Page 6 of Falling for the Knight

She shook her head. “No, that’s not possible. I saw that on the map. That’s in England.”

“Northumbria.”

“I thought it was Northumberland? And we can’t be in England.”

They’d reached the gatehouse. Tristan looked up to the guards, who immediately opened the portcullis. His companion stopped talking as they passed through the thick stone walls. Once they reached the courtyard, they were greeted by his new squire, who had clearly been waiting for him.

“Durwin,” he said, dismounting and reaching up to help—“What name are you called?”

She wasn’t looking at him. In fact, she wasn’t looking at anyone. Whereas she’d been arguing with him the moment before, her eyes were now closed. And if he hadn’t been there to catch her, his guest would have fallen and broken her neck. She slid right into his arms, limp and motionless.

“Is she dead, my lord?” Durwin’s eyes widened, with good cause.

He leaned down and felt her breath on his cheek.

“Nay, Durwin, she is not.”

“What is she wearing?”

He knew not. Nor did he know where she came from, or what strange manner of an object she carried in her hand. But Tristan was determined to find out.

* * *

For the secondtime that day, Hannah struggled to remember where she was. It felt as if she were being—

“Where are you taking me?”

The brute from the beach was carrying her over his shoulder, her head facing his chest, as if she were a bag of flour. She was still in this strange place, with this strange—if handsome—man. The memory of the courtyard they’d just ridden through slammed into her. It had looked like something out of the Middle Ages. Boys playing with wooden swords, horses being led into a stable, people dressed like servants scurrying around. For a moment she’d actually thought she’d left the twenty-first century.

Ridiculous.

“Please put me down.”

They were climbing up a stone stairwell lit by torches in brackets. It finally occurred to Hannah that she was in serious trouble. She was in a bizarre place in a foreign country, far from the waterfall, if he told the truth, with no recollection of how she’d come to be here. Her lack of memory implied she’d been roofied, but if this man had abducted her, why had she woken up alone on the beach?

“Stop!” she screamed, her hands shaking as she struggled to get away from him. His face and body were almost too perfect, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t an axe murderer. She punched him in the chest, though it was like punching the stone wall that surrounded them. Surprisingly, he did put her down, and she promptly scrambled up and away from him. Sitting on the stone stair, she tried to catch her breath. Hannah had never had a panic attack before—not even her parents’ deaths had induced what her best friend described as ‘a night terror in the middle of the day.’ But she knew the signs well and was pretty sure it was happening to her now.

“You need to lie down.”

“I need to know where I am and what is going on,” she managed to say.

Hannah could not catch her breath.

“You really don’t know where you are?”

Why did he seem so surprised by that? And why did he talk so strangely? He thought she had an accent, but he sounded like a cross between a British actor and her Latin professor in college when he was trying to impress the class.

“Please. Please tell me what is happening. Why is everyone dressed like that?” She indicated his medieval garb. “Who are you?”

Her kidnapper looked awfully sympathetic for someone who had orchestrated such an elaborate scheme.

“I am lord of Saxford Castle—”

“Right. And why is everyone dressed up?”

His eyebrows drew together as he continued to stare at her. “Let me take you abovestairs—”

She was dreaming! This did feel very real, but there was no other explanation. Maybe she’d hit her head in the jump from the falls, and this was all a long fever dream, like with Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.