A Midsummer's Day (16 page)

“A mask?”

He tied it around her eyes, taking his time as he moved her hair from over her shoulders.  “There are a dozen women at festival who have your hair.  But nobody has your eyes.  This will disguise them.”

“So how do I look?” she asked, taking a step back.  But not far enough to break Vaughn’s hold on her.

He smiled.  “You look like a pirate.  A pirate with a mask to instill fear, or to cover traces of the small pox.”

She smiled, too.  She could live with the idea of being a pirate.  “So what do we do now?”

“We relax and rest for the night.  The faire should be closed soon.  We’ll have the entire grounds to ourselves.”

Chapter 16

The world had changed. 

People turned sadistic. 

There was a price on her head, and a death sentence on Vaughn’s.

And yet...  She was peaceful.  There was always peace by the water.  She loved to sit by the water, any water, and lose herself in the ripples on the surface.  The seashore from her childhood in the UK exuded the same comfort as American shores, which were just as calming as the beach near her home.  This tiny pond, choked with leaves and reeds along every inch of every edge, held the same magical powers.

Even more...  The sun rippled red through the pond.  A gentle breeze blew through the tall grass in front of her and behind her, bouncing off the back wall of the mud stage to hit her again.  There was magic in the water.

“Even in the dunking pond,” she whispered.  The dunking pond had always brought her comfort.  Comfort from her asthma, at the very least.  The water was comforting, even though her entrance into the water was not.

Especially during the last dunke.

The breeze turned icy.  The calming power of the pond evaporated.  She fidgeted.  Where in the blazes was Vaughn?  He’d left to look for food ages ago.  The sun, hovering just over the edge of the pond, had been higher when he left.  It felt like he’d been gone an hour already.  Since the town crier had travelled through the Dregs and the Grotto, announcing loudly that it was time for all to retire for the night.

The grass rustled.  Vaughn appeared, laden with cups and wooden dishes filled will tasty smelling things. 

“I went through the entire faire looking for food,” he said, explaining his long absence.  Sammie stood and unloaded half his quarry.  “I had to keep ducking the constables kicking the stragglers out.”  He arranged the dishes on the ground and helped Sammie with her dishes.  “There wasn’t much to get.”

A veritable feast was spread between them.  It was a banquet of a picnic.  There were two giant turkey legs.  Apple dumplings minus the ice cream.  Breaded chicken strips and little cups of honey mustard dipping sauce.  He’d grabbed two huge mugs of birch beer and two huge mugs of water to drink.

“There wasn’t much to get?”  She giggled and sat in front of their feast.

“Maybe a few more stands were easier to get into than I thought they’d be.”  He grabbed a turkey leg and took a massive, King Henry barbaric bite from it.

Sammie giggled herself silly.  Everything looked so good.  What should she try first?  Turkey?  Chicken?  Or should she go straight for desert?

She picked up a chicken finger and nibbled the end of it.  It was cold.  But still crispy.  After not eating since morning...  It tasted like ambrosia.  The food of the Gods.

They ate in peace and happiness.  The horrors of the last half a day were erased.  The fact that they were outlaws, hiding against arrest and death…

It was just the two of them and their cold, pilfered meal.  They were all that existed.  They told jokes and stories, laughing loudly without fear of getting caught.  They might have been picnicking in the dusk, by the gorgeous pond, by choice and not necessity.

She relished every second of it.  It was just like old times.  Just like their picnics in England throughout their childhood.  Their picnics near Stonehenge during university, or on the few grassy parks within the busy London metropolis. 

Even in America they’d continued the tradition.  They picnicked on historic battlefields and sandy beaches along the lake.

Darkness fell as they finished their meal.  Vaughn rinsed their dished in the pond and stashed them in a hidden compartment beneath his mud stage.  Silence fell over them.  There were no more stories to tell.  There were no more jokes. 

Reality seeped into the cracks of Sammie’s mind, slowly expanding through the happiness.  “What do we do now?” she asked.

Vaughn sat back and stared at the pond.  The moon was starting to rise, creating a silver shimmer in the rippling water.  It was a gorgeous natural light show.  “The note said we would be safe here tonight.”

The thought wasn’t calming.  “But does that mean we have to stay here all night?”  She swept her arm around to indicate the pond.  “The constables have to sleep at some point.  There has to be a dozen better places where we would be safer.  Someplace inside.”

“The constables have to sleep sometime, but who knows if there’ll be guards patrolling the paths at night.  Who knows if the constables will check all the storage areas and buildings in the morning?  We can’t take that chance.  Here,” Vaughn swept his arm towards the pond, “we’ll be safe.”

Kill joy.  But a kill joy who just happened to be right.  The stage storage areas, the buildings and the bedroom, were protected from the elements.  But there was more than a good chance that they’d be searched as the sun rose.

Neither brought up the tent city outside.  There would be no safety there.

“I guess we’re stuck sleeping outside tonight.”

At least the moon was rising as quickly as darkness fell.  A full moon.

They’d have plenty of light.

“Just think of it as camping under the stars.  And we’ll hardly freeze.”  A smile tinted Vaughn’s voice.  “I think the storage area behind the Boleyn Stage has blankets, if not pillows.  I’ll go grab a few so we’re not sleeping straight on the ground.”

He stood.  Sammie followed him up.  “While you do that, I’ll go use the privies.”  She hadn’t gone in hours, and her eyes felt like they were floating.  The two large mugs she’d greedily drank weren’t helping, either.

“What if someone’s in there?”

“I can hardly go anywhere I want like you.”  She laughed sarcastically and crossed her legs. 

Vaughn looked uncertain.  “All right,” he said an eternity later.  “I’ll go check it out first.”

He led her slowly from their hiding spot.  There was nobody around.  But that didn’t mean that a constable couldn’t come around a corner at any time.  They slipped silently down the Dregs until they reached the public restroom.  Vaughn hid Sammie on the far side of the building while he checked both the men
’s
and the women’s sides.

It didn’t take him long to come back out.  “Okay.  It’s all clear.  Just be careful.”

“Please don’t worry, Vaughn.”  She danced around now.  “I’ll be quick and head straight back to the pond.”  She pushed past him and ran into the women’s side of the restroom.

She felt her way through the pitch-blackness of the nearly windowless room.  Eventually she found the inside of a stall.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that the porcelain toilets were gone, that the stalls were little more than wooden boards with holes in them, separated by rough wooden walls.  There weren’t even doors.

Not that it mattered.  Who would come in at this time of night?  Who would see her in this level of darkness? 

She hitched up her skirt and sat.  She rested her head against the wooden wall and sighed.  The only way this could have been better was if the walls were the cool metal of modern restrooms.  Not even the smell bothered her.

“Be the grounds cleared?”

The deep voice came from the men’s side of the building, followed shortly after by the sound of not one, but two, men relieving themselves.

She held her breath.  How in the hell hadn’t she heard them come in?

“Aye,” the other said.  “All have returned themselves to their tents.  The outlaws are yet to be seen.”

“The Lord High Sheriff shalt not be happy to learn him of such things.”

“Mark my words.  It shalt not be from my mouth that he shalt hear such disturbing news.”

They laughed, their voices fading into oblivion.

Sammie stayed perfectly still.  That had been too close.  If they’d heard her, if they’d come into the other half of the building even by accident…  She came within feet of being caught.  Of being brought back to John… Jameson and his incurable temper.

She didn’t move again until she was absolutely sure the constables were long gone.  She sprinted from the building and back to the safety of the pond…

And forgot all about the constables.  Lying in the silver light of the moon were two roughly hewn beds, lying side by side.

<>

They lay on their beds, staring at the perfect disc of moon above them.

Nobody said anything.  Sammie had been deathly silent since her return from the privies.  Vaughn could guess why.  He’d heard the constables walk by when he rooted around the storage area of the Boleyn Stage.  Had she gotten closer?

Had they used the privies the same time she had?

The silence was painful.  “What are you thinking, Sammie?” he asked, almost afraid of the answer he’d get.  But any answer would be better than none.

He’d rather hear the most horrible answer imaginable than nothing at all.

Sammie sighed.  “I was thinking about Johnny.”

Vaughn cringed.  It was what he was afraid of.  The memory of what he never told her ate away at his soul.  “Do you miss him?”
h
e asked carefully.  Let her say no.  Let the insanity Johnny showed her drive all of the caring from him from her heart.

That would make things so much easier.

It took her a long time to answer.  She turned to face him and rested her head on her arm.  “I don’t know,” she said finally.  “I know Johnny and Jameson aren’t the same people, but it’s hard to separate the two of them now.”  She sighed.  “I just know that Johnny would never be so cruel to me.”

He had to tell her.  She had to know the truth.  She deserved to know the truth.  “Sam, there’s something I think you should know.”  He paused.

“I knew there was something you weren’t telling me.  What is it, Vaughn?”  She put her hand on his.

“Earlier, when I was at the fountain, I overheard your band mates gossiping about the Lord High Sheriff.”  He swallowed hard.  He didn’t want to break her heart...  But what other choice did he have?  “They say he dabbles with the gypsies.”

He watched her process what she’d just heard.  “Dabbles with the gypsies…  Dabbles, as in…”

“As in he sleeps with them,” Vaughn finished.

She shook her head.  She didn’t want to believe it.  “But that’s Jameson.  That’s not Johnny.”

Vaughn took a deep breath.  God, don’t let her shatter right in front of him.  “It is Johnny, Sam.  Before the shockwave I saw Johnny at the Grotto Stage.  Sam, he was making out with a gypsy.  If I hadn’t caught him, I think he would have gone a lot farther.”

It took a minute...  Her silver eyes filled with fresh tears.  “I should have known.  After he arrested me…”  Her voice shook.  “He was too eager to prove he still loved me.  I should have seen how guilty he felt.  I should have known.”  She took a deep breath.  “I guess it makes sense now.”

“I’m so sorry, Sam.”  He touched her cheek gently.

She shook her head.  “No.  I’m glad you told me.  It’s better to find out now than after we got married.”

“Are you okay?”  What a stupid question.

A few tears escaped the confines of her eyes.  “I don’t know.  I guess it makes his cruelty make more sense.”

They fell into a silence again.  Vaughn would love to know what Sammie was thinking.  He’d love to know how he could make her feel better, how to protect her from the horrible truth.  He’d love to know…

So many things.

Sammie yawned.  Her eyes grew heavy.  The poor thing was exhausted.

“You just sleep now, Sammie,” Vaughn whispered, kissing her gently on the forehead.  “It’s been a long day.  Just sleep.”

“You’ll be here in the morning, right Vaughn?”  Her breathing turned steady and shallow.

She was already sleeping.

He covered her with a blanket.  “You bet I will.
”

He took her hand.  He was never going to leave her again.

<>

She wafted through the air as a wisp caught on the breeze. 

It was magic hour.  All was quiet.  No insect chirped or buzzed.  No nighttime bird sang songs of wonder.  The tall grasses stood still, frozen in time until the sun would rise again.  The leaves on the trees ceased their nighttime symphony.  The building, the stages and stands, were edged in mist turned silver by the moonlight.

Behind her laid her one time prison and the guard charged with watching over her.  He didn’t stop her.  He couldn’t fight against the ties she’d bound around his wrists and ankles.  He couldn’t call for help through the gag in his mouth, torn from her gown which the constables had thankfully left near her.