Widow's Pique Read Free Page B

rather mate with a three-headed gorilla,' she snapped.
    Because what kind of ignoramus can't differentiate between dockside scrubbers and women of quality? Only the best, no doubt, only the best, but dammit, the next clod who propositioned her would get a kick on the shins for his trouble.
    Skirting bales of cotton billowing over the quayside as merchants in bejewelled turbans and bows on their slippers seduced buyers with their rainbow wares, Claudia hoped to blazes that this trip was worth it. It was a long shot, of course, but gambling (as Anpu's bill testified) ran in her blood and in any case, when you're the only female wine merchant in Rome and the Guild is determined to put you out of business, risk-taking becomes daily routine. Ducking sacks of grain and sidestepping a drunken sailor sprawled out on the cobbles, Claudia knew that if she secured this contract to supply the King with her wine, it would put so many feathers in her cap that it'd look like she was wearing the whole damned ostrich. After which, the Guild were equally welcome to stick their heads in the sand. Or anywhere else the sun didn't shine, for that matter.
    Of course, there had to be a catch - there always was -and instead of ostrich feathers, there was the distinct possibility that she'd return home smelling more of wild goose. The catch lay in the last paragraph of the King's letter.
    . . . requests that the Lady honour him with a visit to his Kingdom, in order that a certain contract might be drawn up between His Royal Highness and Herself, binding their two parties in mutual agreement.
    Not the bit about the certain contract, but those two other words, 'mutual agreement'. They suggested that the only reason the King had approached her in the first place was because she was the only female wine merchant in Rome. He'd know how tough it would be, a lone woman swimming among sharks, and unless she missed her guess, here was another one, looking to pick up vintage reserve at tavern-quality prices, sending an assortment of gifts to soften her up. What the old duffer couldn't possibly know, of course, was that Claudia Seferius was fighting for survival, not just money. Dammit, the only woman in Rome who'd started out with nothing and still had most of it left!
    Decisions, decisions. Suppose she came away from this trip empty-handed, because the old miser was too stingy to stump
    up for quality wine? She'd be the laughing stock of the industry, her credibility shredded finer than bedstraw. On the other hand, just how low was she prepared to go to secure the King's custom?
    If she'd had the funds to commission an agent to negotiate on her behalf, the problem would be solved, but she hadn't dared liquidate His Majesty's gifts immediately or Rome's rumour mill would have gone into overdrive. Juggling creditors whilst maintaining an air of prosperity was crucial to her commercial survival. If so much as one whiff of financial insecurity leaked, she'd be dropped like a hot brick by her clients.
    As it happened, the decision had been taken for her.
    'There's a foreign gentleman at the front entrance, madam,' her steward announced, 'with two donkeys loaded with fine linens. He requests an audience with you, ma'am. Says it's a follow-up to an earlier communication.'
    Front entrance? Foreigner? Follow-up? Bugger. It was that damned Egyptian come for his money and making his demand as public as possible! She'd scrabbled for the note which had arrived the day before, the one threatening seventeen kinds of retribution if his bill didn't get settled—
    'Tell him I'm out. Tell him I'm away for the whole of the summer,' she hissed. 'Tell him I'm doing business with the King of the Histri and won't be back until - ooh, tell him October at the earliest, and then, for heaven's sake, man, book me on the first available passage to Pula.'
    Of all her outstanding accounts, the linen merchant's was the smallest and a mental picture flashed up of the rest of her creditors