A Midsummer's Day Read Online Free PDF Page B

you’re not dressed in nothing but black.”  He tore off his knee length jacket and threw it over the back of a chair.  Black was a nasty color in summer, no matter how lightly his costume was made.
    “Sammie’s got the worst of it,” Vaughn said.
    “You’re barking.”  Sammie said.  What on earth was he talking about?  She had no reason to complain.  Her costume was far lighter than the gowns worn in Tudor England.  Melinda, the woman who played Queen Elizabeth, wore more layers than any of the Court Ladies and a heavy wig, too.  She had a reason to complain.  Not Sammie.
    Johnny stuffed himself into the chair next to Sammie and pulled her onto his lap.  “With your asthma, you should be spending your summers at the beach, wearing shorts and those sexy little strappy sandal things I love so much.”  He nuzzled at her neck as he strung a leather pouch over her head.  When had he been shopping at the leather vender?  He took the inhaler from her and put it in a snack sized zipper bag.  He put that into the pouch and pulled it closed.   “Now you have constant access.”  He tucked the pouch into the crevice of her cleavage.
    Sammie smacked his fingers away.  She didn’t need Vaughn to watch as her fiancé groped her.  She might have flirted endlessly with Vaughn when they were playing their parts out on the grounds.  But he was her best friend.  The closest thing she had to a brother.
    It was Johnny who owned every atom of her heart.
    It didn’t feel like two years since they’d been introduced at spring rehearsals, and assigned to be a pair of Courtly lovers.  It felt like only yesterday that the Courtly lovers became real lovers, and then real roommates, and then really engaged.
    The last day of this year’s festival was going to be as magical as that first day, so long ago.  She and Johnny would be married after closing ceremonies, in the festival’s own Chapel Parr.
    She ran her fingers through Johnny’s charcoal hair.  “I knew that gypsy didn’t know what she was talking about,” she whispered, nuzzling his neck.  How could this gorgeous, wonderful, miraculous man not be the love of her life?
    “What gypsy?” Johnny asked.
    “Our Lady Halloway wished to have her fortune read this morning,” Vaughn laughed.  “Some young blond girl said that Sammie hadn’t found true love yet.”
    “A load of hogwash, if you ask me,” Sammie said.  She straddled Johnny’s lap.  Screw it.  If Vaughn got uncomfortable, he was more than free to go back outside.
    Johnny pushed her away from him so they were eye to eye.  Cruel, cruel man.  “You went into Gypsy Way?”  His voice was serious, but his icy green eyes smiled.  He could never pull of the harsh act with her, especially in private.
    “You’re not really the Lord High Sheriff, you know,” she picked.
    “But Lady Anne still has to follow her Lord High Sheriff’s decrees.”  Johnny nipped at her ear.
    “Dude…  Has Jameson Kent ever met Anne Halloway?” Vaughn asked, rolling his eyes.
    Sammie giggled.  She loved the personality she’d given her character.  Anne was a flirt.  Rebellious.  Unbroken by the standards set upon women in the Tudor Age.  “Anne will always follow her heart.”
    “And that’s why she gets dunked every day.”  Johnny’s fingers roamed the length of the lace ruff around her neck, sending shivers down her spine.
    “And I look forward to it,” Sammie said.  “The pond works better than my inhaler any day.”
    “When are the Players going to make you a faer y , Sam?” Vaughn asked.
    The Players was the acting group that filled the festival with all of its stage acts, members of the Royal Court, and the population of Nottinghamshire.  It even hired and trained the food servers and ticket vendors.  The Players created the flight of singing, dancing, pranking fae ry that Sammie adored.
    “Soon, I hope,” she said.  “One of the faer y is pregnant, so she won’t be here all