Page 25 of Falling for the Knight

“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.