The English commander was right—there was nothing personal on the parchment, not even a greeting—but Alex took it anyway. Something bothered him about the handwriting, and he wanted to look at it a little longer.

By Friday, when he was done with his job to oversee the loading of the cargo, he was no closer to figuring out what was bothering him. About the note, that is.

He knew exactly what else was bothering him, and when he saw her walking back from the village—alone, damn it—he decided he’d waited long enough.

Joan didn’t delude herself that the dark, brooding stares she’d been the subject of for the past few days meant that Alex would heed her request. Or that she would be able to avoid him forever. She sensed he did not give up easily.

But he had given up before, hadn’t he? On Bruce and on the Guard. Eventually he would give up on her; she only had to make him see that she didn’t need a knight in shining armor to ride to her rescue.

For that was what this was about. She’d reached that conclusion over the past few largely sleepless nights trying to figure out what had motivated his declaration, and what he saw in her. As far as he knew, she was a dispossessed, illegitimate daughter of a rebel who’d shared the bed of more than a few men—hardly the type of woman a man would be anxious to have for a wife.

But Alex was a natural protector, and he obviously saw her as in need of rescue. His honor wouldn’t permit him to walk away, even if she clearly was not the sweet, innocent lass he surely had thought to find for himself. She suspected his friendship with her mother was also playing a part. Maybe he thought that by “saving” Joan, he was making reparations to her mother.

Whatever motivated him, it couldn’t continue. Alex was interfering with her job. She hadn’t identified a new target yet—she felt self-conscious every time she spoke with a man at a meal with the way she sensed Alex watching her—and it had taken her two days to pass the message to her contact at the mercery. He had her so jumpy she felt like she was being followed half the time.