Page 1 of Chivalry in the Meadow (Hope Runs Deep #2)
Chapter One
“ A re you sure I don’t need to pack any clothes for this camping weekend?” Mia Louise Harkness spoke to her speaker phone, as her best friend Lilly Moreno listened on the other end. “We’re going to be there four days.”
Since it was Memorial Day weekend, she had Monday off.
“Finn says we can borrow any gowns we need from the mistress of the wardrobe,” Lilly answered. “So, I’m only bringing pajamas to sleep in.”
“Is he sure about that?” Mia said. “He just started working there. What if he’s wrong?”
“He’s not wrong,” Lilly said. “We’re allowed to wear their gowns and walk around. They want us to help contribute to the atmosphere.”
“So now we’re working there this weekend?” Mia’s voice rose, and her face started to warm. “I’m off work this entire weekend, to have fun, not take on a new job.”
Suddenly, spending the entire weekend living at the Renaissance Faire in a medieval tent was sounding less fun.
Mia still wore the slim navy-blue skirt and white blouse she’d worn to work, and her heavy red hair was still pinned up.
She’d hurried home, kicked off her shoes, in her bedroom, and then pulled out a small bag to start packing.
After speaking to customers on the phone all day, the last thing she wanted to do, was to have to speak to the public all weekend about the Renaissance Faire.
The first she’d ever been to. Though she worked as a telephone customer service rep at a bank, which gave her banker’s hours, it also meant Saturdays.
She’d worked every Saturday for the past month to finally have this one off and she intended to enjoy every minute of this three-day weekend.
She also didn’t have to face customers in person at work, and never had to worry about her face turning red to match her long, wavy, red hair, or worry about becoming tongue tied. Her cheeks felt flushed as she’d worked herself up, ready to argue this issue with Lilly.
“No, Mia we’re not working, and they’re not paying us,” Lilly spoke in the voice she always used when trying to calm her best friend down.
It was as if she knew Mia was upset. And likely she did. They’d been best friends in high school and remained close. Now both were in their late twenties, pushing thirty and their friendship had stood the test of time.
Mia, like many redheads, could get heated up quick, depending on how she was feeling in the moment.
“They’re just helping us out, by loaning us the dresses, and we’re helping them out, by wearing them,” Lilly said. “That’s all.”
“Right,” Mia said, not entirely convinced this wouldn’t turn into a form of work, even if they weren’t getting paid.
Perhaps the company considered their free admission as payment for working.
Companies weren’t usually in the habit of giving things away without expecting some kind of return.
Return on investment it was called. One of those terms financial services people used.
Her head was full of them, having spent several years after college in the banking industry.
She was ready to find some other kind of job. Though there was something to be said for the stability of her job, and the full-time benefits. Not the dress code, though.
Mia peeled out of her skirt and started unbuttoning her blouse, trying to decide what to wear to the event. Something casual and comfy, no heels. She took off the glasses that she wore at work and laid them on the bed stand.
Maybe I won’t take those , she thought. They look too modern. My eyesight isn’t that bad.
“Mia.,” Lilly said. “We’re going to have so much fun wearing their fancy gowns. You’ll feel like you’ve stepped into one of those romance novels you love to read!”
Mia, a voracious reader, usually read three or more books a week, and one of those was always a historical romance. Lilly was more of a mystery and suspense reader, though occasionally, she’d read a romance if Mia said it was particularly good. But Mia was romantic, down to her bones.
Unfortunately, none of Mia’s ex boyfriends had carried a shred of romance in them.Even after she shared how important it was to her, they had not stepped up to at least try.
The last one, Jerry, had finally brought her flowers, but only after he’d royally screwed up.
Three months of dating him, without even a hint of romance, then suddenly flowers, in his attempt to keep her from splitting up with him.
When she’d told him it was still over, even after the flowers, he’d knocked those flowers onto the floor and crushed one of the roses beneath his boot before storming out the door.
Those kinds of flowers weren’t romantic, they were manipulative. And she knew better than to fall for that.
She’d been so mad, she’d gathered all those flowers, and thrown them in the trash, not wanting to even look at them.
The next day, feeling much cooler, she wished she’d gathered them up and taken them to the elderly widow woman who lived next door, who didn’t have a son or a boyfriend to send her flowers.
But the trash collectors had come and gone by then and so had the flowers.
They had been lovely. Normally she loved flowers.
Mia had started buying herself flowers, at the grocery store, feeling that if no one was ever going to surprise her with flowers, she’d just have to buy them for herself. That didn’t mean she didn’t still dream of having a man in her life who would bring her flowers.
Sometimes a woman must buy her own flowers. This was one of her new mantras.
Since Jerry, Mia had been on a long stretch of no boyfriend and none in sight. She yearned for adventure, and a long Renaissance Faire weekend sounded like a safe kind of fun.
“So…,” Lilly spoke and paused, waiting for Mia to say something.
“Okay.” Mia looked down into her empty bag, which appeared strange to her, considering they’d be at the Renaisance Faire from Friday night to Sunday evening.
“Something to sleep in. That’s all. Got it.
” She added thin cotton pajamas since they’d be in sleeping bags and she couldn’t sleep if she got too warm.
Three pair of panties, three pair of socks, and a clean shirt to wear home.
“Guess I’m packed then. I just need a shower. ”
“Great! I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” Lilly said.
“Just enough time. I’ll be ready,” Mia said.
After they hung up, she packed a few more things into her bag, like her book light to read at night, and the bar of chocolate she’d picked up on her lunch break. She almost added the paperback she’d been reading, but then decided she’d read while she waited for Lilly.
Time would fly if she was reading. It always did.
In the shower, as she washed her hair, her thoughts turned to their weekend plans.
Lilly swears this is the most fun I’ll ever have in my life. But she tends to exaggerate. Apparently, there would be jousting between six knights on horseback.
The people working the Ren Faire will all be in costume and we’re going to wear them so we can blend in. Hopefully, it will be like Lilly said, we’ll just walk around and enjoy ourselves. If I don’t have do any forsooth type of speaking, or answer questions, it should be fine.
After she showered, she dressed in her softest jeans with a yellow T-shirt which said, ‘book dragon’ and had a picture of a little green dragon wearing glasses while reading a book.
Mia got a glass of ice water from her kitchen, and then, taking the glass, and her book, she settled into a chair by the front window, where she could see out.
The book, set in medieval England, was about a heroine who’d run away from her upcoming arranged marriage with an old man she wasn’t attracted to.
Instead, she would find her true love and marry him for a happy every after, Mia’s favorite kind of story.
Real life often did not hand her a happy ending, so she insisted there be one in all the fiction that she read. For Mia, it was romance or nothing. Kind of how she felt about her real life. If she couldn’t have romance with a man, she would rather be alone.
She was done with settling.
The hero in the book would’ve made Mia swoon, if she’d met him in real life. She was quickly caught up in his world, while waiting for her best friend to arrive. She loved to escape into a book and this long weekend she would escape into the Renaissance Faire.
Friday had always been Mia’s favorite day of the week, for two reasons.
First, if she had Saturday off, it meant she had two whole days before she had to go back to work.
She was happy to work inside the telephone company, answering calls.
Well, not exactly happy. Telephone customer service could be stressful.
One call after another coming to her ears via the headsets, wasn’t easy.
Headaches were common, and she averaged three or four a week.
But she tried not to think about the stressful parts of the job.
It paid the bills and most of the time she didn’t mind talking to people and helping them.
It’s just that she did that hour after hour until clocking out.
Escaping into a book allowed her mind, ears, and mouth to rest after a full day of work.
The second reason was because a weekend might bring some exciting adventure.
Though usually, she ended up at home, doing laundry, fussing around, and wishing that something, anything out of the ordinary, would happen. Maybe someday it would.
Something exciting could happen this three-day weekend. She felt it deep in her bones.
It was what her grandmother called ‘a knowing.” Such things couldn’t be explained. You just knew, and then, when you were right, it helped you trust a ‘knowing’ the next time one happened. This time, the feeling she had was strong. So, she was part nervous and part excited.