Well Met(75)

“More? How many more are there going to be?” I peered at her while she giggled. “Did you know about this?”

She raised her hands in innocence. “I didn’t. I promise I didn’t. But you have to admit, it’s pretty cool. Romantic.” She looked toward the chess field with a thoughtful expression. “I had no idea the Captain had it in him.”

“Hmm.” And here came rose number eight, delivered by a Captain Jack Sparrow impersonator. He bestowed a kiss on my hand along with the rose, and I thanked him as prettily as I could, lamenting that his accent, not to mention his costume, was much better than mine. I was going to have to step up my game next year.

Next year? I stopped twirling the rose. Why was I planning next year already? Surely that was assuming too much. Counting on the future was the kind of thinking that got me hurt. Dumped on the way to a better life. I stomped down those ugly thoughts and brought my attention back to the present. Back to this silly number of roses arriving to me throughout the day, one at a time.

We were too busy in the afternoon to drop by the chess match, which must have derailed some of the rose delivery plans. Because once it was over, several of our fellow cast members dropped by the tavern, along with roses nine, ten, and eleven. By the end of the day the flower crown on top of my head made me look like a wood nymph, and there were more roses stuck at random into my hair and one was threaded through the laces of my bodice. Janet had left for the day, and Jamie had started to break down the bar when Mitch appeared, a smirk on his face and a rose in his hand.

“No.” I held up a hand, as if that would stop him from coming any closer. It didn’t. “No,” I said again. “I don’t need any more roses.” I tried hard to sound annoyed, but I hadn’t stopped smiling since I’d gotten the first rose that morning.

“Too bad, milady.” Mitch actually bopped me on the nose with the rose he held. “I am here to escort you to pub sing.”

I tried to wave him off. “I think I’ll skip it today.” I wanted to collect my niece and get home as soon as possible. One side effect to all of these roses was that Simon had been on my mind all day, a side effect enhanced by the fact that he hadn’t come by the tavern once. It was so unlike him that all I could think about was getting home, showered, changed, and over to his place pronto. I needed to thank him properly for all these roses. And in this case, “properly” meant “naked.”

Mitch laughed. “Nice try. You’re not skipping anything.” I had never been handed a rose so forcefully in my life, and by now I was an expert on being given flowers. He took my other hand and nestled it in the crook of his elbow. “I’m under orders.” He half led, half dragged me to the front of the grounds, where most of the cast and the remaining patrons had gathered for pub sing. By the looks of things, it was winding down; most of the acts who participated had already performed, and a quintet of women singing in a cappella harmony was just finishing up.

No sooner had they left the stage than Simon, still in costume as Captain Blackthorne, hopped up and commanded the attention of everyone there. “I want to thank all of you for joining us here today at the Willow Creek Renaissance Faire.” His authoritative voice traveled without the aid of a microphone, and when I looked at him I was amazed that this was the same man with the shy smile in all his family photographs. He was a completely different person in the costume and persona of a pirate. But the great thing for me was I now found both men equally compelling.

“It’s been a lovely day,” he continued. “The weather’s been perfect, and we have all enjoyed having you. I would like to give my particular thanks to those of you still here who assisted me today on my quest.

“For those of you who weren’t a part of it, let me explain it to you now. We have in our midst a woman named Emma. She is a tavern wench of great beauty, whose smile lights up the day like the sun, and the night like the moon. She has absolutely stolen my heart, but I do not mind in the least. In fact, if she would agree to keep my heart and take good care of it, I would never want it back.”

My own heart pounded at this speech, while the logical side of my brain tried hard to parse it. Who was speaking here? Captain Blackthorne, the pirate I’d been handfasted to at the beginning of Faire, and spent weeks bantering with in character? Or was this Simon, the mild-mannered English teacher, who had kissed me so sweetly in the bookstore a few days before? Or were they two halves of a whole, one living neatly inside the other?

“Recently, I learned something very important about my lovely Emma. Something tragic.” He paused here for emphasis. “She told me she had never before been wooed.” He pressed a dramatic hand to his heart. “Can you imagine something so terrible?”

Yes, I could. Nuclear war. Sad kittens. The rumored worldwide chocolate shortage. But for the sake of argument I kept my mouth shut and let him keep talking, even though my heart pounded and every cell of my body shook. I was not a center-of-attention kind of girl.

Which was too bad, apparently.

“So I made it my mission to woo the fair Emma. With the help of all of you, who delivered the signs of my affections to her all day long, so she might know she is constantly in my thoughts, and always will be. And now I ask you, my dear Emma!”

I almost dropped the rose I was holding, because he threw out an arm, gesturing to where I stood in the back, and all the patrons turned to look at me. It took a moment to realize I was muttering under my breath. “Oh, no. Oh no oh no oh no oh no . . .” The memory of my very public, very projectile-vomity stage fright from my college days was suddenly in the forefront of my mind. That would create the wrong impression here.