A Knight to Remember
by Bridget Essex
Synopsis:
A librarian, a warrior woman, and a love story that's out of this world...
Holly tells herself that the reason she hasn’t asked her girlfriend to move in (after four years of dating) is that she’s too busy–but it isn’t true. A very book-obsessed librarian, Holly has buried herself in so many romantic and magical stories, that at night, she dreams of a woman who will sweep her off her feet–something her indifferent girlfriend has never done. But one night, during an unusually vicious storm, magic and romance appear in Holly’s backyard in the form of a mysterious, gorgeous woman…wielding a sword.
The dashing stranger’s name is Virago. She claims that she’s a warrior on the hunt for a great and terrible beast; that she, and the beast, slipped through a portal from their world into ours. Holly isn’t sure what to believe, but she is now responsible for a (possibly crazy) swordswoman who is bewildered by modern-day conveniences like escalators, but not by the chivalry of sweeping a woman off her feet.
Can Holly help Virago find her own world again, or will that falling-in-love thing get in the way? And, of course, there’s the tiny problem of the beast Virago wounded that is now seeking revenge…
A KNIGHT TO REMEMBER is a light-hearted, fantastical romance that will take you on a journey you’ll never forget. It is approximately 74,000 words (several days worth of reading or so).
"A Knight to Remember"
© Bridget Essex 2014
Rose and Star Press
First Edition
All rights reserved
No part of this e-book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Rose and Star Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews. Please note that piracy of copyrighted materials is illegal and directly harms the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Dedication:
For my own lady knight in shining armor—who, instead of a sword, wields a pen. I love you and every adventure we’ve shared together. Here’s to countless more.
And this book is especially dedicated to Mrs. P. Thank you for always handing me a stack of books and for listening. Without your humbling kindness, I would never have become a writer. You changed my life for the good, and I’m grateful.
Contents:
Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End
Chapter 2: It’s in a Book
Chapter 3: Virago
Chapter 4: Another World
Chapter 5: Modern Miracles
Chapter 6: Do You Believe in Magic?
Chapter 7: Two Stories
Chapter 8: Fiction
Chapter 9: Things Left Unsaid
Chapter 10: The Red Herring
Chapter 11: Open Doors
Chapter 12: Books and Breakups
Chapter 13: The Joust
Chapter 14: Hunter and Hunted
Chapter 15: Remember Me
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End
Everyone but me loves a Renaissance Festival.
I mean, how can I not, right? At the Ren Faire, you can get gigantic turkey legs on sticks, watch “wenches” wrestling in the mud while yelling medieval insults at each other and see gigantic, gorgeous horses bedecked in colorful armor carrying jousting knights (who also yell medieval insults at each other, but are usually a little less covered in mud). I mean, I know this might not sound like everyone’s cup of tea, but it was certainly mine.
I used to look forward to July more than any other time of the year, because July was when the Knights of Valor Festival would pull up in its creaking, rusted train cars and set up in a little local dog park on the edge of Boston for a week. I’d get all dressed in traditional wench wear (which basically means that my chest was almost entirely visible in my daringly low cut white “wench blouse”), spend all of my money on overpriced fried food and hand-made artisanal soap, yell “huzzah!” approximately eighty thousand times, and generally be the happiest person in the world.
But this was all before Nicole. Or “BN,” as Carly loves to put it.
I sigh as we pull into the parking lot that has been set up on the very edge of the dog park. Before us spreads out the chaotic brightly colored tents of the festival. I can already see one of the large horses—bedecked in purple and gold ribbons dangling from his halter—being shoed by a traditional blacksmith behind one of the largest tents, and the scent of turkey legs is already pumping in through the car vents. Somewhere distantly, I can hear lute music. All of this should spell happiness. But my best friend Carly puts the car into park, switches off the ignition, and savagely rips the cap off of her lipstick and starts to apply it.
Carly silently applying lipstick means that Carly was angry. Carly pretty much never does anything silently.
“You know…” I begin, licking my lips. I clear my throat. “You know, it might actually be fun today,” I tell Carly, who’s still glowering at her reflection in the rearview mirror. She snaps the cap back on her “Vixen-Red” lipstick and stares at me with one perfectly manicured eyebrow raised.
“Right. Because it’s been just so much fun the past four years,” she snorts, pushing up her visor with a roll of her eyes that’s so hard, the force of her sarcasm practically melts the steering wheel.
“Carly…you don’t have to come with us,” I murmur, scrunching down in the passenger seat, shoulders hunched forward as my tiny bit of hope gets squashed. I know she doesn’t mean for it to hurt, but it does. I mean, I wish it wasn’t like this, too, but…
“Hey. Hey,” sighs Carly, glancing sidelong at me. “Look—you’re my best friend in this entire universe, and several parallel dimensions, okay?” She holds my gaze for a long moment as she reaches across the space between us and squeezes my hand tightly. “I would march with you to hell and back if it’s where you wanted to go on summer vacation.” Her eyes narrow. “But I’m also allowed to think that your girlfriend is an asshole if, you know, she actually is.” Carly pulls down the visor again and stabs another bobby pin through her tight red curls and slightly-drooping flower crown.
“I mean, asshole’s a little harsh,” I begin, but then there’s a sharp rap at my window.
And speak of the devil…there’s Nicole.
When Nicole told me, a few nights ago, that Carly and I should go to the festival together, and she’d meet us there on her way home from work, I’d had my doubts she was even going to show up at all. I mean, I think it’s safe to say that the Renaissance Festival isn’t exactly her scene. But no—I was wrong. She was here.
As I stare up at her through the window, at her bright blue eyes that stare deeply into mine for half a heartbeat, I wonder if this means I’ve been wrong about other things. She tried this time. That counts for something.
But my girlfriend, the girlfriend I’ve been with for five years, doesn’t exactly look happy to see me. Yes, her gaze flicks to mine for that heartbeat, but then those piercing eyes are trained back onto her cell phone. Nicole’s standing outside of the car in her blue power suit with the crisp creases in the legs, soft black briefcase dangling from her bright red fingertips, smart phone in the process of becoming glued to her ear already. And she’s frowning deeply, her full lips curling down at the corners. She turns away from me, speaking sharply into the phone.
I hold tightly to my door handle, take a deep breath and open it. No matter what, at least she’s here, right?
“Ass
hole,” Carly repeats quietly to me, and then we’re both out of the car, standing on the grass of the “parking lot.”
Nicole doesn’t even look up at me, hasn’t greeted me, hasn’t even grunted in acknowledgement that I’m here. We haven’t gotten a chance to ask each other how work was, because we don’t really do that anymore. And I know—my day at the library wasn’t all that exciting, really, but still. I did survive another day cataloging the gigantic endowment left by Mrs. Herschel. The most exciting thing that happened was my eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I’d left in the library lunchroom for two weeks and then found miraculously when I moved the discarded magazines off the table. The sandwich was still tasty, and I didn’t die from food poisoning. And if Nicole could unglue the smart phone from her ear for a moment, wipe off the purely disgusted look she has on her face when she glances at the row of people dressed to the nines in period garb, already making their way into the festival, I could tell her that story about my sandwich. Or at least tell her “hello.”
But she doesn’t unglue the smart phone from her ear. She doesn’t look my way as she sneers into her phone.
She doesn’t want to be here. It’s obvious. So painfully obvious.
I realize, my gut clenching, tension rushing through me already, that I honestly wish she hadn’t come at all.
“David says he’ll be here shortly,” says Carly, glancing down at the phone in her hand when it makes its bicycle bell sound to alert her to his text message. When she says the name “David,” her voice goes all gooey, like she’s been eating cotton candy, and I grin sidelong at her, folding my arms in front of me and leaning against the side of her badly rusted Ford Escort. I’m glad Carly has David. They’re good people, and he’s a good guy, and she really deserves a good guy.
And hey, at least two people in our group of four are going to have a good time today.
I sneak a glance at Nicole. She’s turned completely away from us now, brandishing her hand as she shakes her head sharply, practically seething into the phone.
Awkward silence crushes us in place for five minutes as Nicole works on her phone, continuing to mutter short, sharp phrases into it until I shift uncomfortably against the car and clear my throat. Nicole holds up a finger, her other hand furiously pressing at the screen of the smart phone as she ends another call.
“This is important…” she mutters, and then puts it up to her ear, walking away down the line of cars. She still hasn’t looked at me. “Jeff?” she says crisply into the smart phone as she raises her chin, her eyes flashing. “Yes, this is Nicole Harken…” She stalks quickly away from us, down the staggered line of cars parked on the grass.
“Okay, seriously, Holly—why are you two still together?” asks Carly then in frustration. Her extremely curly red hair is blowing in a slight wind, her eyes are narrowed as she stares at me, and even though I really, really didn’t want to have this conversation (again) today, I’m struck by how dramatic she looks. The wind is actually blowing through her hair quite briskly, like she’s on the set of a fantasy movie and about to go into battle…and not asking me painful personal questions. I clear my throat, shift my weight against her car and purposefully look away, my mouth suddenly dry. But she doesn’t let up. “Holly…” Carly murmurs, stepping forward, looping one of her arms through mine tightly. “You could be so happy. I promise you, have I ever steered you wrong?”
I glance up at her, already feeling the lump in my throat as I swallow again. I just wanted to have a nice evening at the Renaissance Festival. I breathe out. “Well,” I say, trying to crack a joke, “there was that one time in college—”
“Okay, whatever, we were in college. Stop bringing up the Bunny Disaster, would you?” she chuckles, but then pins me in her gaze again. “C’mon, Holly, serious time, okay? I’ve seen you happy. I’ve seen you with ladies that are really good for you, and I can tell you, as your best friend and person who’s had a lot of experience seeing you through your highs and lows, Nicole is a definite, definite low. You’re not a good match, and it needs to end. I mean, you want it to end, so why are you dragging this out? Just dump her. She doesn’t care about you. We’ve been over this a thousand times—” she groans.
I disengage Carly’s arm from mine quickly (and with a hope that Nicole actually didn’t hear us) as Nicole turns and stalks back toward Carly’s car, phone smoothly tucked into her suit pocket. “Hello,” she finally tells me, but the word is cut off and curt, and she merely nods her head to Carly, and then smiles a little at me, though it’s strained. She looks around, her long fingers nervously patting the suit pocket where she just, seconds before, deposited her phone, like she can hardly function without that device in her hand. “Anyway, ladies, where’s David? I can only stay here maybe a half hour, hour tops—there’s an account that I have to—”
“Look, Nicole, it costs fifteen bucks to get in,” says Carly, voice sharp as she curls her shoulders forward toward Nicole, her hackles obviously rising. “You’re just going to waste fifteen bucks on a half hour? Holly’s been looking forward to this for—”
“Carly, stop,” I mutter, voice quiet. Nicole’s eyebrows are both up, and she stands with her feet apart, high heels beginning to sink into the turf beneath them, so that she sort of bends backwards, trying to maintain her balance.
“Look, this wasn’t the best day for me. I had to clear my schedule when I had no time to do so, and my assistant Mikaylah is working double-time,” says Nicole, words just as sharp as Carly’s. “I’m closing a new account that’s taken me months, and—”
“Well, this happens to be your girlfriend’s favorite day of the year. Or it was,” Carly hisses, and I gulp down air and am about to interject (or possibly fling myself between them) when I see David walking down the row of cars toward us, waving his empty flagon in the air (I see he brought the one with the axe on the side. David, in fact, has several flagons) with a very happy grin.
And, just like that, the spell is broken. Carly’s not paying attention to Nicole anymore—she’s running toward David with an equally happy grin on her face. Relief rushes through me.
God, things have been so tense lately. Tense between Nicole and me…tense between Carly and Nicole. I run a hand through my hair and swallow as we begin to walk after them.
“Half an hour,” Nicole mutters to me as David falls in line with Carly, and I fall in line with her as we make our way toward the brightly painted ticket turret. I reach across the space between us to take Nicole’s hand, but she snatches it away as her pocket vibrates, and then she slides her hand into the pocket, and that damnable phone is in her grasp again. She’s got her jaw set as she leans away from me, and it looks like she’s permanently glued that phone to her ear.
Carly’s wrong. Nicole’s not an asshole. I know I’m her girlfriend, I’m kind of biased—who really wants to think their partner is an asshole? But I promise you: she isn’t. She’s just preoccupied and very, very busy, and that doesn’t make her an asshole. But it makes me wish…
Well. Wish for what exactly? Nicole and I have been together four years. In the beginning? God, in the beginning, we were great together. There was a point about three years ago that I really thought that Nicole was the woman I’d spend the rest of my life with.
So our relationship didn’t start out like this…hardly ever talking anymore, me being pushed to the back burner so that she could grow her business. Over time, we sort of fell out of the new love romance. You know the kind—the sappy, warm, sexy wonderfulness that people say never lasts when you get into a new relationship and that other person is literally all you can think about.
But I’d like to be thought of at least sometimes.
Sometimes, I wish I could fix it—use some sort of magic potion that would make all of the responsibilities at her start-up company sort of dissolve into a pile of goo I could mop up and dispose of. But I know I can’t. In the beginning, our relationship was really important to both of us. But then Nicole stopped reme
mbering things like dates we were supposed to go on, showing up at my house when she said she would, skipping dinners that we were supposed to make for each other. She kept blaming these absences and forgetfulness on her company, but all of the signs were there, staring me right in the face. It was obvious that she wasn’t invested in us anymore. And it’s been obvious for awhile.
I know we have to break up, and I think Nicole knows it, too.
We’re just putting off the inevitable.
Four years? That’s a long time. A long time and a pretty big relationship investment. And, frankly, a great big percentage of your heart, after all.
Right now, we’re still together because it’s comfortable. There’s so much of her stuff at my place, and so much of my stuff at her place, and it’s just so damn messy. Everything’s so damn messy.
I shake myself out of my melancholy (or, at the very least, try to), as we approach the ticket turret. I pay for both Nicole and I when it’s our turn in line, the “wench” behind the counter leaning forward and winking at me as she hands me my change, because she winks at everyone. I know she’s paid to wink at everyone, but I still make a sidelong glance quickly to Nicole to see if she even noticed. But nope. Still chatting away on her cell phone as I slip her ticket into her hand. She crumples it and slides it into her pocket, mouthing to me “five seconds” as she turns away and stalks quickly into the festival, moving apart from us.
Carly shoots daggers at Nicole, reaching back and looping her arm through mine as she tugs me forward. “Okay,” she smiles encouragingly at me. “What do we want to do first?” she asks, as we walk into the festival.
I take a deep breath, inhaling the scent of horse (we’re close to the jousting “arena”), leather and frying turkey legs that permeates the air. Incense is lingering in the air because we’re close to the lady who hand rolls incense and makes her own soap. I let my thoughts settle, try to calm my heart, soften the little bolt of pain that keeps twisting when I hear Nicole’s voice rise above the “huzzahs!” behind us, talking about accounts and dollar figures and how sorry she is that it’s so difficult to hear her because she was “roped into this thing” she “couldn’t get out of.”
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