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.
“Deep breaths, gorgeous.” Mitch planted one huge hand square in the middle of my back and gave me a little shove, propelling me down the center aisle toward the stage, where my pirate awaited me. He hopped to the ground and met me toward the front of the aisle.
“I ask you, Emma.” His voice was softer now, pitched lower, more for me and less for the world at large. He extended a hand to me and I didn’t hesitate to take it. When his hand closed around mine, solid and sure, all my shaking stopped and the apprehension drained away even as he led me onto the stage. He wouldn’t let me barf in front of all these people. With my hand in his, I felt safe. I was still aware of the audience, but the world that mattered had shrunk down to the two of us. “Would you say that you have been successfully wooed on this day?” The accent was Captain Blackthorne’s, but the words, the voice, were all Simon.
His eyes smiled down into mine, and I knew I looked utterly ridiculous in my blue and white wench ensemble all but covered with red roses. But I also knew, as I smiled back at him, that I had never been so happy, and never felt so much a part of something in my life. Not only Simon, but the entire Faire around us, had become my home.
“Aye, sir.” I stuck the rose I still carried behind his ear. “I have indeed been wooed.”
His smile became a grin, then a laugh, and without any further warning he slid one arm around my back, the other around my shoulders, and he dipped me, as though we were the romantic finale of a black-and-white movie, and while my head spun from the change in equilibrium he kissed me, to the cheers of everyone. His mouth on mine did nothing to stop my head from spinning, but his hands were supportive and strong. He wouldn’t let me fall.
Once he let me up again and we were off the stage, he drew me close into an embrace as the clapping died down. “Come