Well Played by Jen DeLuca EPUB & PDF – eBook Details
- Author: Jen DeLuca
- Language: English
- Formats: PDF / EPUB
- Status: Available For Free Download
- Series: None
- Price: Free
- File Size: 1 MB
It all started with a necklace.
A beautiful pendant, made of gleaming silver in the shape of a
dragonfly, strung on a green silk cord. Its eyes were tiny crystals that
caught the light, and the wings were a delicate filigree. I spotted it on
the last day of the Willow Creek Renaissance Faire, while Emily—or
Emma, since we were still in character—and I strolled the grounds. We
were in our usual tavern wench costumes, with our personalities to
match: a little louder, a little more brash and flirtatious than we were
in real life.
We stopped to interact with patrons—especially tiny ones
dressed as knights or pirates—and we did a little surreptitious
shopping as the vendors took one last chance to sell stock before
packing it all up and moving to the next Faire on the circuit. That was
when I saw the dragonfly, winking up at me from a jeweler’s table.
“What d’you think, Emma, dear?” I held it up so we could both see
it. I was wearing the pewter Celtic knot I’d gotten the summer before
last, but my outfit needed a refresh. As the silver dragonfly rotated
slowly at the end of its cord, its eyes flashed at me, whispering, Yes.
You need me.
“Oh, Stacey, it’s so pretty!” Emily clapped a hand over her mouth
and turned wide eyes to me as she realized her errors. First, she’d
called me by the wrong name, and second, she hadn’t even made an
attempt at her usual Faire accent. “Sorry,” she said around a grin.
The vendor snorted. “It’s all over but the shouting now. No one’s
going to notice you breaking character.”
“I mean Beatrice, of course.” To her credit, Emily slid back into
character in a heartbeat. “Because that’s your name. You truly deserve
something new. I think it would do quite nicely.”
“What’s going on here?”
Now my wide eyes matched Emily’s as we looked at each other in
reaction to the stern voice behind us. Then we turned in unison to face
Simon Graham, the Faire’s organizer and Emily’s boyfriend. He was
still in costume as Captain Blackthorne the pirate: all black leather and
roguish smile. But his forbidding tone was pure Simon the English
Teacher, as though he’d already shaved his beard and cut his hair
short as he did at the end of each Faire season.
So I scoffed at him, because a pirate and a tavern wench were
roughly the same in the hierarchy of things, and out here he wasn’t my
boss. Not while we were in character. “Nothing wrong with a bit of
shopping, Captain. Surely you wouldn’t deprive your ladylove of a little
indulgence.”
“Oh, I don’t need anything.” Emily’s hand went to the pendant she
wore around her own neck—a deep blue crystal hanging from a silver
chain. Simon had gotten it for her from one of the other vendors
earlier this summer. “Why would I, when I have this?” Her eyes
practically glowed when she looked at him, and I could tell she wasn’t
just talking about the necklace.
Simon raised an eyebrow, his stern expression melting away as
though he had trouble maintaining it in front of Emily. “Quite right.”
He bent to brush a kiss across her mouth.
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