Second Act Read Free Page B

the sixth anniversary of his wedding, and, to the horror of his blood relatives, he bequeathed his trophy widow the lot. Large house in Rome. Vineyards in Tuscany. Investments in housing, in shops, in numerous commercial enterprises.
    Happy ending? Dream on.
    Before his ashes were cool, the Guild of Wine Merchants were muscling in to take over his patch. They tried everything. Buying her out, bullying her out, cajoling, seducing, flattering, beseeching, and all to no avail. At first Claudia hung on out of stubbornness. Gaius might have been bald and fat and in the grip of terminal halitosis, but dammit, he’d worked his whole life to build up his network of trade. Those vultures should not be allowed to simply move in and pick the bones clean. She would be the one who decided what and when to sell. Gradually, though, she saw how profitable the wine business was. By hanging on to it, not only could she continue to live in the style to which she’d grown accustomed without dipping into her capital, it would be one in the eye for the Guild of Ghouls.
    Only it wasn’t that simple. Normally fiercely competitive in the marketplace, the bastards put their differences aside and united. Anything to force Claudia Seferius out of business.
    Over her dead body!
    On the platform behind her, a living statue painted head to foot in white lime was posing motionless in imitation of the genuine articles lined up on their plinths. Small children tried lobbing pellets and stones to distract him, but the statue remained a study in muscular rigidity.
    It wasn’t that Claudia was felonious by nature. She drained the last of the warm, spicy wine. Hand on her heart, she would not have ripped Butico off had her hand not been forced. To survive the cut-throat world that she’d inherited, she was having to meet dirty trick with dirty trick and her current strategy was to undercut the Guild with prices so low that buyers simply couldn’t say no. Seferius wine was synonymous with quality, so why not get the punters hooked, then gradually increase the price to market levels? So far, so good, and Claudia had a stack of purchasers lined up for the next vintage. Unfortunately, she was selling at such a thumping great loss that resources were currently stretched to breaking point. And now, of course, it was Saturnalia.
    Below her dangling squirrel-lined boots, a cart delivering bricks locked wheels with another delivering cotton in the tight space in front of the sacred lotus tree. Within no time, fists and bales, insults and cobs were flying over the Forum as both drivers claimed right of way. Mules bucked in the harness. The donkey with the cotton cart brayed and kicked anyone who tried to intercede. Claudia lifted her gaze to the Palatine.
    Saturnalia, when it was customary (compulsory) for merchants to cross the palms of their clients with silver. Five to six pounds in weight, to be exact. Apiece! Dear god, how was she supposed to find that kind of money with Butico’s shadow looming over her? Silver was the yardstick against which clients measured success, and if she didn’t deliver, they would smell a rat and default. The business would sink without trace.
    The stench of conspiracy was all over this scam, but by heaven, she would not let the Guild win this battle—
    ‘It’s funny,’ a melodious baritone murmured in her ear, ‘how nothing travels through the universe faster than a rumour.’
    Claudia turned in time to see a pair of red patrician boots easing themselves over the grille, followed by a long patrician tunic encased in spotless white patrician toga. Terrific. That’s all I need. The Security Police.
    ‘I tend to think of rumours as fires,’ she said. ‘Ignore them and they fizzle out.’
    ‘Then I must have been a blacksmith in a previous life,’ he replied. ‘Or maybe a bathhouse stoker.’
    He smelled of sandalwood, with just the faintest hint of the rosemary in which his clothes had been rinsed. The unmistakable scent of