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Hannah strained her neck to see what was happening as Tristan stood and made his way toward a group of men, newcomers, entering the hall.

“Kenton,” Tristan exclaimed loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I didn’t expect you until tomorrow.”

So this was the famous Lord Kenton.

Hannah couldn’t hear the man’s response from across the hall, but when Tristan and his mentor turned toward her a few moments later, she had no doubt whom they were discussing. Gerard led the other men away while Tristan and his mentor made their way toward her.

Kenton was not at all what she had expected. Even if Tristan had not called him an old man, he spoke of him with such respect and deference she would have expected him to be much older. He was no more than fifty with not a gray hair to be found. His close-shaven but full beard, as black as the hair on his head, made him look as fierce as Tristan had upon their first meeting.

Kenton’s expression didn’t help matters.

It wasn’t his lack of a smile that unnerved her. He met her eyes as he approached the dais, and his serious gaze, coupled with his unwavering eye contact, would have made a younger Hannah shift in her seat. As it was, she’d dealt with celebrity clients and CEOs who could, and had, made their interns cry. Dealing with him would take finesse, something she had in spades.

She stood.

The social norms of this period eluded her still, but Hannah had been taught never to shake hands from a seated position. She hoped the same was true of bowing, since she would be required to honor Kenton’s elevated station—the only useful tidbit of information she’d absorbed from her tours of Scottish castles was that the motions of bowing and curtseying had been basically the same before the seventeenth century.

“Kenton, I would like you to meet Lady Hannah Sutton.”

“Good evening to you, my lord,” she said with a bow.

“This is the man I told you was passably good at wielding a sword,” Tristan said with a smirk.

In fact, Tristan had told her Kenton was an excellent swordsman—in his prime, he’d claimed more than his share of honors in tournaments throughout England.

“The pleasure is mine,” he said, nodding to her seat. Hannah sat back down and watched as Kenton took a seat on the other side of Tristan. Below them, Gerard had led the others to their seats, and the servants were already coming around with soup for the newcomers.

The first time she won the New England Award of Excellence in Business, Hannah had felt as she did now—distinctly out of place. She hadn’t allowed her nerves to rattle her then, and she certainly would not do so now.

Once he was settled, the older man leaned forward to meet her eyes once again. “Tristan says you are visiting from overseas, my lady?”

They really needed a better cover story if she was going to stay here for any length of time. Though she fully expected, somehow, to get swept back to her time—or at least to her sisters—she had no idea what the timeline would be.

“Aye, my lord,” she said, hoping Tristan hadn’t left the details of the lie to discretion.

“How long were you in Venice?”

Hannah nearly spat out her wine. It took every ounce of self-control not to laugh at Tristan, who was the picture of innocence at the moment.

Hopefully Kenton was not as versed in Italian as his former ward.

“Not long,” she said. “When my parents died, I vowed to become a student of the world. You see, my father always wanted to travel and never had the opportunity,” she said, sticking to the truth as much as possible. “In their honor, I have been moving from place to place. Lord Saxford was kind enough to allow me to stay here as I mourn the loss of Kitty.”

Now both men appeared confused. “My lady’s maid,” she clarified.

Lord forgive her for lying. And for not thinking of a better name for her nonexistent maid. Her cat had indeed died, so there was that.

“Ahh.”

“How goes Kenton Castle?” Tristan interjected. “And Berwick?”

Hannah pasted a smile on her face, grateful to Tristan for redirecting Kenton’s attention.

“Restless. The end of the truce and the lack of interest from the wardens thanks to the growing power of the noble magnates, a distraction for the king, guarantees a renewed volatility courtesy of Clan Sutherland.”

“I made a vow that day that I intended to keep,” Tristan answered.