But this man wasn’t looking at her like that at all.

Not knowing what to make of it, she frowned and told herself to give him time. He would probably try to turn his role of rescuer to his advantage soon. She could hear it in her head: How can I thank you? she would ask, and his response with a wicked smile, I’m sure we can think of something.

Aye, something that no doubt included mouths and tongues, and him trying to grope her chest.

Having successfully cleared the stars from her eyes, her voice (and heartbeat) returned to normal. “It’s my ankle. I seem to have twisted it.”

His expression shifted to one that seemed to be of genuine concern. “Are you sure it’s not broken?”

She nodded. “It’s a little tender, that’s all. I will wrap it when I get back to my room, and I’m sure it will be fine.”

She’d never noticed how tight and narrow the stairwell was—or maybe it was just because he was so big. His shoulders almost spanned the width. He seemed to have confiscated all the air. She was finding it difficult to breathe, and then when she did . . . her senses were filled with leather, wind, and the hint of something spicy . . . maybe cloves?

She was a tall woman at six inches over five feet, but even standing on the stair above him, the top of her head only came up to his chin. But their faces were close, and she was too aware of every inch between them—of which there were only a precious handful.

She studied his face again. He was even better looking than she’d realized initially. There was something vaguely familiar about him . . .

She gasped, shock making her forget herself for a moment. No wonder she thought he looked like a fantasy. He was a fantasy—her fantasy, as it turned out.

Joan had never forgotten the handsome young knight who’d caught her fourteen-year-old girlish imagination at the market in Roxburgh six years before. At the time, she hadn’t realized he’d been with her mother. She simply thought him the most magnificent young knight she’d ever seen. Sir Alexander Seton. She’d learned his name in the intervening years, and his place in the Guard . . .

Suddenly, what else that meant struck her.

Her thoughts must have shown on her face.

“Is something wrong, my lady?” he asked.

Aye, something was wrong. Alex Seton wasn’t a gallant knight by any cry of imagination—he was a traitor.

Rescuing two young women in as many days was a bit excessive—even for him. MacSorley would have been making jokes at Alex’s expense for weeks.

The fact that this was among his first thoughts after catching the woman falling down the stairs told him how much the confrontation with his former brethren still was weighing on him.