Chapter One #3
I reached for the little pouch on my belt, slipping out my phone and checking the time. “All is well!” I vanished my phone while maintaining my accent, in case anyone overheard our conversation. “The first chess match is at eleven, then the joust, and we have the handfasting right after that—”
Emily groaned while managing to keep her wide smile on her face, waving to a family that we walked past. “I forgot all about the handfasting.”
“Ironic, Your Majesty.” She and Simon had fallen for each other back when I was fourteen, my first year doing this Faire.
Emily’s first year too. And it had all started with the handfasting ceremony.
Emily in her tavern wench costume, Simon as a pirate, their hands bound together with a silken cord, sealing their fictional union with what looked, to my teenage eyes, like a well-acted kiss.
By the end of the summer those kisses had become very, very real.
Emily gave a small smirk in response, then abruptly cut to the right, following a side path to the Chaucer Stage. “There’s a new show down this way,” she said in her normal voice, after a quick glance around to make sure we weren’t overheard. “I told Simon I’d check in, make sure it’s going okay.”
I nodded. “What is it?”
“Shakespeare something.” She shook her head as she thought.
“Shakespeare on Demand? Some kind of improv? He does Shakespeare scenes based on prompts, something like that…Oh, good, it’s just starting.
” Emily picked up the hem of her skirts and hurried a little faster.
Toby and I exchanged alarmed looks as we chased after her.
“Your Majesty!” I couldn’t grab her arm to slow her down, but I could rebuke her. A little. She glanced over her shoulder, and I made a slow down motion with my hands. “A Queen does not hurry.”
“Right. Of course.” She dropped her skirts, the ends swishing in the dirt and dust of the lane just outside the Chaucer Stage.
The show had indeed just started. One man alone on the stage, dressed in classic Shakespearean garb of breeches and a matching jerkin over a loose-sleeved linen shirt, his back to the audience as he manipulated a wire bingo cage sitting in the middle of a table.
Emily and I came to a stop behind the last row of bench seats in the audience.
I leaned over to her. “Bingo?” I asked. “I thought you said it was improv.”
Emily shrugged, her eyes on the stage as the cage rotated and balls rattled, until one fell out into the basket in front of it. The performer onstage picked it up with a flourish, turning to the audience with a wide smile.
“And here we are! First prompt of the morning! All I want is for it to not say ‘exit pursued by a bear.’ I’ve been getting that a lot lately, and some of these guys are hard to outrun. It’s far too early for that much cardio.”
Scattered chuckles floated around the audience at his joke, but the laughter sounded very far away.
My vision shrank to a pinprick, encompassing nothing but the man onstage.
Warm brown hair that flashed auburn in the summer sun, a shock of which fell across his forehead no matter how many times he shook it back.
His linen shirt was open halfway down his chest, laces hanging down like an undone bow tie on New Year’s Eve after midnight.
The shirt was cinched in with a wide brown leather belt over his deep green jerkin that matched his knee-length breeches.
When your average modern-day man wore hose it could look kind of weird, but onstage at the ren faire? Those calves were disturbingly sexy.
But I wasn’t thinking about sexy calves right now. I wasn’t thinking about much of anything. My heart pounded in my temples. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even blink. This wasn’t happening.
And then he saw me. His patter stopped in midsentence, and the plastic ball in his hand fell to the stage, bouncing once, twice, before rolling into the audience. His eyes flew wide.
I remembered those eyes. A gorgeous brown-gold, like sunshine glancing off autumn leaves. Something about him had always made me think of the fall, even though what we’d had had been in the summer.
“I…” His voice faltered, clearly feeling the same shock that I was.
But he recovered quickly, bending to take up the ball from the audience member who had retrieved it.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, before straightening up to face us—face me—again.
“I must say,” he said, “I am so very honored to be in the presence of the Queen. Good day to you, Your Majesty!” He was addressing Emily, but his eyes were fixed on me.
The audience turned in their seats, and while Emily gave a royal wave, Toby’s hand closed around my forearm, giving me a reassuring squeeze. But I was still frozen.
I couldn’t believe this. When I’d agreed to come back to the Willow Creek Renaissance Faire, I’d said no Sword Bros.
I’d been very clear about that. And there, on the stage in front of me, smiling at me like I was the answer to all his questions?
Was Alexander Wright. A goddamn Sword Bro. The Bro who’d broken my heart.
Back when I had one.