More than welcomed, she thought with a grimace of shame. She’d kissed him openly and wantonly, no doubt only reinforcing his opinion of her. That was probably why he seemed to be making a concerted effort to avoid her all week. Though she had felt his eyes on her more than once. He must be wracked with shame for dishonoring himself by frolicking with a woman of her sort.

But she still didn’t understand why he’d kissed her as if she weren’t that sort of woman at all, but rather someone who was special.

Dear God in heaven, just listen to her! Could she really still be so naive as to ascribe sentiment to a kiss? The first man who didn’t try to shove his tongue down her throat and she thought it meant something?

It was probably his seductive trick—making women think they were special.

But it hadn’t felt like a trick.

She sighed, telling herself not to think about it. She had other things to worry about. Sir Hugh was due to return any day.

Undoubtedly the best thing to come out of that night was Sir Hugh being called away on a mission for the king. Although frustratingly, she’d been unable to find out anything about it. No one seemed to know the details, or if they did, they were being very secretive.

She would have to wait until he returned to see what she could find out. Instincts or not, it was clear she could no longer break things off with him—at least not right away. But at least his absence gave her a chance to breathe and figure out how she was going to handle him.

The sound of a stomp interrupted her musings.

“You are doing it again,” Alice said, clearly annoyed.

“Leave her alone, Alice,” Margaret said. “She does not need to confide all her secrets to you.”

Alice gave her sister a skeptical frown. “What secrets could Joan have?”

You’d be surprised, Joan thought.

Margaret smiled at her as if she’d heard her. “We all have secrets,” her cousin said softly.

Alice looked at her sister as if she knew what some of those secrets might be, and they upset her. She frowned and was about to say something when Margaret stopped her. “Isn’t that the knight we saw practicing at Wark the other day? Alex Seton?”

Joan tried to feign disinterest as she turned in the direction of Margaret’s gaze, but she suspected her sharp intake of breath had not gone unnoticed. Though she immediately averted her eyes lest their gazes meet, the quick glance through the crowd was enough to confirm his identity and bring a hot flush to her cheeks as memories hit with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Her heart started to beat at an alarmingly accelerated rate.