For Life or Until (Love and Warfare Series Book 1)

by Anne Garboczi

Aquilus held her knife up to the moonlight. The runes glinted in the moonlight that streamed through the window.

  “Not fair!”

  He caressed her back, the warmth of his breath drifting across her hair.

  “Doubly not fair.”

  His mouth met hers before he drew back, one tantalizing handbreadth away. “Very well, if you don’t wish to be kissed….” He raised both hands in the air.

  She grabbed him by the shoulder fabric of his tunic and tugged his mouth toward her.

  He met her more than halfway.

  “You know what the best thing is?” Circling her arms around his neck, she gazed up at him.

  “What?”

  “We’re not going to regret this by morning, like before.”

  Aquilus flashed a wicked smile. “I regretted nothing.”

  She leaped at him. Limbs twisted around each other as they crashed back against the feather mattress.

  The End

  Excerpt: When Gambling

  Love and Warfare series book 2

  Please enjoy this exciting excerpt from When Gambling, book 2 in the Love and Warfare series by Anne Garboczi Evans.

  The Kalends of Maius, 105 A.D., Camulodunum, Britannia

  Cara drew the stylus down the column of numbers, summing the wax tablet.

  Two tanned hands moved around either side of her and clamped down on the high table. “Perfect numbers. What will your father do without your help?”

  She turned toward Conan. Wood shavings covered his tunic, mixing with dark sweat stains. He didn’t remove his hands, which trapped her between him and the table, just smiled.

  Her nostrils flared as she sucked in the rich scent of pine, but she refused to smile back. Behind her, hot sparks flew as Father struck his hammer against red-hot iron. The sparks mixed with the ever-present dust, intensifying the choking summer heat.

  She slid up onto the table, giving herself two handbreadths’ space from Conan, and swung her legs. “Why would my father lose my help?”

  Conan grinned. “Because you’re marrying me.”

  Leaning back in a position that exhibited her figure, she arched her shoulder. “Why would I do that?”

  He caught her hands and tugged her toward him. “You told me ‘yes’ two years ago.”

  “When I was fourteen.” She’d only said ‘yes’ because he’d threatened to tell Father that she’d kissed him.

  “About time to make good on that promise.”

  “Perchance. Or you could find another girl.” She pulled away, freeing her hands.

  “I want you.”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Sometimes life doesn’t afford us what we want.” If it did, she’d have seen Greece by now.

  Conan slapped both hands against the table. “Cara of Camulodunum, when are you going to allow that stubborn mind of yours to say yes?”

  Wood shifted in the forge. Father turned. “Don’t rush her, Conan. I’ll keep my little girl as long as she’ll let me.”

  Conan lowered his eyebrows, a dissatisfied frown on his face. Then, he stepped back and pushed sweaty hair out of his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

  She laughed. Perhaps she should agree to Conan’s betrothal. After all, he wanted her a great deal, and the other girls would leap at a chance to marry Conan. Only, then she’d end up keeping house and tending babes like every other girl, never able to travel to far-off lands.

  “Psst… Cara.” A woman with an uncovered head peered around the shop door. Edna beckoned to her.

  Jumping down from the table, Cara ran toward the entrance. “I’m going with Edna, Father.” Cara seized her head scarf off a peg.

  “Grab that bag of nails for Conan first.” Father gestured to the wooden shelf a pace above the dirt floor.

  Crossing, Cara tugged down a sack.

  Conan reached for it and extended a handful of coins. “Edna’s trouble. Find a better friend.”

  “I happen to like Edna.” Cara threw his coins into the moneybox and swept past him.

  “Where are you going with Edna?” Father’s massive blacksmith arms looked even larger in the smoke of the forge. “Nowhere outside the town walls and avoid the south side. The garrison soldiers have roused trouble of late. When I was in charge, I kept my legionaries from such nonsense.”

  Ah yes, the back-when-he-was-a-centurion soliloquies; the soliloquies that had kept her from the Saturnalia festivals, ruined her chance to see the cliffs of Dover last year when that merchant’s wife needed a nursemaid, and made sunset her curfew. Cara stuck her head out the door. “Where to, Edna?”

  “Tell him, ‘to the church to pray.’” The threadbare cloth of Edna’s dress blew around her legs, revealing the holes in her shoes.

  Cara’s palla slipped through her fingers. “I don’t want to pray.”

  Edna moved her hand up in an impatient gesture. “Immodestly impatient,” the women from First Day service would say. None of them liked Edna anyway because her father had continually left on drinking and womanizing sprees, between getting married and siring seven children, before he had the decency to die. “We’re not actually, just tell him that.”

  Her throat felt scratchy as she shifted her feet. “Father wouldn’t want me to lie to him.”

  “Stay and discuss the boredom of counting profits with that carpenter of yours then, but don’t say I didn’t give you a chance for an exotic afternoon.”

  Exotic? If what Edna offered had any connection to far-off lands, she was going. Cara’s skirt swished against the threshold as she turned. “Just to the church, Father.”

  Mud sloshed against Cara’s boots as they headed down the street. “Where are we actually going?”

  “You’ll see.” Edna quickened her pace.

  A housewife looked up from her threshold. “Good afternoon, Cara,” she said, smiling. “And to you, Edna,” she said, smile fading.

  Pruella’s mother. Cara grimaced. Pruella stood behind her mother, laboring over the front of their already clean house. Next thing, they’d fall to their hands and knees and scrub horse droppings off the cobblestones.

  “Guess what?” Pruella skipped closer.

  Surprising. Normally, Pruella tiptoed in submissive decorum, exactly the kind of friend Conan approved of.

  “Aidan found work, and Father and he signed the betrothal papers.”

  “That’s good news,” Cara said. Not really, because Pruella’s man had already shown himself controlling and intractable. Then again, good fortune finding a man who wasn’t like that with his wife.

  Hoofbeats pounded. Cara jumped back as a mounted rider galloped full speed down the street. The fine linen of the man’s tunic marked him as a patrician.

  As the dust settled, Cara ran the three steps to catch up with Edna.

  Head down, Edna scowled. “Isn’t Pruella an abominable little thing?”

  Cara shrugged and rubbed water-wrinkled hands together. This morn, she’d gathered, chopped, and cooked more vegetables than she ever wished to lay eyes on again. “What did you do today?”

  “The usual. Fed, clothed, and managed six constantly underfoot children while my mother did other people’s laundry. I have a baking job at the merchant’s house tonight.”

  Cara winced. She’d thought her days stretched long with work.

  “I overheard Conan. Marrying him this year? He’s rich and handsome, even if he is annoying.”

  The summer sun shone on the plain fabric of Cara’s dress. “Perchance. Why haven’t you married yet?”

  “Marry? As if I have a dowry.” Dissatisfaction stretched Edna’s face.

  Why, she looked jealous. Cara touched Edna’s shoulder and smiled at her friend. “Never fear. Someone will come along soon who’s so mad for love for you that he won’t care about dowry.”

  With a grunt, Edna threw off her hand. “Live your sheltered life and continue to dream this world is fair.”

  Poor Edna. She’d give Edna a dowry if Father would allow it, but his profits had fallen off ever sin
ce winter.

  Soon the outskirts of town turned into a field. Beyond the outskirts, green grass spread out in uninviting emptiness. Edna removed her tattered shoes.

  “What are we doing? Picnicking?”

  “Don’t be a dolt. That’s the training grounds there.” Edna pointed northwest to a fence and increased her pace.

  Men moved in the area ahead, sun reflecting off metal pieces inside an elliptical track.

  Cara’s palla fell back from her hair as she walked through the high grass. “Who trains there?”

  “Those who participate in the pentathlon games.”

  Legs suddenly stiff, Cara paused. “But aren’t the competitors in those games patricians?”

  “Exactly.” Edna hurried faster.

  Only a stone’s throw from the fence now, Cara jerked back. The men had stripped to the waist. The odor of sweat and the sound of grunting filled the air. They hardly looked like patricians through the layers of dust and perspiration, but they were—half-naked ones.

  Cara balked. “I’m not going in there.”

  One hand on the fence rail, Edna turned. “Why ever not?”

  “They’re patricians.” Cara took another step back.

  One of the men glanced toward them and walked up to the fence rail. He looked like the rider who’d almost run her over earlier. Cara pulled her palla tighter over her head. Chariot wheels flung dust up behind him.

  Edna grabbed her hand. “Come watch.”

  “They’re patricians.” For some reason, Edna was not grasping this simple fact.

  “Patricians’ sons. There’s an immense difference, especially when they look like that.” Edna pointed to the man at the fence.

  Cara felt her cheeks grow as hot as the air.

  “What, you don’t have eyes?” Moving to the right, Edna swung one leg over the fence. “Victor.” She tapped the man’s shoulder.

  The young man, Victor apparently, turned. He ran his gaze down Edna. “How are you?”

  “Haven’t seen you in a week. How do you think I am?” Edna hopped off the fence into the angle of his arm.

  Victor slanted his dark eyes up. “Couldn’t keep yourself away longer than a week?”

  “Heartless. You were supposed to be missing me.” Edna slapped his hand.

  Her friend just struck a patrician! With a gasp, Cara shoved her foot further back, scraping up grass roots.

  “How can you miss the air you breathe? Without it, one is not even alive.” Victor yanked a hairpin from Edna’s locks. She swatted at him. He captured another. Edna said something. Victor seized another hairpin and her hair spilled down in a mass of brown glory.

  Laughing, the man ran his fingers through it. Edna smiled and let him.

  An uncomfortable feeling churned Cara’s guts. She averted her gaze. Up ahead, a young man leaned forward, balancing the weight of lead in his extended hand. His every muscle tensed. With a rotating motion, he flung it. The metal discus cut through the air, soaring high.

  “Sixty paces!” the young man shouted. His hair was wavy brown, and he looked younger than Victor.

  “Sixty paces? Let me try that.” Untangling himself from Edna, Victor moved toward the other patrician.

  Victor seized a metal disc, took a step back, and rotated through almost two full circles. The metal sliced through the air, but landed a good distance short. Victor punched the younger man in the shoulder. “The run next.”

  The athlete shoved him. “If you’re not afraid to lose.”

  “Empty bravado.” Victor scraped a line in the track’s dust with his foot. “This is my event.”

  The other patrician moved up. “Not if I win.” He started off like an arrow, but Victor soon drew even.

  Pounding feet and heavy breaths filled the air. The other patrician’s face reddened, sweat streaming from his forehead down to all the other places she really shouldn’t look at. His twisted-down tunic flapped around his knees as he flew forward.

  Ten paces from the finish line, Victor pulled a pace in front. The other patrician churned his legs, his breath coming in heaves, but Victor won.

  The younger man fell panting to the grass. Behind him, a charioteer circled the track.

  Victor glanced back at the fence. “Come, Edna. Meet my friend.”

  As quick as water falling through a water clock, Edna ran to Victor’s side.

  As she stared at them, Cara took three steps forward. Now only the fence stood between her and the patricians.

  “What ails her?” Victor gestured back to Cara.

  “Cara?” Edna waved her hand. “She’s afeared of men.”

  “Am not,” Cara called over the split-wood rails.

  “Come then,” Edna said.

  Her guts increased their churning, but Cara swung her legs over the fence rail.

  As she approached, Victor looked at her. His breaths swelled the skin across his chest. “Afeared of men, eh?”

  Cara crossed her arms. “Of course not. I’m almost betrothed.” Not quite true, but if she said yes to Conan, she could be.

  Victor laughed. “Let me guess, a shopkeeper who’ll never leave the house he was born in?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with shops.” Though she did want to see Greece.

  Turning, Victor kicked the other athlete. “He’s Eric. Strict as they come. Wouldn’t even drink with me last night.”

  The grass crumpled as Eric leaned back on his hands. “Mayhap that’s why I won our wrestling match this morn.”

  The man looked vaguely familiar. “Eric” was an unusual name for a Roman patrician, beautiful though, Celtic origin. Cara examined his face. Oh, he sat up front with the other patricians at First Day services. Paterculi, that was his family name.

  “Blind luck,” Victor said.

  Eric sprang to his feet. “Luck? Try me again and we’ll see if my win was luck.”

  Victor groaned. “Can’t you see I’m otherwise occupied?”

  “This is training time.” Eric snatched up a javelin.

  “Have you ever even talked to a girl?” Victor touched Edna’s waist.

  Eric twisted the leather javelin strap around his forefingers. “Of course.”

  “Beyond your mother.”

  Angry red flamed across Eric’s ears.

  A cloud of dust blew from behind them. A charioteer yanked his vehicle to a halt on the track to the left.

  “Who’s that?” Cara whispered to Edna.

  “Marcellus.”

  “The Marcellus?” Cara felt herself gape. Unlike the others, he’d kept his tunic on and a bandage wrapped around his upper arm. Looking at him, mounted on the chariot, reins carelessly hanging over his bronzed hand, one could almost believe the stories. Cara leaned toward Edna’s ear. “The Marcellus, who they say wiped out an entire village in Dacia, babes too, and beat his own horse to death?”

  “I’m not sure the horse story is true.” Edna kept her gaze on Victor.

  “And the one they say made three sisters fall in love with him all at the same time?” Cara took a step back. Tales still circulated about how a slave had killed his father, and Marcellus ordered all one hundred of his slaves executed as punishment.

  “The same, though it was more sordid than ‘fall in love’.” Edna tugged at Victor’s sleeve, but even Victor looked at Marcellus.

  “Those are magnificent horses.” Eric ran his gaze over the steeds.

  “Try them if you like.” Marcellus tossed the reins to Eric.

  Moving off the chariot, Marcellus swept his gaze over Edna and Cara.

  Under his gaze, Cara became acutely aware of the coarse brown smock she wore. Why did men like this even talk to her and Edna?

  Eric leapt on the chariot.

  “Have you ever ridden a chariot?” Victor looked at Cara.

  She shook her head.

  “Give her a ride, Eric.”

  The horses strained against the reins as Eric gripped the leather, pulling back against the steeds. “If you wish,” Eric sa
id, his gaze on the horses, not her.

  Ride a chariot! Cara gazed at the exotic platform, so different than the lumbering work carts that hauled supplies across town.

  Eric moved to the right, making space for her. Cara stepped closer and he reached down for her, holding the taut reins in just one hand as his bare arm bulged with the effort.

  Her boot felt rooted to the dirt. Touch a patrician? Then again, one doesn’t say “no” to a noble.

  She touched her hand to his and he closed his fingers around hers. Her knees wobbled as he pulled her up. His bare chest almost touched her now, and he was huge.

  Heart pounding, she found footing on the light wicker weave. Eric gave the steeds their head. The reins draped over his big hands. He leaned forward. His sweaty arms bulged again as he pulled the horses left, circling the curve.

  The wind tangled in her hair, ripping off her palla. She smiled at him. “You drive as swiftly as Hercules.”

  He jolted away from her. For one moment he stared at her, then the chariot rounded another curve. He urged the horses faster.

  With an earsplitting crack, the wheel gave way and spun away from the chariot. The floor lurched and her fingers flew off the wicker as she fell backward.

  Her senses pounded, heart throbbing, darkness closing in.

  Eric dropped the reins and lunged for her.

  They plummeted together. He hit the ground first as he pulled her against the protection of his body. His shoulder hit the ground and she crashed against him, then they started rolling away from the chariot.

  The motion stopped, leaving her laying on top of him, her head against his sticky chest as his arm wrapped around her.

  She jumped off him, but her heart kept thundering.

  Her body shook.

  She heaved for breath, as when mother died, and she had her first of these spells. As always, the shame-filled thoughts pounded against her wits.

  It’s your fault your mother succumbed to fever. You shouldn’t have let her labor so hard.

  The darkness closed in.

  Dread swept over her.

  A scream stuck in her throat.

  She couldn’t make the thoughts stop. You’re not virtuous like Pruella. Even God wouldn’t want you.

  Why did these spells happen? Pruella’s mother would call her possessed.