Hard Day's Knight

  “Nope, I’m heart free,” I said with an answering smile, sliding CJ a questioning look. I did a little eyebrow semaphore to let her know that I was perfectly willing to entertain the idea of Vandal as a mate if she, the queen of matchmaking, thought it was a good idea. Her eyebrows signaled back uncertainty.

  “Lovelier words I have never heard, unless they be ‘I name thee tourney champion,’ ” Vandal said, possessing himself of my hand in order to kiss it. Moth, who had been disgusted with the fact that I kept leaping up to cheer on the jousters, was sitting next to me wearing an extremely pained look on his white face. When Vandal reached for my hand the cat hissed and flattened his ears back. Vandal snatched his hand back quickly.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized, clamping a hand down over Moth’s head. He glared at me from between my fingers. “He’s a very bad cat.”

  “Protective of his lady. An admirable quality in one so . . . erm . . . diminutive,” Vandal said, eyeing Moth’s rotund sides. “Might I beg for the honor of your company later tonight, say, at the dinner hour? I know of a perfectly divine inn where the mead flows like a honeyed river, and the roast boar is most delectable.”

  “Does he talk like that all the time?” I asked CJ, amazed that anyone could get so much into his persona.

  “Yes. Don’t buy that line about honeyed rivers. He uses it in other contexts, too, which has given him the title of Champion of the Medieval Pickup Lines.”

  “I am beset by a desire in my loins, dearest lady, and only you can quench its fire,” Vandal said in a soft, seductive tone, his dark blue eyes going into flirting overtime.

  Moth growled at him.

  “Alas, brave sir knight,” I said, getting into the swing of the thing (when in Rome and all that), “yonder kitty finds your loins unworthy of my extinguishing attempts. Mayhap another time I could tame?”

  “Anytime,” Vandal all but cooed, and I think he would have braved Moth’s displeasure to kiss my hand, but just then Walker, who was standing a few yards behind him in the practice ring, yelled his name.

  “Stop slobbering on the woman and suit up, Vandal. You and Bliss are next.” Walker’s velvety voice had an underthread of steel that sent a little shiver up my back and down my arms.

  Vandal slid him a questioning look, but nodded before giving both CJ and me another bow, excusing himself to go don his mail.

  “He wasn’t doing anything wrong, Walker,” CJ called as Vandal headed at a trot for the stable. “Just flirting. You know Vandal—he doesn’t mean any of it.”

  “He might not with you,” Walker answered with a dark look at me, “but that’s because he knows Butcher would have his balls on a platter if he touched you. Other women aren’t excluded from his less than honorable intentions.”

  “Wow, a man who knows what honor is,” I said facetiously. I don’t know what it was about Walker that had me wanting to alternate between a full swoon and teasing the smug look right off his face, but I just couldn’t refrain from tweaking his nose a little, so to speak. I’ve always been partial to a man who can parry words as well as a sword. “I wonder if we can clone you?”

  He glared at me. I smiled back. “You wouldn’t, by any chance, be feeling protective of me since you saved my life?”

  “Hell, no!”

  “He saved your life?” CJ asked, looking from me to Walker and back. “You said you ran into him. How did he save your life?”

  “He rode in just like a knight saving a lady from a dastardly villain, only the villain was a big, mean white horse. One moment I was a nanosecond away from a horribly painful death; the next I was crushed up against Walker’s manly chest. It was very romantic.” I sighed, peeking from the corner of my eye to watch Walker.

  “It was not romantic,” he answered, looking disgusted at the very idea.

  “Yes, it was.” I batted my eyes at him, thoroughly enjoying the horrified look that flitted across his face at my next words. “A lesser woman might have swooned into his strong arms and begged him to make her his woman, but alas, what with him and Farrell insisting on trying to stretch me on some sort of equine rack, I had no chance to swoon and beg. Perhaps later?”

  “I’m busy,” he said quickly, and almost ran back to where Vandal and Bliss were coming into the ring.

  “That was fun.” I giggled to CJ as I watched him walk away. My mind went a little girlie on me there for a couple of seconds while it admired the natural saunter in his stride, not to mention the long line of his strong legs. Unfortunately his tunic hid all the good parts, but I allowed myself a moment of fantasy about just what his backside would look like before I realized that CJ wasn’t giggling with me. “Wasn’t that fun?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, a faint frown between her brows.

  “I was flirting, Ceej. You told me I have to be proactive, so that’s what I’m doing. Flirting is step one in the hunt for a mate.”

  “You didn’t flirt with Vandal,” she said slowly, looking at me as if it were the first time she’d seen me. “Every woman who can breathe flirts with Vandal. Every woman but you.”

  I shrugged. “He’s just so obvious. Where’s the sport in that?” I let my eyes drift back to the broad-shouldered, long-legged, smooth-voiced man in the ring. “I prefer my prey to be a little more of a challenge.”

  “Yes, but—” CJ bit the words off without continuing.

  “But what?”

  “But Walker isn’t . . . he’s not . . . he’s just . . .”

  “What? Married? Involved with someone? Gay? A eunuch?”

  “No to all of those—at least, the last time Butcher wrote to me Walker wasn’t involved with anyone.”

  “Then what’s your objection? Honestly, Ceej, here you are ready to do the matchmaking thing, and you get all dismal on me when I do a little constructive flirting.”

  “He’s not right for you,” she blurted out quickly, clutching my arm. “There, are you happy? You made me say it. He’s not right for you. He’s not the one you should end up with. He’ll only bring you unhappiness. Look somewhere else, Pepper. I don’t want to see you hurt, but pain is all you’ll get from Walker.”

  “You can say that again,” a smiling, auburn-haired, very tanned woman said as she stopped at the bottom of the bleachers. She wrinkled her perfect nose at CJ. “I know you, don’t I? You’re one of the British team, yes?”

  “No. My boyfriend is,” CJ answered, giving me an unreadable look.

  “Oh, yes,” the woman said. She held out her hand and gave us a bright smile. “I’m Veronica Tyler.”

  CJ shook her hand politely. “This is my cousin, Pepper Marsh. I’m CJ Brand.”

  “How nice. Do you joust?” Veronica asked me.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Who, me? No! Don’t know the first thing about it.”

  “Oh.” Her emerald gaze raked over me, making me extremely aware that I was hot, sweaty, my hair was pulled back in a simple scrunchy, and I had a shelf bosom, whereas she looked cool and stylish with perfectly coiffed short ’do, a green-and-cream-striped tunic with a tiny palm tree emblem over her left breast, matching cream tights, and boots that went up to midthigh. “I assumed if you were Walker’s new squeeze that you’d joust.”

  “I’m not his squeeze,” I said, pulling Moth closer to me to make room for her. “I just met him an hour ago.”

  “No? Mmm. You’re just his type. He loves red-heads.” She touched her auburn hair with a long-nailed hand, then sat on the other side of the cat and watched the ring for a moment. In it, Bliss and Vandal were taking their positions.

  I wanted to ask her if she was making such obvious insinuations for any particular reason, but decided that it wasn’t cool to be so suspicious right off the bat. Too, it wasn’t as if I had any right to be jealous or put out by her obvious (and assumedly ex-) girlfriend-hood. I wasn’t serious about flirting with Walker.

  There’s nothing wrong with investigating all possibilities, Wise Inner Pepper said as I thought back to the feeling of bei
ng held on Walker’s lap. I ignored my inner voice, telling myself I wasn’t really interested in Walker; I just liked to tease him. I was only amusing myself, indulging in a little light flirtation to pass the time, a way to keep my sadly out-of-practice hand in the action before my knight in shining armor rolled up and swept me off to his castle.

  Wise Inner Pepper snorted at that thought, leaving me to distract her with other things. “How come Fenice and Vandal aren’t wearing suits of armor? And why do they have shields, but Butcher and Bos didn’t?”

  “Light armor,” Veronica said, leaning forward to prop her chin on her hand. “For light armor you joust in chain mail, and strike your blow on your opponent’s shield rather than their breastplate or grand guard. This is French, so they use shields.”

  “French what?” I asked, wondering if there was a guidebook on jousting I could read.

  “French style of jousting. There are seven different styles, each one slightly different. Some use light armor and shields; others use full armor and no shields.”

  “I take it you do some jousting?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  She smiled. “Darling, I don’t just do some jousting, I win.”

  “I’ve heard of you,” CJ said suddenly. “You’re the woman who organized the team of all-women jousters. Californians, aren’t you?”

  “The Palm Springs Jousting Guild,” Veronica said with a practiced hair flip and another white-toothed smile. She could have been an actress, she was so perfect. “This is our first official international competition. I’ve competed for the last few years, naturally, but this is the first time the team has competed together. We’re quite good, you know.”

  “Wow, a whole team of women? Good for you!” I said.

  “Thank you. I hope I can count on your support when . . .” Her words stopped for a moment as Walker gave the signal, and Bliss and Vandal dug their heels into their horses’ sides. There was a moment of a dull rumble as the horses charged toward each other, then a massive crash as the lances met the shields, and the shattered lance tips went flying. “. . . we compete. Bliss is very good,” Veronica said, her voice losing a smidgen of its self-confidence. “She must have been training this summer.”

  “They all have,” CJ said proudly.

  “Except Walker,” Veronica said with another smile.

  “Yes, well . . . that goes without saying,” CJ answered.

  “Why—” I started to ask, but just then a group of laughing men armed with a couple of coolers of beer rounded the end of the bleachers, called out greetings in a number of languages, cracked a few jokes at the jousters in the ring, then took over the bleacher in a swarm of beer-enlivened good humor.

  “They’re the Norwegian team,” CJ whispered before I even had a chance to ask her. One of the men, a big blond Viking sort, shoved a bottle of beer in my hand and plopped down beside me. Moth flattened his ears at the man. “They’re very nice, but they do like their beer. Stay away from them after dark.”

  “Why, do they get grabby then?” I whispered back, nodding and pretending to drink my beer when my seatmate asked me something in a language I didn’t understand just before downing the contents of his bottle in one gulp.

  A sonic belch reverberated to the left of me.

  “No,” CJ answered as I glared at the man next to me. He grinned and reached for another bottle. “That’s when they take wagers on things, like who can projectile-vomit the furthest. Trust me, you don’t want to be near their camp after dark.”

  “Wagers!” a dark blond, red-bearded Viking beyond CJ cried. “Yes, we take wagers. Tomas, what do you wager that Vandal won’t keep his seat the next pass, eh?”

  And so they were off. For the duration of the training session, they wagered with extreme good nature on everything—not just whether or not the jousters would unhorse their opponents, but which direction the lance tips would fly, which direction the jouster would lean after a hit, and once, whether or not Bliss’s lovely big gray mare was going to poop or not.

  Veronica left shortly after the Vikings arrived, inviting us both to visit the Palm Springs team headquarters to meet the rest of the team. “We’re in the green-and-cream-striped tents with the big plastic palm trees out front,” she said, pointing vaguely toward the tent city. She paused before leaving, her head tipping to the side as she gave me another once-over. “Do come by later. You don’t live near Palm Springs, do you?”

  “No, Seattle. Why?”

  “You’ve got a jouster’s physique—very . . . sturdy. You’d probably be a divine jouster if you put your mind to it.”

  “Sturdy?” I asked the Viking next to me as she strolled off. “Did you hear that? Did she just call me fat?”

  He leered at my breast shelf. “Sturdy means strong, yes? Is good?”

  “I suppose. At least she didn’t call me chunky. Or worse yet, husky.”

  “That’s it, show’s over for the Three Dog Knights,” CJ said as Walker and his team members left the ring. “I’m going to back to their camp. Want to come, or are you and Torvald there getting it on?”

  The bearded Viking leered again and grabbed my knee. I stood up quickly with Moth in my arms (staggering only slightly, which is amazing considering the cat weighs as much as a small Shetland pony). “Sorry, I have to take the cat for his afternoon walk.”

  Half of the Norwegian team went off to take their turn in the practice ring, while the other half settled back to enjoy the show.

  “When do Farrell and his team have their practice?” I asked CJ as she walked back to the tent with me so Moth, who refuses to heed the call of nature while he’s on a leash, could use his litter box and have his dinner. “I’d like to see him joust.”

  “Oh, they use the warm-up ring. All the Americans and Canadians do.”

  “How come?”

  CJ unzipped the tent and did a little makeup repair while I stuffed a cold wet cloth down my bodice and sighed with pleasure. “Quarantine laws. The foreigners can’t bring their horses in and take them home again because of quarantine laws. So they get loaner horses from people around the area.That’s why they come a week early, to work with the horses and learn their ways and do any necessary training. Because they’re at a disadvantage working on horses that aren’t their own, they get the bigger practice ring to compensate.”

  “Ah. I suppose that makes sense.” We chatted for a moment with people passing by, heading for their own tents to change clothing or grab food for dinner; then CJ snagged a package of hot dogs, one of frozen hamburgers, and a couple of packages of buns.

  “Come on, I’ll show you where the Three-DK tents are.”

  I tried to lock Moth into the tent, figuring he’d be ready for a postdinner snooze, but he started scratching at the material the second I zipped up the door, so I ended up putting his harness on.

  “You’re putting a crimp in my style, cat,” I said as I scooped him up and ran across the field to catch up with my cousin. “Hey, Ceej, wait up, I’m lugging his majesty.”

  She stopped and waited for me, rolling her eyes when I set Moth down. “Honestly, the way you coddle that cat . . . I thought you didn’t like him?”

  “I don’t. He deliberately dribbled cat food on my foot and kicked the lid off his litter box so the litter sprayed all over my sleeping bag.”

  “You sure keep him around you a lot for someone who doesn’t like him.”

  I glared down at the big white cat walking alongside me. “He’s a great big hairy pain in the butt.”

  “Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” CJ said in her best Shakespearean voice.

  “Methinks the lady hath no other choice. Hey, what do you know about Veronica? Was she really . . . er . . . you know. With Walker?”

  CJ shrugged and raised her hand when a couple of people sitting around a campfire called out a greeting. “They’re minstrels from Ottawa. Nice people, but never get into a singalong with them. They don’t know the meaning of the word enough.”

  I smiled
and waved at the minstrels, following as CJ weaved her way through the seemingly endless tent city. Smoke from various barbecues mingled with the exhaust from the food vendors, making my stomach growl. I dragged my mind from the need for food to the need for information. “You said you’ve heard of her. Veronica, I mean. What have you heard?”

  CJ looked a bit evasive, which really made me curious. “Not much, just that a bunch of rich society babes had formed their own jousting troupe. Word is they do a lot of charity stuff, and donate all their winnings to a children’s organization. There they are! Lamby-pie!” CJ squealed and launched herself at the man who was sitting in a lawn chair.

  Moth lunged forward, all but dragging me into the circle of people collected around a couple of barbecue grills and coolers.

  “Moth, stop it! Heel! Excuse me, I hope I didn’t hurt your toe—Moth! Get down off him!”

  Clearly unaware of how a proper cat maintains an air of dignity and uninterest in the people around him, Moth hauled me through the group of people and leaped up into a startled Walker’s arms. He dug his claws into Walker’s tunic, quickly scaling him and alighting on his shoulders, just like Walker was some sort of human scaffolding put there for feline entertainment.

  “I’m so sorry; he seems to have a little crush on you,” I said, tugging on the leash to get Moth down. “Come along, you horrible beast.”

  Walker grimaced as Moth fought the leash. “It’s all right; he’s not doing any harm there.”

  “Oh.” I unsnapped the leash, then stood looking at Walker, more than a little awed by what I saw. On a horse he was impressive. In a practice ring, he was intimidating. Standing just a few feet away from me, the setting sun turning his hair a glossy ebony, he was magnificent. He was a few inches taller than me, and had shoulders big enough for a monster like Moth to settle onto comfortably, and a long, angular, English sort of face with extremely expressive eyes. He wasn’t handsome the same way Farrell was, but his face was interesting. I liked watching his eyes, and the way his lips moved when he talked. I also liked his softly blunted squared chin, the sharp angle of his jawline, the faint shadowing of whiskers darkening already tanned skin. I had the worst urge to just taste that lovely spot where his jaw connected behind his ear. . . .