When Gambling (Love and Warfare Series Book 2) Read online

  Love and Warfare Series book 2

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  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  When Gambling, a novel by Anne Garboczi Evans

  Love and Warfare Series Book 2

  Copyright © 2017. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or recording without express written permission of the author. The only exception is brief quotations in printed or broadcasted critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, organizations, places, locales or to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or publisher. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  PUBLISHED BY: Cavé Books™, an imprint of Olivia Kimbrell Press™*, P.O. Box 470, Fort Knox, KY 40121-0470. The Olivia Kimbrell Press™ colophon and open book logo are trademarks of Olivia Kimbrell Press™.

  *Olivia Kimbrell Press™ is a publisher offering true to life, meaningful fiction from a Christian worldview intended to uplift the heart and engage the mind.

  Scripture quotations courtesy of the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

  Cover design by iCreate Designs.

  Interior Graphics by Amanda Gail Smith (amandagailstudio.com).

  Library Cataloging Data

  Names: Evans, Anne Garboczi (Evans Anne Garboczi) 1987-

  Title: When Gambling; Love and Warfare series book 2 / Anne Garboczi Evans

  434 p. 6 in. × 9 in. (15.24 cm × 22.86 cm)

  Description: Cavé™ digital eBook edition | Cavé™ Trade paperback edition | Kentucky: Cavé™, 2017.

  Summary: A promised plebeian blacksmith’s daughter in 105 AD Roman Britain falls in love with a Roman nobleman.

  Identifiers: ePCN: 2017938084 | ISBN-13: 978-1-68190-070-4 (trade) | 978-1-68190-069-8 (POD) | 978-1-68190-068-1 (ebk.)

  1. Historical Romance 2. Ancient Roman Empire 3. 1st Century Roman Life 4. Love Story Family Saga 5. Suspense Thriller Mystery 6. Early Christian Church 7. Greek Olympic Games

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  For Life or Until Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Excerpt: To Deceive an Empire

  Paterculi Family Tree

  Discussion Questions

  Historical Note

  Acknowledgements

  Cavé

  More Books by Anne Garboczi Evans Love & Warfare Series

  Lawmen & Suffragette Series

  Short Fiction

  Forever Family Series

  About the Author

  Dedication

  To Katherine for her unconditional friendship through the years.

  Chapter 1

  The Kalends of Maius, 105 AD, 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, leaving two handbreadths’ space between herself and 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.”

  Cara 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 babies like every other girl, never able to travel to faraway 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 Cara 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 new 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 shot 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 faraway 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. Usually, Pruella tiptoed in submissive decorum, precisely the kind of friend of which Conan approved.

  “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 always 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 a 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 since 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 oval 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. “Whyever 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 grew 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 upward. “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. 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.”

  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 entirely true, but if she said yes to Conan, she could be.

  Victor laughed. “Let me gue
ss, 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.