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Regina stared at him, gripping the ribbon in her hand and pretending there were not over two hundred people watching them.

“And so my question is, do you love me, Reggie, as I have you all these years?”

Her mouth dropped open as whispers echoed from every direction. She blocked them out, disbelieving. What was he doing?

“And I do not mean as a friend,” he clarified before she could answer. “You are my dearest friend, such is true. But it is the love of a man for a woman, as one he would marry, to which I refer.”

As one he would marry.

Her eyes flew to the baron’s. And then his wife’s. They knew. They knew Tristan was going to ask her this. Yet they did not seem displeased? How was such a thing possible?

And then she turned toward her own parents. Her father beamed as if the king had just granted his guild royal status. They had known as well. Her brother dropped her hand as he, at least, seemed as surprised as she.

Finally, her eyes met his.

Marry? What of Johanne?

“The truth, Reggie,” he reminded her. Tristan was waiting for an answer.

And there was only one to give.

“Aye,” she said. “I do.”

Chapter Eight

“Tristan?”

She was here.

After the excitement over his question had finally worn down, after he’d accepted congratulations and questions, ate supper, drank wine which tasted somehow sweeter this eve than ever before, he’d finally caught her eye from across the hall to where she had drifted when they’d been pulled apart.

Having made the same hand motion as the previous night, he’d immediately fled from the hall to wait for her.

“Finally,” he said. The moment the door was pulled closed, he took her into his arms. Kissing her as thoroughly as the night before, or maybe even more so, he only let Reggie go knowing what was to come.

“’Twas difficult to get away,” she said, wiggling out of his grip just enough to peer up at him.

“I’ve questions,” she said.

“I suspected you might.”

She was in his arms, at last. This time for good. Nothing else mattered.

“How is this possible?”

Tristan glanced around the room. “I suspect it was built for the lord or lady, or in my case, their son, to escape unnoticed if the castle was attacked.”

She gave him a look. That look.

“Ahh,” Tristan amended. “You do not refer to the secret passageway?”

“No, Tris, I do not.”

He laughed. “That one is trickier. And I have plans for us before we must rejoin the crowd, so I will be quick about it. As I said belowstairs, I’ve loved you my whole life, Reggie. It became glaringly apparent, as if it were not already so, while I was away. I watched and listened to stories of men being killed in one battle or another. I worried every moment for my family, for Camburg, for you, being so close to the conflict with Scotland. And decided I cared little for anything other than to be with the woman I loved. If it meant relinquishing my claim as the next seneschal of Camburg, then so be it. Thankfully”—he smiled—“I’ve parents more understanding than most.”

“They agreed,” she said, “that you would wed a baker’s daughter rather than forge an alliance with Lady Johanne’s family?”

Tristan tightened his grip around his intended. “They agreed I would wed the daughter of the dean of one of the most powerful guilds in England. A good man whose wife and daughter and son hold the same values as does my own family. Over an alliance with someone who sympathizes with Edward’s misguided cause, one we neither share nor will ever support. They were easily convinced, Reggie. And if they were not, I’d have asked you the same question, though mayhap not in such a fashion.”