Tristan rubbed his temples, the pain in his head from earlier returning. He sat in the room over the gate, his customary meeting place with his marshal. John, his new sergeant, was also present for the meeting. The man had come to Saxford after his old lord was killed in battle, and they were grateful for it. His horsemanship skills were celebrated on both sides of the border.

“I need to get back—”

“To your visitor?” Walter asked. He sounded genuinely concerned, and Tristan couldn’t decide if he was grateful or annoyed.

He’d hated lying to his most trusted advisors, but there had been no choice. Hannah’s version of the truth was not acceptable, and she’d rejected his story about The Swan. So he’d spun a story that clung to the truth without being true. Traveling alone was more acceptable for widows than unmarried ladies, so he’d claimed she was a widow. Her wits were addled, likely from a fall, and she remembered only that she’d been traveling with her sisters and had become separated from them at Leannan Falls.

“Aye,” he said. “To arrange her escort. Have either of you heard of the falls?”

The men exchanged glances.

“Nay,” Walter said.

“I have,” John said, “but you won’t be pleased to learn where it is.”

“Tell me.” Though he already suspected what the answer would be.

Walter and John exchanged glances.

“It’s located on the very edge of Sutherland’s property, just north of its southernmost border.”

Damn. That would not do.

“We can’t take her there,” Walter said. “Any provocation now—”

“Provocation?” His patience with the Scottish border lord had come to an end months ago. When Kenton granted him this property, the one closest to his most bitter enemy, he had promised to protect it. Even if that meant being more patient than was comfortable. “He has threatened to attack us the moment the treaty ends. If anyone is provoking—”

“Are you prepared for battle now? I despise Sutherland more than any man alive, as do you, but if he were to attack now—”

“We will be ready.”

They would need to be. Rumor had it the wardens did not intend to intervene, which meant there would be another bloody border war that would see men dead on both sides—all for a feud none of them had started. But he’d sworn to protect the people of Saxford, promised as much to his overlord and the man who pulled him from a stewhouse to a new life, and so he would.

“My lord,” Walter pressed, “if a contingent of men is caught anywhere near—”

“I will ensure it does not happen.”

“Also,” John said, his gruff voice filling the room, “there are strange rumors about those falls.”

He stood, wanting to get back to Hannah.

“I care little for rumors.”

With his hand on the iron door handle, Tristan was about to leave when John’s words stopped him.

“Aye, but the men must be careful.” The warning was rather vague and obvious, but something about John’s tone gave him pause.

He turned. “Aye, of Sutherland—”

“Nay, of the falls.”

Every hair on his arms stood on end.

“My sister says a faerie lives in the pool beneath the falls.”

“A faerie?” He laughed, chiding himself for having given the rumor even a moment’s consideration. Tristan did open the door then, bidding farewell to his men.

Faeries existed only in children’s tales, and were even less believable than time travel. Even so, Walter and John were right. After nearly ten years of peace, he couldn’t be the one to break the treaty with Sutherland. It would expire on its own the following month, and when it did, a battle would be coming.

And he was prepared for it.

Hannah paced in the bedchamber, as she now knew it was called, that she’d slept in the night before after Tristan had left her hot and bothered. Her tossing and turning most of the night had little to do with her predicament and everything to do with the man she nearly lost herself to on the doorstep of this chamber.

She’d awoken this morning to the comforting thought that it had all been a dream—only to open her eyes and find herself here, dressed in the potato sack of a nightgown Joan had given her. A fresh wave of panic had washed over her, and nothing short of seeing those falls would help. To think she’d been worried about catching her flight. Ha! She was pretty sure airlines would not exist for hundreds of years.

With nothing to do but wait, Hannah studied the bed she’d slept on. She supposed the oversized frame would be called a four-poster bed back home, though Hannah had no idea if those words would be used here. The mattress was stuffed with feathers, or so she imagined based on how it felt. Surprisingly, the blankets, or coverlets as Joan called them, were as soft as the bamboo ones she’d recently purchased for her room in Boston. The stone walls were covered with colorful tapestries, expensive-looking ones, though she was no tapestry expert.

Joan had appeared not long afterward with a tray of food and a change of clothes. The ‘lord’ apparently thought it best she eat here, alone, rather than disturb his hall with her presence. She honestly didn’t care. Frankly, being surrounded by men who looked as if they’d jumped off the pages of a medieval encyclopedia unnerved her. Here, at least, she could pretend she had not somehow traveled back through time in that waterfall.

Healing properties indeed.

A knock landed on the door, which was opened before she could respond. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of his big body filling the entire entranceway. Tristan was dressed much as he’d been the day before, in thick woolen hose and a cream linen shirt layered beneath an armless jacket-type thing.

Hannah shivered.

“I see Joan has found you another gown?”

This one was much simpler in style than the blue one she’d worn to dinner. Joan had insisted on a slip . . . no, she’d called it a chemise, but Hannah hadn’t really seen the purpose. This gown, though cut quite low in the front, covered every other inch of her. But she’d relented, not wanting to raise any questions.

“She has,” Hannah said, spreading the material out around her feet. How did women get anything done in these? “Whose gown is this?”

Rather than answer, Tristan came inside.

“It doesn’t matter.”

She knew from Joan that Tristan had never been married. Saxford had lacked a mistress for the ten years he had been lord here. Hannah had been about to ask about the previous lord when another servant had come looking for Joan. Apparently, she was the laundress here too.

Hannah hated laundry and couldn’t imagine doing it without a washer and dryer, especially given how much fabric was used in each gown.

Which got her to thinking about the other things that had not been invented yet. How was she supposed to live without computers? The internet? Instagram? She forced herself to stop that particular train of thought. She was going to find her sisters and get home. Somehow. Staying here was not an option.

And yet, the first question she found herself asking was, “What do you call a girlfriend in your time?”

“Girlfriend?” Tristan took another step inside and closed the door behind him.

Her body didn’t care about the fact that she was six hundred years and a few thousand miles from her home. With every step he took toward her, Hannah struggled to slow her rapid heartbeat. “Girlfriend. Boyfriend. Someone that you date. Actually, you don’t date, come to think of it, do you? People just get married, right?”

“I don’t know this word, date.”

Finally, he halted his advance. He definitely did not smell like she’d have expected. While she distinctly remembered one of the guides talking about medieval people’s lack of hygiene, he smelled quite nice, like pine. A scent she never imagined would smell quite so . . . sexy. What else had they gotten wrong?

“When a man and woman . . .” Hannah had never been shy. But man, this guy flustered her. “Get to know each other. Before they marry. Or maybe they don’t.”

“Have . . . sex?” he said with a smile. “Is that what you mean?”

“Never mind,” she said, trying to dismiss the whole topic. What had she been thinking? If she was lucky, she’d find some way to get back home. Then they’d never see each other again. “When am I leaving? Did you find someone to bring me to the falls?”

“Answer me, Hannah.”

Her name had never, ever sounded so . . . sensual.

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Not exactly. “More importantly—”

“I will answer your question when you answer mine.”

“Are you this high-handed with everyone,” she snapped, knowing the answer. He was a lord, and Tristan very much acted like one.

His brow furrowed in confusion. Ugh, it was like they spoke two different languages. He clearly had no idea what she meant.

“I appreciate your help, Tristan, I really do, but—”

“Tell me what you meant by ‘girlfriend,’ and I will take you to the falls myself.”

No. Absolutely no way. Travel with him? Hannah could barely look at him without swooning, especially after their banter last night. Besides, she’d never been the type to go for thickheaded men with six-pack abs.

“One of your men will do just fine.”

His response was to make himself right at home, on her bed, no less. The temptation to sit beside him—to sit on him—was hard to resist.

“Nay. My sergeant has heard of Leannan Falls, and it happens to be located in an area that could prove dangerous.”

Hannah tried to think back, but she really knew little of English history—and even less about this region, except . . .

She paled. Holy shit. William Wallace, Robert Bruce. Hadn’t the Scottish Wars of Independence broken out along the border? When had that gone down?

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” she lied. There was no point in bringing it up given how little she actually knew. “What kind of danger?”

Tristan frowned. “The kind that could get you killed. The falls are located on the property of a man who would take great pleasure in using our trespassing to incite a war between us.”

That definitely sounded bad. “Why?”

She tried to move but remembered the monstrosity on her body. And to think this was the simpler of the dresses she’d worn. Hannah would be changing into her shorts the moment they left Saxford.

“I’ll tell you after you explain ‘girlfriend’ to me.”

The man was insufferable.

“Fine.” Hannah tried to think back to earlier times, to bridge the divide a bit. “At one time, men and women entered into a courtship. Do you at least know what that means?”

He shook his head.

“A period when they would get to know each other before getting married.”

“A betrothal.”

“Kind of. But not that committed. They could still decide not to get married. Courtship is considered kind of old-fashioned though. Now . . . well, not now, but in the twenty-first century, people just date.” How to describe dating? “They get to know each other, go out, like to dinner or to a bar . . . that is, a pub. Seriously, you don’t know ‘pub?’” What could it possibly be called in his time? “A tavern?”

Hannah laughed at Tristan’s dubious expression. So men and women did not date in taverns. “If you are dating someone, getting to know them, but not dating anyone else, you are boyfriend and girlfriend. Exclusive. To each other.”

“Married?”

“God, no!” She thought of some of the boyfriends she’d had in the past. One particular stuffed shirt was so full of himself that he actually chastised a maitre d’ who addressed him as mister rather than doctor. That had been their last date. Thank goodness those arrangements had been easily broken. “Nothing that permanent.”

“So boyfriends and girlfriends go to a tavern together . . . and do what?”

Hannah shrugged. “I assume the same thing you do now. Talk, eat, drink.” She left it at that. “No such concept in your time, I guess?”

Tristan tilted his head. “No.”

“So what do a man and woman call each other before they are married?”

“Betrothed.”

“Before that.”

“Strangers. Or maybe friends if the families know each other.”

“Geez.”

“Unless you are a whore.”

Had he seriously just said that? “Pardon me?”

“There are women who have relations with men before marriage, but they are either widowed or common. Unless they’re getting paid, and then they are—”

“I know, you don’t have to say it again.” Hannah hated that word. “Those women are called prostitutes in my time.”

He was looking at her strangely again, his head cocked to one side.

“What do you mean by common?” Widow, she understood.

“A woman who is neither a lady nor a . . . prostitute.”

“Right. Because ladies don’t have sex before they’re married. No contraception and heirs and all.”

“Is it not so in your time?”

He still didn’t believe her, but at least he was playing along. So would she.

“We don’t have an aristocracy,” she said. “No lords and ladies or anything like that. So no, it’s not like that. I mean, there are classes, but . . .”

“And what is contraception?”

Oh boy. Better just to get it out there. “Ways to prevent a woman from becoming pregnant?”

“You mean—”

“Having a babe.”

He paused, presumably to think about that one for a second. “There are ways,” he shrugged. “Though they cannot always be trusted.”

And though neither said another word, an understanding passed between them. One that did not need to be spoken of aloud. One that would prevent her from ever knowing Tristan that way.

How had they gotten so off-topic? “Your turn to answer my question.”

“I will tell you tonight.” Tristan stood.

“Tonight?”

He looked her up and down, and she hated that her body immediately responded. He was arrogant and borderline cocky. Definitely presumptuous. And yet . . .

“It’s getting late.”

“Late? It can’t be a minute past seven o’clock . . . in the morning.”

Yes, another blank stare.

“If we’re going to get to Leannan Falls by tomorrow, we will need to leave soon. I’ve no desire to—”

“Tomorrow?”

And then it hit her. “Tristan, how will we get there?” She still wasn’t sure how she felt about traveling with him, but she supposed it was preferable to a stranger. And he obviously cared little about her opinion on the matter.

“Horseback,” he said as if she were daft.

“That’s what I was afraid of.”