Jenna hesitates. Then she opens her mouth as if to answer, but we are interrupted again, this time by my cousin Adam and his fiancée. Mia is also my new stepsister, but she doesn’t like it when I call her that so I just think of her as Adam’s future wife instead.

The two of them sit down on my side of the bench, but I’m still looking at Jenna, waiting for her to answer.

Chapter 3

Jenna

I was so going to kill Alex when I got her alone. She thought she was hilarious, putting me in this position. But she knew damn well that I didn’t get mad, I got even. Perhaps it had been too long since I’d demonstrated that. Instead of answering William’s generous offer, the wheels were turning inside my head as I plotted my revenge on my mischievous roommate.

William was hot. Everyone knew it. And it was obvious he took this chivalry stuff very seriously. That made him even more appealing, really. But I had just barely broken up with Doug the Douchebag, and whether or not this was a romantic overture on William’s part, there was no way I could follow through. Not now.

Yet there he was, watching me, waiting for me to answer when Adam and Mia appeared—as if it were timed that way. Fuck. My. Life.

“Hey, William,” Mia said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “That was an intense fight. You did an amazing job.”

William hesitated for a moment, as if in answering Mia he’d miss my reply to his question. I knew I shouldn’t just let it slide, but it was so much easier that way. So I went along with it.

“He would have won, I think,” I said.

“Sure he would have. What happened, William?” Mia asked.

“I violated the rules,” he said, and the obviousness of his answer would have made me laugh if it wasn’t said so solemnly.

“So what’s the plan?” Adam asked his cousin. “Are you going to keep fighting duels?”

“I don’t know,” replied William, who was still staring at me, then pulling his eyes away whenever I looked at his face. My face was starting to warm from the attention.

Perhaps Ann was right. And if I wasn’t having such a crappy day, I’d be more than a little flattered that he seemed interested. Or maybe he just felt sorry for me. It was so hard to tell with him. With his aloof and stoic manners, he kept everything close to the vest.

Minutes later—and smack in the middle of Mia’s story about working on a cadaver in her first year of medical school—William checked his watch and then abruptly stood. Her voice faded out as her eyes followed his movement. Thank the goddess for William’s interruption, albeit a rude one, because I was squeamish about stuff like that. Mia didn’t seem upset, so I guess he was excused because they were family.

“I need to go to the Clan Council.” William stepped over the bench and gathered our dishes. “Jenna has to come too,” he said and then left the table.

I popped up and followed him, but not before noting how Mia’s dark eyebrows arched upward. After quickly catching up to William, I fell into step beside him as we made our way to the large pavilion tent that belonged to our organization, the Barony of Anaya. It was named after two different cities in Orange County, Anaheim and Santa Ana. Above the doorway of the tent hung the heraldic banner, designed ages ago. It bore a white unicorn on a silver shield against a backdrop of deep purple—purpure in heraldric terminology.

Divisions of the Renaissance and Medieval Reenactment Alliance were patterned after feudalism. Territories called “baronies” grouped together under duchies and then under a kingdom, which represented a quarter of the country.

Kingdom leaders were usually chosen by combat competition. In fact, Doug had let me know it was his ambition to rule our kingdom. Goddess forbid. Thankfully, our local leadership had been chosen by consensus, and I was confident that they’d treat this situation in a fair and intelligent manner.

William and I stepped into the war tent, and I was relieved to find it empty except for the five people sitting at a table at the very back. One of the things I loved most about these weekend campouts was the feeling of living in another time period. We weren’t completely authentic, but we tried, wearing clothes that imitated medieval fashions and trading goods and skills in order to help each other out. I felt wildly inappropriate standing here in my jeans, but a girl had to do what a girl had to do.

I glanced at William, wondering if he enjoyed the club for the same reasons I did. That feeling of belonging and a comforting sense of community. Especially for a person as reserved as he was. In many ways, it was the perfect place for misfits like us.

William approached the table where the council elders sat. Lord Richard de Bricasse, our baron, was known in real life as Derek Richardson, a fifty-something businessman. His wife, the baroness, sat beside him, and along with three others, they ran the business of the clan, setting up meetings and making sure everyone followed the bylaws—all that boring stuff that the rest of us didn’t want to worry about when there was fun to be had.

“Sir William. Have you a petition to bring before us?” Lord de Bricasse began formally, as he usually did during the meetings.

William bowed at the waist, as was custom. “My lord and lady, gentlemen, I’d like to let Mistress Kovac speak for herself.”

William waved a hand toward me and I dipped in an awkward curtsy, made even more so because I had no skirt to grab. Then I faced the council table to find all of them looking at me.

“Mistress Kovac, do you have a complaint against Sir William?”

My mouth dropped open, then I quickly recovered. “Not against Sir William, no. He’s here to support me. My complaint is against Doug—I mean, Sir Douglas.”

Doug picked that moment to show up, striding in with his chest puffed up. He halted on the other side of William, like he was more scared of me than he was of the guy who had injured him with a big-ass longsword not an hour ago. I noted that he now had his arm in a sling and he threw a stinging glare at William, who either ignored him or didn’t notice.

“This ought to be good,” Doug mumbled, turning that glare on me.

I cleared my throat and once again faced the council, explaining my plight as quickly as I could while giving as few details as possible.

Lady de Bricasse cleared her throat and adjusted her seat. “This might be out of the purview of our council if Sir Douglas does not choose to follow our arbitration, but it would seem that the item belongs to Mistress Kovac. What say you, Sir Douglas?”