[Druids Bidding 02.0] RenFaire Druids: Dunskey Castle Prequels Read online

  RenFaire Druids

  Dunskey Castle Prequels

  Jane Stain

  www.janestain.com

  Contents

  Also by Jane Stain

  1. Kilts

  2. Highlander

  3. Scotland

  4. Highlands

  5. Castle

  6. Return

  7. Clans

  8. Gaelic

  9. MacGregors

  10. Warriors

  11. Loch

  12. Scots

  13. Vange & Peadar 1

  14. Vange & Peadar 2

  15. Vange & Peadar 3

  16. Vange & Peadar 4

  17. Vange & Peadar 5

  18. Vange & Peadar 6

  19. 10 Years Later

  Afterword

  Refaire Druids

  Dunskey Castle Prequels

  Druids Bidding 2

  Copyright 2015 Cherise Kelley writing as Jane Stain

  All rights reserved

  Previously published as Kilts at the Renaissance Faire

  Originally serialized in 18 episodes

  I’m writing more sweet highlander time travel romances.

  Sign up for new book alerts at

  www.janestain.com

  Also by Jane Stain

  Druid Magic (Tavish, Seumas, and Tomas)

  Celtic Druids (Time of the Celts-Picts-Druids)

  Druid Dagger (Leif, Taran, Luag)

  Meehall

  Ciaran

  Baltair

  As Cherise Kelley:

  Dog Aliens (a cuddly dog story with a happy ending)

  High School Substitute Teacher’s Guide

  1 Kilts

  Emily loved the Renaissance Faire. Where else could she see a Shakespearean play performed authentically, with men playing the female parts? Minstrels strolling about with mandolins, asking a kiss for a song?

  Where else could she see men in kilts?

  And with her freckled skin, she felt like she fit in here, more so than at any other hangout she’d been to. She ran from booth to booth, getting a juggling lesson here, trying to walk a tightrope there—

  “Emily, look at these dresses.”

  Her tiny brown best friend Evangeline was in graduate school too, majoring in elementary education, while she herself was preparing to lead a high school drama department.

  Emily joined Vange in a booth made of dyed burlap walls. “They’re beautiful, Vange.”

  A faire employee wearing one of these outfits came up to them. “They are not dresses, milady, but bodices and chemises with two skirts to wear with them, one over the other and tucked up out of the dirt. This is the clothing of our peasant women, milady.”

  Emily looked around uncertainly for a fitting room. “Could we try a few on?”

  The costumed lady nodded enthusiastically. “Certies. Do come stand over here in the corner. I shall hold up this blanket, and the two of you can change behind it.”

  The faire person said this rather loudly, and a small crowd gathered outside the booth. In particular, Emily noticed this one muscular guy with a dog tattooed on his arm.

  Still, the outfits were lovely, and Emily loved the idea of wearing one the rest of the day so that she fit in at the faire. It reminded her of her own drama student days, back in high school.

  She looked at Vange.

  Her friend winked.

  So they turned their backs to the blanket and put the outfits on. They heard several cat calls from their audience, but they could see in a small mirror in the corner that the blanket stayed put the whole time.

  The two of them admired each other in the outfits, which didn’t show any leg at all, but a whole lot more cleavage than either of them was used to. The faire person had insisted that they lace their bodices up tightly.

  Vange gave her a huge grin. “OK, we’ll take these.”

  After they paid, Emily and Vange stowed their T-shirts under their voluminous skirts in the waistbands of their shorts, and the blanket went down.

  With smug smiles on their faces at how authentic they now looked compared to the rest of the fairgoers, the two of them turned around to face their audience.

  Only, instead of sunburned tourists in shorts, Emily and Evangeline faced a whole clump of whooping Scots highlanders in kilts.

  Emily stared at the highlanders. In addition to their thick woolen great kilts, they all wore two-handed longswords and heavy boots of cowhide. They had on homespun linen shirts similar to the chemise she now wore, but their sleeves were wide at the wrist and their shirts laced up on their chests. Most of them had long hair and beards.

  They all wore big smiles.

  Her eye kept drifting to one Scot in particular who stood next to their leader. He stood out, but she couldn’t put her finger on how. He was gorgeous, of course, but they all were.

  Their leader shouted out with a big grin, “Wull ye dance with us, lasses?”

  Sensing herself blush, Emily felt rooted to the cloth floor of the booth. She glanced over and saw that her normally outgoing friend Vange wasn’t doing any better.

  And then the man her eye was drawn to spoke, and she knew why he stood out. The leader was trying, but this one had a perfect Scots accent. He must be from there.

  “Och, Ian. Let us show the lasses we ken how tae hae a good time, eh lad?”

  Ian raised his eyebrows and then grinned. “Well enough, Dall.”

  Emily sighed with relief and was giddy when Dall spoke again.

  “Faire lasses, we pray ye please accompany us at oor clan dance, which does begin soon.”

  Another quick glance at Vange revealed that her friend very much wanted to dance with these sexy bare-legged men. Emily did, too. She grabbed Vange by the elbow and steered her to Ian, while Emily placed herself next to Dall.

  The authentic Scotsman held out his elbow for Emily’s hand, the way men did in old movies when they walked with women.

  For some reason, this made Emily shy. What in the world was wrong with her? It was just his arm. But her stomach fluttered when she stepped closer and took it.

  The band of Scots lined up two by two and paraded through the dirt streets of the fake English village that had been constructed for the Renaissance faire, out in a fallow field.

  Dall held his arm out for her the whole way, and she was glad, as she often had to steady herself. He paused when there were holes in the road so that she took notice and watched her footing.

  He made small talk, so that she didn’t feel awkward walking with him. “Dae ye see the giant there, lass?”

  Emily followed his gaze over the heads of the people in the street until she saw the giant. It was about 15 feet tall, held up by four English peasants who walked under it and followed by a few dozen more. They were singing, but too far away for Emily to hear.

  She turned back to Dall. “Oh yeah. Why are they parading a giant puppet around?”

  He wrinkled his brow as if everyone knew. “’Tis the Green Man.”

  She gave him a questioning look.

  “Och, dinna ye ken the Green Man, then?”

  She shook her head no.

  “He does bring the springtime—in the minds o’ the farmers.”

  “Oh. OK, that makes sense, I guess.”

  But even with his small talk, Emily felt nervous the whole time, as if this encounter were significant, somehow.

  As they walked, more and more Scots joined the parade, until there were more than a hundred, about equal parts men, women, and children.

  Whenever someone joined them nearby, Dall introduced her. “This is Emily,” he’d
say, and then he would tell her their names.

  All of which she promptly forgot, she was so distracted by the faire. OK, and by this gorgeous man at her side. Heck, the faire itself was distracting, wonderfully so. Everywhere she looked, something was going on.

  Brightly costumed dancers held ribbons attached to the top of a huge pole in the ground. As they danced around it, their ribbons formed a braided pattern that coated the pole.

  People dressed in black with skeletons painted on them danced around with hourglasses.

  There were even knights in armor riding horses in the distance.

  Her ears caught a new tune every dozen feet they walked: mandolins, wooden flutes, deep resonant drums, a bunch of sea dogs singing about Bengal Bay…

  A good many of the people she saw were dressed in costumes. Some of these were authentically historical—peasants, mongers, nobles, foreigners—but many people wore fanciful costumes—wizards, elves, fairy princesses, Amazon women warriors in furs and little else…

  The parade of Scots paused when they came to one of several large outdoor theaters set up all over the faire. It had a large wooden stage that she thought could fit a whole orchestra. Straw bales had been lined up in rows for seating, and hundreds of fairgoers already sat there, eating turkey legs and drinking beer out of large paper cups printed to look like metal tankards.

  But Dall didn’t make any motion to help Emily sit down on one of the straw bales.

  And the Scots were parading right up onto the stage. The musicians were in the front, and now they played as they marched up the steps, bagpipes and drums mostly. The bagpipes were loud.

  Before Emily could get used to just how loud the bagpipes were, the whole parade was moving again. Up the stairs to the stage.

  Dall was smiling and waving at the fairgoers on their straw bales, and they were waving back.

  The next time he glanced her way, she spoke to him. “Where shall I sit to watch your clan dance?”

  The way he looked at her then left nothing to the imagination, though he did nothing rude. It was more … yearning. Inviting. Questioning? “Och, nay, lass. Ye will na be sitting. I intend tae hae ye as my partner.”

  Why couldn’t she look him in the eye? “Your … partner?” And why did her voice have to squeak?

  In that moment, she realized something. Dall was infinitely more confident in himself than the college guys she was used to, more confident even than her professors, and that was saying something.

  He gave her a warm smile. “My partner for the dancing, lass.”

  “Oh.”

  He helped her up the steps onto the stage, and the two of them followed the procession until they were facing the audience and clapping with the rest of the clan while three young women held their skirts up out in front of them and jumped up and down to the beat of the bagpipes and drums.

  In her element on stage, Emily clapped and smiled at the audience while she talked to Dall out of the side of her mouth. “I don’t know how to dance like that.” She gestured at the three women. “I’ve seen River Dance a dozen times, but that doesn’t mean I know how. And I’m still wearing sneakers.”

  But he pulled her forward into a dance set of four couples. “Dinna fash. We will na be dancing in that style. ’Twill be easy, if ye follow my lead.”

  They all bowed to each other, and then the music started, and along with it a dance much like the square dancing Emily had done in fourth grade—only to bagpipes instead of banjos.

  Once she relaxed, she enjoyed it.

  No one called the moves, but Dall was right. All she had to do was pay attention and let him guide her. There was no skipping involved, thank goodness, and her underskirt was long enough that it hid her sneakers. Most of the time.

  When Evangeline and Ian appeared opposite herself and Dall in their next dance set, Emily realized she had forgotten all about her friend.

  She smiled at Vange in apology.

  Vange gave her a knowing look in reply.

  Emily rolled her eyes at that.

  But whenever the two friends locked elbows for a turn, Vange whispered something different in Emily’s ear:

  “Go for it.”

  “He’s delicious.”

  “If you don’t want him, then scoot over.”

  The first two comments just made Emily laugh at her friend, but the third one made her seriously consider. She looked over at Dall, who was swinging by Ian’s elbow.

  He smiled at her the way a cat smiles when it is warm and fed and content at home in winter, in front of a roaring fireplace.

  She couldn’t help smiling back at him the same way.

  “I thought so.” Vange was laughing now.

  When the Scottish dance show was over and the audience was applauding thunderously, the highland woman nearest to Emily grabbed her hand and pulled her forward into the line of female performers, who all curtseyed. What happened next explained why she had done this. The women backed up and dropped hands to let the men through.

  The kilted men all went out to the front of the stage, formed a line, put their arms around each other—and did a can-can dance to the drums.

  Ba boom, kick

  Ba boom, kick

  Ba boom, kick

  Ba boom, kick

  Emily knew the can-can wasn’t a ‘period’ dance for this faire, but the audience loved it. Too bad she was behind the guys and couldn’t see better, but because there were only amused faces in the audience, Emily figured the performers were not authentically (un)dressed under their kilts.

  She looked over to see Vange’s reaction.

  Her friend was whistling at all the hot guys through her forefinger and her thumb.

  Their eyes met, and they gave each other huge silly grins.

  This was the most fun they had ever had at renfair, and this was their third summer break here together. There were ten more weekends of this faire, and Emily had a feeling she wanted to come back this year. Maybe all ten weekends.

  That feeling grew more intense.

  Dall was once again at her side, holding his arm out to help her go down the steps off the stage. He made no move to let go of her once they were down, either.

  Ian came over with Vange on his arm, and two more couples followed. One of the women had a container that reminded Emily of a bota bag, and she used it to fill metal tankards for them all to drink from.

  Emily took a huge gulp when she got hers.

  The woman who handed her the tankard dropped her fake Scots accent and whispered to Emily, “It’s just water.”

  The next woman chimed in, “Yeah, we don’t really drink alcohol during the day out here at faire. It’s liable to give you heat stroke, especially with all this heavy wool clothing we have to wear.”

  Emily could see the sense in that, but she was a little disillusioned. All the faire people seemed to be happily drunk all the time. Still, she downed her water and asked for more.

  The woman refilled her tankard twice before she stopped thirsting, and then she handed Emily and Vange what looked like cloth bags. “Here, put these muffin caps on, to keep the sun off your heads.”

  Looking around, Emily now noticed that all the faire people had hats on, and most of them wore muffin caps like these. The color went OK with her dress, so she put it on and helped Vange put hers on. Unlike the faire woman, though, Emily let her hair hang out from under the muffin cap, figuring she would look better that way.

  Vange did the same, winking.

  Putting his arm firmly around Vange’s shoulders, Ian addressed Vange, Emily, and Dall, and incidentally the other two couples. “We’re going to see Short Shakespeare. Come with us.”

  Emily had turned to ask Dall if he wanted to go when she saw him bowing to her with his hand out for hers. It was over-the-top dramatic, but also sweet.

  Feeling her face spread into a silly grin, she made a big show of swooning with her forearm on her forehead before she took his hand, thankful again that her drama training got her thro
ugh her usual shyness when it came to action, if not speaking.

  She put her hand in his offered one, and they fell in walking behind Ian and Vange.

  Holding hands seemed much more intimate with Dall than it ever had before.

  He readjusted their hands every so often so that their palms rubbed against each other.

  This sent chills up her arm, even in the late May heat.

  Once again, Emily was vaguely aware of the faire atmosphere as the eight of them walked: mongers yelling “Hot cross buns.” while throwing buns across the street to each other, women trying to wash their clothes on the rocks of a little stream but being heckled by … pilgrims, people throwing rotten tomatoes at and saying funny curses at a Spaniard.

  But as before, the faire was just background for the thrills going through her at the way Dall was holding her hand and how he hadn’t wanted to part since they met. She was even more thrilled by the attention Dall paid her.

  Had the two of them really just met an hour before?

  As if they were old friends, he met her eye and shared everything with her. They laughed together when a peasant woman dragged her drunken husband through the faire by his nose—theatrically, of course. Emily could see she was really dragging him by the arm which held her hand on his nose.

  Dall continued to make small talk, too. “Ye did wull in choosing yer clothes, ye and the other lass.”

  “Thank you. It’s nice of you to say so.”

  “’Tis true, lass. Ye chose the authentic booth, and that means nae ye can gae where’er I gae.”

  They smiled at each other intensely for a giddy moment.