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“My lord.” Hannah nearly laughed at how funny the words sounded coming from her lips. But the fear that she might never see Maine, or more importantly, her sisters again, kept her from doing so.

He gave her a quizzical look and nodded down to the meal.

At a loss, she finally asked, “Am I supposed to do something?”

Tristan sat back and crossed his arms. “You truly do not know?”

Hannah had never been known for her patience, especially on an empty stomach.

“Maybe you didn’t hear me earlier, but—”

“I heard you.” He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward. “It is customary for a lady to eat first when she shares a trencher with a man.”

“Trencher?” She looked down as soon as he said it. He could only mean the ‘plate.’

“Why?”

“Hannah, please eat.”

She did not have to be prompted twice. Mimicking her dinner companions, she ate a piece with her fingers. The meat was so heavily spiced she nearly choked on it. But she forced it down, not wanting to insult him.

He followed her lead, and after a few bites, Hannah became a bit more accustomed to the spice. Until she remembered the reason they’d spiced the meat so heavily in the Middle Ages . . .

She was going to be ill.

“You don’t like it? Saxford’s cook—”

“No,” she said, much too quickly. “It’s delicious.”

No refrigerators.

She couldn’t do it.

Thankfully, the servant had returned with another tray. This time, he placed it on the table between her and Tristan. Cheese. That should be safe. And figs. Hannah picked up one of each.

“Refrigerators,” she whispered. The closest table to them was not very far away, and the last thing she needed was to be overheard talking about refrigerators in the fourteenth century. “In my time, we have . . . boxes, of sorts.” She was not prepared to explain electricity. Instead, she said, “And they keep things cold. Like meat.”

She’d give it to him. Though Tristan clearly did not believe her, he did not recoil from her words. He looked at her as if she were a curious specimen. That is, until she licked her finger clean and he began looking at her in a completely different way . . .

Thislanguage, it would seem, was the same across the centuries. She could have been sitting in a bar in Boston, except none of her boyfriends had looked remotely like Tristan—and they’d possessed none of his staggering confidence either. She’d dated an attorney once who worked for one of the largest firms on the East Coast. But even he had not exuded the sheer power and control of a man who was literally lord of his own castle.

“How does the son of a . . .”

Crap, how to say it delicately?

“Bawd?” he offered.

Tristan lifted a silver goblet toward his lips and she rushed to do the same.

“Pardon?”

“My mother was a bawd. She owned the most prominent stewhouse in South Derbridge, just outside of Berwick.”

“Right.” The wine was honestly not bad. She was more of a beer drinker and typically disliked red wine, but this one was really good.

“You’re wondering how the son of a bawd becomes a knight?”

“Well, yes. Or a lord. I thought there were strict rules about that. Defined classes. And primogeniture and all that.”