This was not how he’d planned to “take care of it.” If he were found anywhere near Sutherland’s property, it would give the old man the excuse he’d been looking for.

Which was why he’d decided to take her alone. If someone who did not know Tristan spotted them, they could perhaps pass themselves off as a married couple. Still, Walter and John had not needed to tell him it was a bad idea, though they had, and more than once.

“How long will it take us to get there?”

Tristan tried to ignore the feeling of Hannah’s arms around his waist, concentrating instead on keeping her mounted. The revelation that she’d never ridden a horse before had nearly convinced him to believe her fantastical tale. It was obvious from the way she rode that she was being truthful. At least he’d chosen a smaller, lighter horse for the trip, one with a special ability for navigating through the mountains.

“We’ll camp just over the border tonight. According to John, Leannan Falls is at the intersection of the River Tweed and Whiteadder, so we should arrive tomorrow.”

“Why did you decide to take me?”

“Does everyone in your time talk so much?”

“So you believe me now?”

Of course he did not believe her.

So how do you explain her clothing? Her speech?

When they’d left earlier this morning, Tristan had found himself studying her as she walked through the castle. She looked at it as if, well, as if it was all new to her. She reached out to touch everything, eyes as wide as a babe.

“No.”

Tristan slowed when the path split into two. He knew the terrain well, and while he did not think reivers would be a problem, he wasn’t inclined to take chances. They’d meet less travelers if they stayed away from Saxford Village. When he turned his mount, the top of Saxford Castle came into view behind them. He marveled that it was truly his, just as he’d done nearly every day for the last ten years.

He turned, wanting to gauge Hannah’s reaction.

“It’s very pretty,” she said softly.

He was inclined to agree. Whatever century she was from, Hannah’s wide eyes and perfectly smooth cheeks gave her a look of innocence that her expression never quite matched. A mystery, one he’d likely not solve. If she found what she was looking for tomorrow, he would never see her again.

“Thank you,” he added, spurring the horse forward into a stretch of marshland.

“Yesterday you said this trip could be dangerous . . .” Hannah trailed off, her words tinged with fear. He wished he could say he’d exaggerated the matter, but he had not.

“I suppose I should finish my story. Ten years ago I was nothing more than an armorer’s apprentice—”

“A position your mother had secured.”

“Aye. I told you of the Earl of Kenton. He took notice of my work and eventually became our sole patron. One day, he came to our shop himself and found me attempting, poorly no doubt, to wield the small sword my master had given me.”

“How old were you?”

“Ten and six by then. Most squires are already trained for battle by that age.” And he’d never so much as felt the clang of an opponent’s sword. “He offered to train me, and of course I accepted.”

He remembered the first time he’d entered the training yard . . . the other squires and knights had not attempted to hide their scorn. He tried to remember those first days with gratitude, but those sneers had marred his memory.

When they hit a bump, she tightened her arms around him, her breasts pressing up against his back. Perhaps he should have worn armor despite the fact that he hoped not to need it.

“I see.”

“Kenton and his wife were never able to have children,” he said, as if that explained it. Of course, it did not. Plenty of boys had squired for the earl over the years, but Kenton had seen something special in him. “His castle was where I met Gerard, my steward. He was also fostered by Kenton.” The third son of a minor baron, fostering by Lord Kenton, he’d held no title other than “sir” and no prospects other than the ones he took for himself. They’d gotten along from the first.

“So how did you come to be lord of Saxford. Or how do you say it?”

She didn’t understand titles?

“Tristan, will it be this bumpy the whole time?”

Every time Hannah said his name he wanted to feel her words against his mouth. Though he couldn’t see them now, he could imagine her lips gliding over his own. Their dinner conversation, and his sleepless night afterward, did little to distract from such musings.

“Aye, it will.” He took a deep breath and concentrated on his story instead of the sensation of Hannah’s curvy body pressed up against him.

“How did I come to be Lord Saxford? You might not believe the tale.”

“Is it more unbelievable than my own?”

Tristan chuckled. “Indeed, it is not.”

He slowed through a slog of mud, the marshland soon giving way up to the steepest incline they would face on this journey. If Hannah considered the ride bumpy on flat land, she would not be happy about the mountainous terrain ahead.

He gripped the reins, glad to be alone on the road, and thought back to that fateful day.

“Kenton’s family and Clan Sutherland have been enemies for longer than both groups have existed. In fact, none remember the reason for the feud, only that each generation of Kentons and Sutherlands continued to raid and plunder one another with such vigor that even their allies began to abandon them. Along a bloody border, their enmity stood out as the most vicious, until the wardens eventually appealed to the kings on both sides to see an end to it.”

“Wardens?”

“Leaders, on both sides of the border, to enforce March law.”

Hannah was never quiet, so he assumed she did not know what that meant.

“If indeed you traveled through time, you chose a dangerous location. The border between England and Scotland has not seen true peace in my lifetime despite the laws that were created to make it so. Reivers continue to wreak havoc on the weak, nobles and clergy use black mal to line their coffers, and only men like Kenton can secure safety for their people.”

“You mean blackmail? And what do you mean, men like Kenton?”

“The strongest men, the ones who can garrison themselves behind defenses—”

“Like Saxford.”

“Aye.”

“So what happened when the wardens appealed to their kings?”

Tristan resisted turning around. He could already see her face in his mind, sharp and expectant. He smiled. “They agreed on a most unusual way to reconcile the unrest. Twenty men from each side battled to the death. The winner claimed victory and set their terms.”

“That’s barbaric!”

“But it worked. Kenton slew every one of Sutherland’s men.”

He may have shocked her, but at least Hannah was distracted enough not to realize they were climbing to a peak that was high enough to afford them a view of the North Sea.

“So what does this have to do with you and—”

“I was one of the men who fought for Kenton.”

Hannah gasped.

“I’d gone to witness the event, though of course I could not fight. Kenton’s best knights had been chosen for that honor. But when one of those men ran off—he jumped in the river, if the rumors can be believed—Kenton was left one man short.”

“The best knights indeed.”

He agreed but remained silent.

“And so you fought that day instead.”

“In front of King Richard, who insisted on attending. It was, after all, his idea—”

“He sounds awful.”

The treasonous statement flowed from her as if . . . well, as if she did not understand it was treason. “When the battle was over, the king treated me as if I’d helped win a great battle even though I’d only killed two men. My first two, in fact . . .”

Tristan could still remember the sounds, so different than the clanging of swords in the training yards. These strikes were so much more insistent, loud and angry. Blood had spattered everywhere. He’d since become accustomed to the sight, but back then—

“And that’s how you came to be Lord Saxford?”

“After Richard knighted me, Kenton bequeathed Saxford to me on the condition I keep it safe from Sutherland. It is his closest property to the border. Even now he tells the tale to anyone who will listen.”

“That is quite a . . . uh, Tristan?”

She finally noticed. He’d chosen a horse capable of navigating the rocky incline, but she couldn’t know that.

“We’re almost to the top, just hang on.”

Even beneath the padded gambeson, he could feel her fingers tighten about him. When they finally did reach the crest of the mountain, he bid Hannah to look to her right.

She gasped. “Oh my goodness, look at that!”

He did, though not at the sea.

He really should not have turned around. The urge to feel her lips beneath his own was almost too strong to bear. But he’d made a vow and had never broken it. He would not touch a woman who did not ask for it first. Tristan had spent too many years protecting women to misuse them now.

“I first saw the sea when I was bequeathed Saxford, but I’ve become partial to living so close to it.”

Hannah had not heard him. Or if she had, she gave no indication of it. She was lost to him, if only just a brief moment. When she did look up to meet his gaze, the pain he saw in her eyes nearly made him forget his own vow. He wanted to comfort her but didn’t know how except for touch.

“What is it?”

She blinked, a single tear slipping down her face. “I want to go home.”

The urge to comfort her peaked, but there was nothing he could do. If her home truly was hundreds of years in the future, she might never see it again. And if she did find a way to return, he’d never see her again.

He started the descent in silence.

She was going to die.

Hannah squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t watch. While she’d climbed Mount Katahdin back home—another adventure imposed on her by Caroline—Maine’s highest mountain didn’t compare to this. At least she’d been in control, able to put one foot in front of the other. Being this high off the ground on a horse? It wasn’t as steep, but if they fell . . .

“You can open your eyes now.”

She did and let out a breath. They were at the bottom.

“I need to get down.” She’d barely finished the words before Tristan dismounted. After he helped her down, she resisted the urge to fall to the ground and kiss it.

“Please tell me we don’t have to do that again.”

Tristan led them off the path and into a thicket of woods. He tied the horse to a tree and moved to the bag it carried.

“We do not.”

Hannah looked back at the peak behind them. It didn’t even look that steep from here. Back home, it wouldn’t even be called a mountain.

“We aren’t stopping for long. If you need to . . .”

They looked at each other, Hannah not understanding.

He raised his eyebrows pointedly.

“Oh!” Of course. That she could do. She wandered into the woods to relieve herself, marveling at how much the woods reminded her of home. True, some of the trees were different, but it had the same ambience. She finished, rejoining Tristan once again.

“How are you feeling?”

Since her proclamation about going home, they’d not spoken. Tristan seemed to be deep in thought, and she found herself wondering what he was thinking.

“Better,” she said, taking a piece of bread from him. “It just reminded me of Maine.”

“What’s it like? This ‘Maine.’”

Hannah knew he didn’t believe her, so the question came as a surprise. “It’s also along the coast, the Atlantic Ocean. It’s rockier than here, but just as beautiful. Mayport Bay is a typical coastal town.”

She took the skin he offered, trying not to dwell on what it was made of. Some sort of animal part, no doubt, but she was content not to know.

“How so?” he asked. Tristan leaned against a tree, taking a bite of some type of dried meat.

“The local industry revolves around the seasons, tourists in the summer months and preparing for them the rest of the year. My parents own . . .”

Owned. Hannah still had a hard time speaking of them in the past tense.

“You don’t have to tell me.” The sympathetic look in his eyes told her he remembered this part of her story. He’d lost his mother too. He understood.

Suddenly, Tristan was just a regular man again. Not some superhero knight or the lord of a castle that her entire town could fit inside. Just a guy, albeit an extremely good-looking one, who wanted to know more about her life. “They owned a flower shop. Bought it from the previous owners when I was four and my sister Caroline was a newborn. It was a terrible time to become business owners, but when it went up for sale . . .”

A sob tried to work its way up her throat. She’d wanted to tell him more about them, but she just couldn’t. She wasn’t ready. Even with her sisters she had not been ready, knowing she was supposed to be a role model for them. But she just couldn’t do it. Not this time.

“Anyway, it came in handy, knowing the flower business,” she said, consciously changing the subject.

Tristan pushed away and walked toward her and reached for the waterskin. “What do you mean?”

He drank deeply, his Adam’s apple bobbing in a manly display that made her want to kiss his neck. Lord help her.

She took a deep breath as he returned the skin back to the bag. “My degree, an MBA.” A blank look settled on his face. “My studies at university. I learned how to run a business and eventually partnered with a former classmate. We started an event planning business in Boston.” Of course, he would have no idea what that meant. “We plan things for clients. Weddings, conferences. Um . . . banquets, parties.”

She waited for him to process everything from MBA to Boston and conferences. Hannah couldn’t help but smile at his expression.

“Are you a steward then? Like Gerard?”

“I suppose. But without a boss . . . a master. We worked for ourselves.”

This was clearly a foreign concept to him.

“Everyone has a master. Every lord, an overlord. With the exception of the king. Now, come. We must make haste.” When Tristan mounted and lowered his hand to her, she took it. He lifted her so easily that Hannah actually let out an audible sigh.

You are not attracted to a freaking medieval knight.

Yes, you are. Of course you are.

She stopped arguing with herself and attempted to explain. “We don’t have a king. Or a queen. Just a president. But he, and hopefully someday she, can only be elected for eight years at most.”

Civics and history were never her favorite classes, but explaining her political system to Tristan forced her to dredge up everything she could remember. After hours of easy conversation as they rode through a changing landscape that became more and more wooded, Hannah was quite impressed with her lessons. It was only when the sun began to set and Tristan announced it was time to make camp that she realized something.

He finally believed her.