Her fears were not unwarranted. No sooner had Joan and her cousins descended the stairs to join the other women in the courtyard than Alex appeared by her side.

“I’ve been conscripted as an escort,” he said, by way of answer to her unspoken question.

Joan lifted a brow. “Why do I think you were not averse to the duty?”

“Aye, it’s a nice break from the preparations of war.”

“Is that all?”

“There might have been another reason or two.”

She frowned. “Two?”

He quirked a decidedly devilish smile that made his already too-handsome face even more devastating and landed with a thump somewhere in the region above her ribs.

Dear God, would she ever grow used to how handsome he was?

He can be yours . . .

No, he can’t. She had to force herself to quiet the voice of temptation. But every minute she spent with him, it grew louder.

He was everything she’d once imagined a knight could be: courteous, gallant, charming, and attentive. He made her laugh, made her feel like she was the most important person in the world, and seemed to anticipate her wishes even before she thought them. When one of the “ladies” in the queen’s party tried to flirt with him—not seeming to care that Joan was right there—he gently but firmly cut her off. He only had eyes for one woman, and he made sure everyone knew it.

It was like a dream. She might as well have fallen back in time into the pages of her favorite stories: the fair maid being wooed by the gallant knight. He seemed to have forgotten her reputation, and she forgot the disappointment and cynicism that had helped construct it.

Maybe if she could have kept it at that it would have been easier to dismiss, but Alex was intent on drawing her in deeper and deeper with questions and conversations that made her realize he really wanted to know her. The real her. The person she hadn’t been for a very long time.

The royal party had ridden for a few miles before stopping in a wide swath of moorland. As Joan had never had much interest in hawking—not only was it an extremely expensive sport, but frankly birds of prey terrified her—she had joined a few of the other ladies on an old stone wall to watch. After attending to his duties, Alex had ambled over to take a seat beside her. She didn’t know whether to be annoyed or amused when the two ladies she’d been sitting with moved to give them some privacy.

It didn’t take long for their light conversation to take a more serious turn. “I saw you once,” Alex admitted. “A long time ago.”