Love is a Battlefield: Games of Love, Book 1

by Tamara Morgan

  Stuart reminded Kate very much of a magnanimous king welcoming his prodigal knights. Julian chose the seat directly across from her, even though he had yet to acknowledge her sitting there. Michael, Peterson, McClellan and Nick followed suit. They dwarfed and outnumbered them all, and only Naomi and Anne seemed to appreciate them as they were due.

  It had only been a few days since Kate had seen Julian last, but she felt immediately warmer just being in his presence. He was dressed simply, as he always was, the stubble across his lower jaw perhaps a bit darker than she remembered. He looked more at ease than he’d been in a long time, perfectly in control of the situation even though there was no way he could have known what was coming.

  “We’re not exactly a battalion, but thanks for having us all the same,” Julian said, falling into his role as leader quite naturally. “Now. Does anyone care to tell us what’s going on?”

  He finally looked over at Kate, his eyes snapping, one eyebrow raised. All her body heat radiated to the surface, and only Anne’s hand pressing firmly on hers kept her from launching herself over the table to greet him more properly.

  “It has been brought to my attention that your two groups are in need of mediation,” Stuart began, his voice soft. “From what I understand, you both want the same venue for the same weekend and are unable to reach a fair consensus. Does this sound about right?”

  Kate nodded, watching Julian and the other guys react to the scene. Although Peterson and Michael exchanged glances, Julian didn’t move other than to cross his arms and sit back in his chair. If he was surprised or upset or feeling anything at all, it certainly didn’t appear so on the surface.

  Cool and calm and in command, no matter what the situation.

  “What I’ve been asked to propose is a final battle between the Scots and the English. One with rules and a fair outcome. Winner takes all—in this case, Cornwall Park and a whole lot of great publicity.”

  Lady Lovelace, caught up in the moment, clapped her hands excitedly. “A duel!”

  Julian’s jaw clenched—Kate could see the tick of it from across the table. “What kind of a duel?”

  “Battle chess,” Stuart said. “Live-action battle chess right here on the Knights of Mayhem fairgrounds.”

  Kate had seen a Renaissance group on television do one of them before. The chessboard had been painted on sixty-four giant squares of wood that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, which the group on the show packed up and took with them all over the country. The queen sat in a throne overlooking the entire board while her opponent stood on the other side. The opponent varied depending on where they were, though it was usually another member of the royalty or even a volunteer from a crowd of historical buffs and overstimulated teenage boys. The pieces, all of whom were part of the show, wore full costume and had both a winning and a losing move choreographed out. The game could last for hours, depending on how elaborate the moves were as each piece fell. Kate’s favorites had been the pawns, dressed up in fool’s garb like a row of little satiny Yoricks.

  It was silly, as far as olive branches went. It didn’t make up for Julian turning her down or for Jada filling his tent with snakes. But it was what she had to offer.

  Just let it be enough.

  Her eyes met Julian’s as the idea exploded throughout the room. Although everyone started talking at once, even Lady Lovelace gurgling with excitement as the challenge was laid out on the table, it felt like it was just the two of them in the room.

  “How many reporters are we talking?”

  “Great exposure for all of us—”

  “An unprecedented number of attendees—”

  “I want to carry a battle axe. Do I get to carry a battle axe?”

  Julian and Kate remained silent. He looked straight at her, an inquiring lift to one brow, what might have been a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. She stared back at him, trying to hide the fact that her heart raced in unbidden circles around her chest.

  The battle-chess match would involve a lot of people and a lot of last-minute preparation. It required the coordination of all three groups. But in that moment, she needed Julian to know that the challenge was for him alone to accept or deny.

  Accept it, Julian, she wanted to scream. Accept me.

  But she didn’t. If they had any chance at all, this needed to come from him.

  “We’ll do it.”

  Julian’s words were barely audible among the voices clanging about in the room, but he let them sit there for a moment all the same. By the time everyone caught on, his face had broken into a grin that Kate could feel all the way down to her toes.

  “I don’t think you realize it, Kate, but I’m an exceptional chess player.” He inclined his head in a slight bow, and Kate lost all track of the rest of the conversation. Details, dates, times—they were all there, buzzing about and falling into place. But she didn’t hear a thing other than the heavy pounding of her own heart and the roar of blood in her head.

  Unless she was very much mistaken, Julian Wallace, the unmovable warrior, had just agreed to meet her halfway.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Battle Cry

  “Gareth called again,” his mother announced the moment Julian walked through the front door. “I think it’s important.”

  Julian dropped the gym bag he’d been carrying and stepped out of his shoes. Guilt pinged in his stomach, and it was only by focusing all his attention on his feet that he was able to successfully avoid both it and his mother’s eyes at the same time.

  Of course he owed Gareth a phone call. He also owed half a dozen calls to other vendors and the crew in charge of setting up the platforms and tents for the Games. He was ignoring them on purpose.

  “I’m not feeding you until you give me an explanation.”

  Mothers. They knew just where to hit the hardest. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think she and Kate were in some sort of collaboration to end him.

  “It’s not a big deal,” Julian offered, even though it was. Once again, he was losing sight of the things that were supposed to mean the most. “Gareth is probably wondering where he needs to drop off the cabers, and I don’t want to call him back until I know the answer. We’ve got three days until the Games, and right now there’s no place to call home.”

  “I thought you fixed that,” Beth said. “Nala said you were going to do some Dungeons and Dragons role-playing stuff to figure it out. Please don’t tell me I have to go, Mom. It’s so embarrassing already.”

  Only the top of Beth’s head was visible above the back of the recliner. Julian reached down and gave her hair a quick tussle. “It’s not D&D, brat. It’s chess. Perfectly nerd-free.”

  “Is everyone going to be wearing costumes?” she asked, swatting at his hands.

  “Of course.”

  Beth made a scoffing noise. “Nerd-free, my ass.”

  “Elizabeth Wallace, you watch your tongue.”

  True to teenage form, Beth grabbed her book and stormed away, muttering something about families and the end to all social aspirations.

  “What’s with her lately?” Julian asked as he pulled out his phone and ran over the list of missed calls. Just a few of the reporters he’d contacted about the upcoming chess game and the sheepdog demonstrators, it looked like. Nothing from Rockland Bluff Whisky.

  Nothing from Kate.

  “She misses you.”

  Julian’s whole body tensed until he realized it wasn’t Kate his mother was talking about. She meant Beth. She meant the family. He shoved the phone back into his pocket. “No way. She hasn’t missed me since she was five years old and I moved away from home for the first time.”

  “Julian, you are so like your stepfather, sometimes I have a hard time believing you don’t have his blood.”

  Julian beamed.

  Until his mom swatted him on the head. It stung with reproach. “You’ve been so busy with all your planning and practice, you’ve been a ghost around here. You used to come home to
spend time with your family. This year, it’s all about whisky and winning.”

  “I come home whenever I can,” Julian protested, knowing it was a weak excuse. “I’m here now, aren’t I? And where’s Beth? Up in her room, as far from me as possible. Nala too. She’s the real ghost around here.”

  “The real ghost around here is Harold. Jules, you need to put that man to rest and move on with your life.”

  “But—”

  “And call Gareth back. I taught you better than that.”

  With those words, his mom walked away, leaving him standing once more, alone in the living room. He sank into the couch, head in hands. Things were supposed to be getting better. They had a plan of action for getting Cornwall Park. They had a huge number of news reporters coming out to the battle-chess match, a fact that Rockland Bluff Whisky couldn’t help but notice. Kilroy had become all but invisible over the past few days, and Julian had to assume he was holed up somewhere, doing some last-minute prep work to try to win the Games.

  But something was missing—and he knew damn well what, or rather, who, that was.

  It was funny. If someone had asked him a few weeks ago how he felt about sharing a campground with that lot of Regency-obsessed women, he would have been full of snide remarks. Now that he was back in his apartment, he actually missed Kate more than he’d ever thought possible. He missed her grumpy frown in the morning. He missed her gallons of bug spray. He missed knowing that even if the two of them weren’t exactly on the same side, she was only a stone’s throw away and game for a fight.

  She still is, he reminded himself. Even after all that had happened between them, she was still game for a fight. He’d had no idea Kate had so much ingenuity inside her. The battle chess was a stroke of genius—for both their sides. They could save face. They could play chess. It was fair all the way around, and it didn’t hurt that chess was one of the many things Harold had taught him. A man’s game, he’d always vowed. All logic and wee phallic chess pieces.

  Julian also knew, deep down, that it meant Kate was beginning to understand what the Games meant to him and how important it was that he finish this first. Then they could try all over again. Then maybe they had a chance.

  As they pulled into the Renaissance village the next morning in preparation for the chess match, Julian was almost ready to lay down his sword and let the JARRS group have Cornwall Park. The fairgrounds were amazing.

  Sherwood Forest, as it was aptly named, sat back from the highway by several miles, and there weren’t any buildings or houses for as far as the eye could see. The Knights of Mayhem owned the space, since the land had been donated years ago, and they’d been building on the site for years. Like a real village, it had started as a small collection of buildings in the center. As the years progressed, it had expanded outward until what they had now was a concentric ring of circles, each containing more specialized vendor stands and performance areas, including a jousting ring and a public square.

  To the back of the village there was a large expanse of field which was almost the exact size of the space they used for the Highland Games every year. Except instead of booths or the materials the SHS used, there was an enormous wooden structure Peterson informed him with awe was a real, working trebuchet.

  “These people must have a lot of money,” Peterson said, shaking his head. Most of the guys had gathered in this back field, surveying what might very well be their home for this year. Julian tried not to think what that said about his men’s faith in his chess abilities.

  “Do you think they’d let us use the trebuchet?” Nick added. “I mean, if we do end up here? We could add a whole new event. Haggis flinging.”

  Michael puffed his chest up and boomed a hearty laugh. “Who needs a piece of machinery for that? I fling my haggis whenever I get the chance.”

  In all honesty, Julian could easily see them performing here just as well as at Cornwall Park. They were all dressed in full battle mode in their athletic gear—not quite the formal wear they donned for the ceremonies, but kilts in their respective plaids and, for most of them, T-shirts or other clothing that was loose enough to allow them freedom of movement. Michael wore the same Metallica shirt he’d been wearing to the Games for years, and Nick went without one at all, though he’d strapped a pair of leather bandoliers across his bare chest out of respect for the ladies. It held a few dirks that could easily be pulled out for battle. The dirks were his weapon of choice for the game.

  It had taken some hashing out, but they’d eventually decided to let the men, or women, as the case may be, determine their own attack moves. Each participant had winning and losing steps planned, and depending on how Julian and Kate—the kings on each team—played the game, they would act out their role accordingly.

  “Have you decided the positions yet, Jules? Because I’ll tell you right now, I’m not gonna be a pawn.” McClellan’s arms crossed his chest, and his leg tapped restlessly underneath his kilt. “I want to be a rook, at least. A knight would be even better.”

  “You can’t be a knight. Reggie and I are the knights,” interjected another man. Jacob, Julian realized when the man cracked his knuckles ominously.

  Julian sighed. The men circling him seemed to be pulsing with some unnamed discontent.

  “Well, some of you have to be the pawns,” he said.

  “Pawns,” McClellan explained with painstaking slowness, “are for sissies. I’m not going out there to act like a sissy in front of a crowd of people expecting pure manly might.”

  Julian gave a low chuckle and shrugged. “Well, Mikey here’s going to be the queen. If he’s not complaining, I don’t see why the rest of you feel justified.”

  He was greeted by the obligatory round of guffaws, but Michael coughed before it got too far, raising one of his hands and silencing the crowd like a Biblical figure of old.

  “Laugh if you will. But I brought this claymore…”

  “A claymore?” Julian asked. “I said you could bring a signature move to the board—not an arsenal. You do know this is a family event?”

  Michael waved him off and winked, turning his attention to the other athletes. “I’ll keep it safe, bro. No worries here. Anyway, it’s this Celtic replica my cousin Jennings had lying around. He used to keep it in a glass case with all his other antique crap, but now it’s mine. Queen? Please. No queen would carry this shit.”

  He grinned and swung his arms over his head like he was getting ready to toss his hammer. “I’m going to wave it over my head, like this, and then take the other guy out at his knees. Then I’m going to stomp on his neck as he falls to the ground.”

  Michael was so earnest in his movements, Julian had to laugh.

  “Dude, you’re joking, right? Kate’s team is going to be made up mostly of little old ladies wearing fancy gowns and crying into handkerchiefs. You’re going to pretend to snap a grandma’s neck with your steel-toed boots? In front of her whole family?”

  Michael shrugged good-naturedly. “Well, it is battle chess. We have to put on something of a show. Give the people their money’s worth.”

  Julian imagined the shocked look on Kate’s face when he brought his men in full Highland dress, a mixture of authentic weapons and replicas in their hands. This was her idea, but he was really warming to it. It was going to be great.

  He nodded his consent. “See, McClellan? Why don’t you use your hammer and improv it? I’m sure you’ll think of something awesome. In the heat of battle and all.”

  “Be the pawn,” McClellan nodded, considering the plan. “The pawn with the shot put. Or a caber. All right, Jules. I’ll do it. But if you sacrifice me to one of those old ladies and I have to go down on the end of a knitting needle, you’re going to owe me. Big time.”

  As if on cue, the town crier came running past them, a blur of blue velvet and heraldic embroidery, calling out the hour and announcing the commencement of the live battle-chess match.

  “Men, to your weapons,” Julian called, getting into th
e spirit of it. “We’re wanted on the field.”

  “Wait,” Michael called, holding up a hand. “We need to discuss one last thing.”

  Julian forced a patient look on his face. “We don’t want to miss this, Mikey. It’s kind of a big deal.”

  “The shorts.”

  “What shorts?” Julian was instantly wary.

  “You know what shorts I mean, Jules.” Michael looked around the group of men, all of them sharing knowing looks Julian wished he could ignore. “I think we need to show these people what being a Scottish athlete is all about.”

  He reached under his kilt and pulled down his boxer shorts with a flourish, but they caught on his heavy work boots, and he ended up standing there with them pooled around his feet. It didn’t seem to matter to him.

  “Let’s do this old-school style,” Michael announced, nodding his head knowingly and admiring his own underwear.

  No way. Not at a public venue. Not with reporters coming. Not when every single member of the Knights of Mayhem and the Jane Austen Regency Re-Enactment Society had invited their extended families.

  “Let’s vote on it!” one of the other men cried.

  “A vote!”

  Julian prided himself on his leadership abilities and his skill at calling men into line. But when every single hand except his shot up with a hearty roar, he realized this was one area in which he had no authority.

  “All right, guys, you win. Let’s do this.”

  It was go full commando or go home.

  The Scottish team moved as one toward the throne tower at the center of the village.

  In the first ring outside the center, there were mostly vendor booths and displays. An apothecary stand had several ropes hanging from the beams across the top. From the looks of it, there were garlic bulbs, dried herbs and various soaps for sale.

  Taverns were there too, windowless buildings that smelled of yeast and hops. There was also a clothing shop, which featured everything from New Age jewelry to more authentic costume items, though it looked to be closed up for the battle-chess event. Two outdoor cookeries were visible, one boasting an open fire pit, the other a brick-like oven from which the smell of roasting meat could already be detected. A fortune teller’s tent and a blacksmith’s shop filled the rest of the space, which would have been really cool except it contained a wall of weapons very clearly marked NOT FOR SALE.