Hard Day's Knight

by Katie MacAlister

  “Why not? We’re surrounded by knights in shining armor.”

  Her frown deepened. “I just want to make sure that you’re totally committed to the idea of finding a guy.”

  “Committed like to a madhouse?”

  “Pepper!”

  I held up my hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, little joke. I’m committed; I really am.”

  “I hope so, because once I find a guy for you, you’re expected to keep him. I just worry that you’re not really serious about this. After all, look what you’ve done at home.”

  I stood up and glared down at where she sat poking through the bag. “What do you mean, what I’ve done at home? I haven’t done anything!”

  She grabbed a handful of jeans around my knee region and tugged me down to the cooler. “Stop looming over me like a great hulk. You’re too tall. I can’t bend my head back far enough to see you. And that’s exactly what I mean—you seem to expect the perfect man to drop into your lap without your lifting a single finger to find him, but that’s not going to happen unless you get proactive. You have to admit that until now, you haven’t actually expended any energy in dating.”

  I grabbed her ear and peered in. “Hellooo, anyone home?” She slapped my hand away. “Didn’t you hear me on the drive up here? I’ve looked and looked and looked, but all the guys back home are either unemployed plane mechanics or likewise unemployed software geeks. The first group hang around bars ogling women and having competitions about who can pee the farthest, while the second thinks a wild time is getting drunk and creating dirty computer animations.”

  “Maybe your standards are too high,” CJ said thoughtfully as she eyed me up and down. “There’s nothing really wrong with you. You’re pretty, in a general sort of way. You have nice thick red hair. And freckles—guys like freckles. And if you’re a bit . . . well . . . solid, guys like that, too. Some guys. Most guys. And you’re smart; that’s a plus.”

  I paced the length of the tent, avoiding Moth as he lunged for my ankles when I passed in front of him. “You try it, cat, and you’re going to find yourself locked into the tent for the next two weeks. Thank you for your so reassuring assessment of my many fine qualities, CJ.”

  “You’re also stubborn, very set in your ways, and you like to argue, but that’s okay, I think we can work around those points.” She gestured expressively with her tiny little hands. I added that to the list of injuries I was nursing. In addition to being gainfully employed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a researcher—a job that allowed her to travel to England several times a year—CJ was graceful, delicately built, and had a charming little heart-shaped face and a fragile manner that left most men prostrate before her. I, on the other hand, was built along the lines of a brick house, or so my mother always used to tell me. Big-boned, tall, and gawky—that was me. The only way a man was going to be prostrate before me was if he accidentally ran into me and was knocked out cold. I knew it wasn’t fair to add CJ’s genetic makeup to my list of ways the world was picking on me, but I was too crabby to care.

  “I don’t know, maybe it’s me. Maybe something’s wrong with me.” I avoided Moth’s lunge at my shoe-laces and plopped down to snag another bottle of cold water. “It just seems to me that guys today don’t have any cojones. They sit around and whine and don’t do anything. At least I’m out trying to find work. And when I’m not, I’m volunteering. I don’t spend my day watching soaps and complaining and trying to pee farther than anyone else.”

  “It must be frustrating to be unemployed,” she said, accepting a bottle of water. “And yes, you’re doing more than just complaining. It’s too bad that the women’s shelter or the literacy center can’t hire you, although honestly, Pepper, I think you’re being a little overly rough on the guys you know. Maybe you should just cut them a little slack? They must feel as helpless as you do at being in such a bad situation.”

  I waved her explanation away. “It’s not just that; it’s the sort of men who are being produced these days. They’re all so wimpy! No guts to them, no balls! Whatever happened to the men of old, the men not afraid to stare death in the face and laugh a mocking laugh at it? What happened to their sense of adventure? Where are all the bold, daring men who would risk anything for the woman they loved?”

  “Alpha males.”

  “Huh?”

  “They’re called alpha males, and you’ve been reading too many historical romances,” she answered with a smile. “Real men like that don’t exist. Well, they do—my lamb is one—but they’re few and far between. In reality, most alpha males are jerks. Butcher just happens to be a shining example of a delicious one.”

  “Yeah, well, it seems to me that you’ve matchmade all the good guys already. There’s probably nothing decent left over.” I watched Moth as he dragged the aluminum-framed canvas chair over and tackled my left tennis shoe, viciously biting at the hard rubber of the shoe’s front. “I want a little romance, Ceej. I want a guy who will like me for the person that I am. I just want someone to love. Is it asking so much to find Mr. Pepper Marsh?”

  CJ snickered for a second. “Mr. Pepper. Sounds like knockoff soft drink or a swishy hairdresser.”

  “Ceej!”

  “Is now the time to make a Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band joke?”

  “No!”

  She put on a suitably sincere face. “Sorry. No, it’s not asking too much. You just have to have faith in me, Pepper. I’ll find him for you, I promise.”

  “Before the end of the Faire,” I reminded her, feeling once again the brief flare of hope deep within me. Say what you will, CJ did seem to have an extraordinary talent in matching up her friends and acquaintances. Maybe my luck was about to change. Maybe it was my turn to have something go right. Maybe—Ow! “Cat, I swear to you by all that is holy, if you do not release the flesh of my ankle, I’ll be wearing a cat stole!”

  CJ snickered even harder as I squatted to disengage Moth’s claws from where he had attacked my naked ankle. “He’s just expressing his affection for you. He doesn’t like many people, you know. He tolerates Mom, but that’s because she’s the only one who feeds him. He pees in Dad’s shoes.”

  “He’s about to use up one of his nine lives,” I said grimly as I plopped the cat down onto the chair he was tied to. “Sit. Stay.”

  “You really don’t like animals, do you? No wonder you didn’t become a vet.”

  “It’s not that I don’t like them; I just don’t trust them. You never know what they’re thinking,” I said, glaring at the huge orange-legged cat until he curled up into roughly the shape of a meat loaf, his front legs tucked under his big white chest. I wasn’t at all fooled by the air of innocence the cat wore—I knew from experience that he had a particularly creative and vengeful mind. “You’re up to something; I know you are. Just don’t try it when I’m around,” I told the cat, then looked back at my cousin. “Beastly things, animals.”

  CJ giggled at my pun. “There speaks the daughter of a vet. How on earth could you grow up with animals all over your house and not love them?”

  “You have no idea what it was like having a mother who was more interested her four-legged clients than in her only child, but I know all too well how innocent-looking, cute, adorable beasts are really bloodsucking leeches that demand constant attention.”

  “Whatever.” CJ clearly wasn’t buying my sob story. She didn’t look the least bit sympathetic as she straightened her bloodred Irish dress and strapped on a long leather belt and tapestry pouch. “If it gives you pleasure to think you were abused, go for it. Just don’t say anything about not liking animals. Faire people are gaga over them, and that goes double when we’re talking about the way the men here adore their horses.”

  I shuddered and plucked the water bottle from where I’d set it, reveling in the icy cold as I guzzled thirstily. I had had the erroneous idea that because Ontario was farther north than Seattle, it wouldn’t get at all hot. I was very, very wrong. “Horses are
the worst,” I said, tossing the now-empty water bottle into one of the cardboard boxes used to hold bottles for refilling from the big ten-gallon water cooler CJ had lugged in. “They’re big, smelly, they step on you, and they eat your hair.”

  “Just because when you were a kid your mom had a horse that used to snack on you doesn’t mean that all of them—”

  “That horse was trouble on four hooves,” I interrupted, the memory of the indignities I suffered from the brute wonderfully clear in my mind. “But it wasn’t just him, monster that he was. They’re all like that. They’re big and pushy and they do whatever they want and stomp all over you while they’re doing it. Do you know that I still have scars on both feet from being run over by horses? At least with a cat you can confine it to a room. Horses are just impossible.”

  CJ pulled a suitcase toward her. “That is most definitely an opinion you should not share with anyone here unless you want to be lynched. Now, where did I put your garb?”

  “I don’t need any,” I said a bit petulantly, immediately feeling ashamed of myself. It wasn’t her fault my life was a disaster, and she had promised to do everything she could to match me up with my ideal mate—not that I was convinced she could do any such thing, even if I was the sort of a girl who’d fall for the kind of man who wore tights and a funny jester’s hat. Then again, some of the jousters that CJ had told me about on the trip up sounded intriguing, very masculine, filled with a dashing sense of adventure, with just a tiny smidgen of the thrill seeker. . . . Maybe I should think positive. I made a resolution right there to not be a clinging, whiny pain in the butt. So I was stuck with Moth watching and had to dress up like a medieval harlot—I could deal with that. The perks—hunky guys in knight clothes, one of whom could potentially be him—were sure to outweigh the drawbacks of the next two weeks.

  Or so I told myself. My Wise Inner Pepper was reserving judgment.

  “Here.” CJ extracted some garments from the suitcase and shoved them into my arms. “Go put your garb on. It’ll make you feel better.”

  “I hardly see how,” I muttered, but obediently ducked my head to enter the tent, chastising myself that ten seconds into my resolution, I’d already broken it. “Being self-conscious because I’m strapped into a harlot’s outfit is not generally known to make me feel better.”

  “Everyone wears garb at the Faire. You’d stand out if you didn’t. Besides, you’re a Wench, an official representative of the League of Wenches. It’s a violation of LOW bylaws for you to appear in street clothes at a Faire.”

  “You’re the one who signed me up,” I pointed out as I let the front flap fall so I could peel off my sticky clothes. I used another bottle of ice water to give myself a fast sponge bath as CJ puttered around outside the tent, shivering at the delicious feeling of the cold water on my sweaty flesh. No doubt I’d be refilling the big water cooler from the fairground’s water main frequently, but it was a small price to pay to cool down. “I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a League of Wenches, let alone that you were one of the Wench Pimps.”

  “That’s Madame Wench, missy! Charter members are all Madames. Newbies like you are Harlots until you prove your Wenchness and move up to Temptress status.”

  I slipped into a thin ankle-length cotton chemise before lacing up the black bodice with gold embroidery that CJ had presented to me.

  “How very—cheese on rye, how tight is this bodice supposed to be? My boobs are flowing over the top!—flattering to be known to all and sundry as a Harlot.”

  CJ popped her blond head into the tent and gave me the once-over. “Can you still breathe?”

  I straightened up and tried to take a breath. My lungs didn’t expand any noticeable amount, but I was still standing. “Yeah.”

  “Then it’s not tight enough. Hurry up; I want to get this gear stowed so we can go Wench Butcher and his team. He promised to bring his kilt, and I’m dying to do an official LOW kilt check on him.”

  The lascivious glint in her eyes told me everything I needed to know about just what a kilt check consisted of. “I can’t go out like this, Ceej. Look at my boobs!”

  She frowned as my hands fluttered around my chest. “What’s wrong with them?”

  I thinned my lips. “Well, for one, I no longer have individual breasts; I have a bosom shelf. This bodice is too small. My boobs are practically touching my chin.”

  She rolled her eyes and started to back out of the tent. “Don’t be silly; all boobs look like that in a properly fitted bodice. Guys love it. They’ll offer to drop grapes down your bosomage and do a grape dive. Don’t forget to put on your Wench pin. I have some favors you can give away, too.”

  I eyed the mound of breasts that rose like overflowing bread dough in a too-small pan. “I don’t think a grape would fit in there.”

  “Fine, you stay and fuss with your breasts. I’m going to go see what’s happening in the jousting field. Butcher and his team should be there practicing with their loaner horses. See you there. And don’t forget Moth. You’d better get your skirt on quick; he’s eating someone’s pennant now.”

  “Oh, lovely, he’ll probably barf all over me when I pick him up. God almighty, how am I supposed to bend in this bodice?” I asked as I shook the wrinkles out of a black-and-gold cotton ankle-length skirt and slipped it over my head, then spent five minutes twirling around ineffectually trying to see over the breast shelf to fasten the skirt’s buttons. “All I wanted was a chance to get away for a bit, a chance to find some nongeek potential husband material, and where do I end up? Cinched into a bodice with a four-legged, hairy companion who has a taste for canvas. Moth!” Skirt in place at last, I stepped out of the tent to find that Moth had dragged the chair over to a neighboring tent. I swore under my breath and ran out to get him.

  Right in front of a massive thundering herd of deranged killer horses.

  “Jesus effing Christ!” a male voice bellowed.

  I froze into a nearly six-foot-tall, begarbed, soon-to-be-trampled pillar of terror as a huge white horse screamed, rose up on his back legs, and pawed the air with razor-sharp hooves just inches from my head. The man on the horse’s back yelled something else, but I was too stunned and horrified to understand it. Just as the white devil’s hooves made the downswing straight toward my face, a black shape loomed up from the side of my vision, and suddenly every last molecule of air was driven from my lungs as a heavy arm grabbed me around the waist and swung me up and out of the way of certain death and dismemberment.

  Still stunned, my brain operating sluggishly, I turned my head at the same time I was slammed down hard on top of pair of muscular thighs, my right leg ramming painfully against the front of a deep, leather-covered wooden saddle.

  The man looking back at me was dressed in medieval clothing—a long, gorgeous red tunic embroidered with three golden dogs, black tights, and knee-high leather boots tied on with leather garters. The man’s eyes were a beautiful pure, unblemished gray ringed with black, and made positively devastating with the thickest black lashes I’d ever seen.

  “Wow,” I breathed as my mind suddenly came to life, realizing that the man had just saved me. “Rescued from certain death by a brave, dashing knight. It’s just like something out of a romance.”

  “You bloody idiotic fool!” the handsome dark-haired knight swore, his eyes narrowing in anger. “You stupid git! What the hell do you think you were doing? You could have killed someone! Are you completely daft, or do you just look it?”

  Well, it was almost like something out of a romance.

  Chapter Two

  “What the bloody hell were you thinking? You could have seriously hurt someone!”

  How mortifying. My first half hour at the Faire, and I was being yelled at by a big, handsome knight. On a horse.

  A really big horse.

  “Argh!” I clutched the angry knight’s arms as it suddenly struck me that I was perched a good six feet off the ground. “Look, I’m sorry, but this cat I’m babysitting ra
n out, and I just wanted to grab him before he ate someone’s tent.”

  The knight glared at me for a second. “I’m not talking to you.”

  “You’re not? Oh.” It took me a minute to realize that he was narrowing his eyes at the man facing us on the murderous white horse, the one that had almost run me down. I turned to add my glare to his. “Yeah! I could have been seriously hurt, not to mention what would have happened to Moth, and if you think I want to explain to my aunt that her precious baby was murdered by a horse, you can just think again.”

  The man on the white horse unhinged his metal helmet and took it off, pulling off a soft white cloth cap before shaking out a glorious mane of shoulder-length golden hair. Even red-faced from riding in full armor under the broiling August sun, he was handsome, handsome, handsome—tanned face, sun-streaked hair, vivid blue eyes, and one of those chiseled chins with a dimple in the middle. He didn’t even give me a glance as he fought to control his slobbering-all-over-the-bit, almost-bucking horse. “Walker, what a completely unexpected surprise. I had heard that the motley group of misfits you call a team had registered for the competition, but I never thought you’d actually have the balls to show up. That’s not really your forte, is it? Actual jousting, I mean, not just hulking around the fringes reliving the distant, vague images of your former glory.”

  “Farrell, I might have known it was you,” Walker rumbled. A little shiver went down my back at the sound of his voice. He was English (my favorite accent!), and his vocal cords must have been wrapped in velvet, because the words that emerged—when he wasn’t bellowing them—had the same effect on me as if I were being stroked by the softest touch imaginable. “No one else would be so arrogant, so self-centered, so stupid as to gallop a green horse through the tents.”

  “Green, but fully under my control,” the blond man named Farrell snapped. Evidently he didn’t like being called stupid by the rich velvet rumble that came deep out of Walker’s chest. I had the worst urge to lean back against him to listen to its source, but managed to keep myself from cuddling into his broad chest. This wasn’t the moment to investigate the interesting man behind me; this was the moment to request that he put me down—very slowly and carefully. Before I could ask, though, Farrell smirked and slapped Walker with a zinger. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a prime piece of flesh between your thighs, but I assure you that I am more than capable of controlling any ride.”