. “It’s none of your business.”
“Perhaps, but I’ll tell Father. It certainly is his business.”
No! Gwen rubbed one slick hand over the other. “It was just one kiss. Haven’t you ever kissed a girl?” If only she had something to hold over Wryn.
“No.”
“Because you’re narrow-hearted. Doesn’t mean I have to be.”
“I don’t have time for this. I’ll let Father interrogate you on what anonymous men you’re kissing in gardens.” Wryn turned on his heel.
“It was John.” She raised her voice toward Wryn’s departing back. John, a family friend, a follower of the Way, and one of the sweetest if most tiresome men in Rome, had such high morals that Father often suggested she marry him. This despite that she’d told Father that merely the man’s voice made her yawn.
“Oh.” Wryn turned back. “That’s not so bad. Less kissing by moonlight and more getting betrothed. He wants to marry you.”
“So I’ve heard.” She sucked in a breath. Now to get Wryn to agree not to tell Father.
“John will let you walk all over him and stick your fingers into any political scheme you desire, so he should please you.”
True, but John inspired only lethargy. “Promise you won’t tell Father?” Gwen’s heart pounded. Wryn had to promise.
“Of course I’m telling Father. You’re my little sister.”
Gwen squeezed her fingers against her moist palms. Under ordinary conditions, she could talk Father into her way of thinking with no trouble, but he had an extraordinarily low view of kissing – and Marcellus. Once Marcellus declared his intentions by asking for her, though, then she could change Father’s mind and get him to agree to the marriage.
Marcellus would ask for her hand. Right?
Later That Night
The moon rose over the Tiber riverbank, five miles east of the Ostia port.
When Gambling (Love and Warfare Series Book 2) Page 37