Page 46 of Renaissance Bear

"Never," Jon said, honestly. "Is yours?"

"Not at all!"

"Do you think we create a weirdness vortex together?"

"God," Alis said with feeling, "I hope not. 'Hi, Mom, Dad. This is Jon, together we make weird.'"

"Oooh. Are you introducing me to the family, then?"

"You introduced me to yours already!"

Jon startled enough that his bear looked up, wondering what it had missed. "I did, didn't I? Would it help if I said I hadn't thought of it like that? Maybe because my parents weren't there?"

"I'm not sure. But in your defense, I don't think you wereintroducing me to your family." She paused again. "More like throwing me into the deep end."

"Hey!"

Alis grinned. "No, I don't mean that. You're just all obviously involved in the faire and Renaissance's businesses in a bunch of different ways, so getting them caught up on what was going onmade sense. I didn't think about it as being introduced to the family, either, not until my sister said it. Did your real estate uncle come up with anything, by the way?"

"Uncle Dave? Just that there was no previous interest in the fairgrounds land. No big corporations sniffing around or anything." They pulled into the fair parking lot as he spoke, and Jon leaned over to steal a kiss. "I guess that makes personal motivation more likely, too. Should I come play the lute for you again this afternoon?"

"If Shelly isn't back to play the princess, then God, yes, please. Anything to keep Lord Argent from smarming on me!"

Lord Argent smarmed anyway.

He smarmed in the same way the scene had played out yesterday, which—Jon had to admit—was good, because it meant the audience from day to day was getting similar performances, so they would have reference points they could share outside of the faire. Jon didn'tlikeArgent. That didn't mean the guy was bad at his job, unfortunately.

And honestly, if Jon was being absolutely fair, most of the reason he didn't like Argent was thathewanted to be wooing Alis, instead of letting the lord of the Silver Court do it. It didn't matter if it was all a performance. He was still grumpy about it.

Because that was very mature and professional of him. Jon had to laugh at himself as he headed back from the Red Court to the tavern after their little tete-a-tete. Hopefully Shelly would be feeling better soon and could release Alis from the bother of having to flirt politely with Argent. Then he and Alis could get Armsman Jonathan and Lady Alessandra's romance back on track.

It hit him, as he approached the tavern, that every time he'd seen Alis in the past few days, that his heart, soul, and bear had called out that she was his mate. The hot and cold thing seemed to have faded. Of course, he hadn't seen Lord Edward in days, because the Black Knight notoriously only showed up for the fights, but that was a problem for later. Jon would findsomeway to talk to the swordsman, and learn where the unexpected twist in his fate was leading him.

Laurie, still hobbling around in his knee brace, waved a greeting to Jon as he arrived, and called, "Good my minstrel, play us a song or two, will you not? Our patrons are calling for a dance!"

This generally meant it wasn't too busy, and sometimes actually got people to dance. Jon sat down, strummed a few bars, then dipped into an instrumental version of a pop song. At first no one noticed, but then a few people turned to listen with confused expressions before realizing what they were hearing. A minute later a bunch of young women who were the song's original target audience were on their feet, dancing together, and broke into cheers and applause when Jon finished.

He bowed where he sat and struck up another tune from a popular tv show that got laughter and coins tossed into the tip jar as they left, singing the chorus to the song at the top of their lungs. Jon was willing to bet half the people at the faire would be singing it before they left tonight, it was that catchy.

"Ah, yes." Lord Argent's disdainful, snotty voice cut through the music. "The minstrel, begging for his coin. How common."

We could swat him,Jon's bear muttered. It was better than the first thought that had leaped to Jon's mind, which was that he could bash the guy with his lute. That would be really hard on the lute, though, so he smiled through his teeth at the silver lord. "If you've another song you'd like to hear, my lord, toss a coin to the minstrel and we'll see what we can do."

"The only tune I wish to hear is the agony of your defeat."

Jon, very obligingly, he thought, switched to a song calledAgony, which got a laugh from the musical theatre lovers at the tavern, and a sour look from Argent himself. Before he could say anything else, Laurie sauntered up to him. "Will yer high and mightiness be drinking at our humble establishment this evening?"

There was a familiar, craven, whining sort of tone to Laurie's voice. Argent turned to him, his rather fine, handsome features blackening with anger. "You."

"Me, yer lordship. Me and no other. Surely yer high and mightiness honors us with yer graceful presence here. What might we bring for ye, yer lordship?"

"I want nothing from you peasants." Argent curled his lip, and Laurie practically bent double with deference.

"Av carse not, yer mightiness, yer most handsome and regal lordliness, after all, what could a poor auld barman like meself offer a great man like you, yer?—"

Jon fumbled a chord as he finally placed his brother's mimicry and fought down a laugh. He switched songs again, to a tune everybody knew if they'd grown up watching a certain Robin Hood movie, and got the words, "Every town," out before half the tavern patrons joined him in the rest of the line.

Argent squinted, then flushed suddenly as healsorealized what character Laurie was playing, and how that made him the pompous, self-centered villain of the piece. "Howdareyou peasants mock a lord!"

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