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Nevertheless, when they were not alone, she would continue to call him that.

“And I am no longer a girl,” she shot back. “Or perhaps you have not noticed.” Regina did not intend for her words to sound as they did, and she immediately regretted them.

When they were younger, since the day Regina and Tristan had met for the second time in the kitchens at Camburg Castle where her father was delivering bread, there had been no awkwardness between them. For reasons neither of them could guess, after their first two meetings they had continued to be drawn to each other’s presence, spending more and more time together. As children they played in the castle courtyard. They’d hunted and even trained together, Tristan instructing Regina on how to wield a sword. His mother did so, and his sister too, Tristan had argued. Why should she not do the same?

Never, not once in all those years, had he been chastised for being with her. The baker’s daughter. By rights, Tristan should have spent more of his time with those of his own rank, something Regina had always been acutely aware of.

As they grew older, there were moments—an increasing number of moments—like this one. But always, she pretended otherwise. He was the lord’s son, after all.

“I’ve noticed,” he said. Though it was cold enough for Regina’s ears to feel as if they may freeze off, and her nose too, they might as well have been standing in front of a roaring fire in the great hall. How many times had Tristan looked at her like that? A look that was not of a friend, but something more?

And how many times had she ignored it, knowing it could lead to naught.

“Could you not wait until supper?” She said, gesturing toward herself. “We have been working day and night to prepare, and I look frightful.”

Tristan scoffed. “You could never appear so, Reggie. If you’d dipped yourself in a sack of flour from head to toe, you would still be the most beautiful maid in all of . . .”

Knowing him as she did, Regina preemptively made a face of mock displeasure.

“In all of this very street.”

She looked up and down the darkened street, which led back into the village. There was, of course, none about. “Your flattery is just one of the reasons I missed you so,” she gushed.

“Your sarcasm is what I missed most,” he said with as straight a face as Tristan was capable of making. “But to answer your question, nay, I could not wait. I knew you would be overworked and just as likely to sleep through the festivities as join them.”

He knew her well. “I am not overworked,” she argued, prepared to defend her father.

“You are.” Tristan did not wait to hear her arguments. “None are at the bakery as much as you, Reggie.”

She begged to differ. “My father sleeps there many nights.”

“Your father is the master baker.”

“And I, his apprentice,” she corrected.

His eyes widened. For many years her father refused to name her as an apprentice, despite her pleas. He did not wish the kind of life he had on either of his children, but as Reggie pointed out to him, what should they do if not follow in his footsteps? His answer was always the same. For her brother, the baker’s life was fine. But she should marry. Bear children. Begin a family.

Trouble was, no man was . . . well, Tristan. So she’d thrown herself into the life her father so wished for her to avoid.

“He relented?”

“Aye,” she said finally, a chill catching her. Regina shivered.

“You will come to the hall this eve?”

His eyes were brown. Not like hers, a regular brown, just like her hair. Nothing remarkable to either. Tristan’s were a deep brown, so dark they lulled you as a lullaby might. The scruff on his cheeks and jaw complemented his square jaw. The time they’d been away had been kind to him.

As she had suspected it might. There was an air of sophistication that had not been there before. The eldest son of the seneschal of Camburg, a border lord who held lands in the name of the Earl of Kenshire, he had always held his head high. But now, there was a tinge of something . . . more.

“Reggie?”

She’d forgotten to answer. “Aye,” she said again, the word about the only one Regina seemed to be able to manage. “I had considered missing it until . . .”

Tristan blew on his hands and rubbed them, as if to warm them. “I was in such a rush to find you.” He shrugged. “No gloves.”

Her heart skipped a beat at his admission. Of course he wanted to find her. They were, as evidenced by the style he signed his missives—which she could read because Tristan had taught her—best friends. The first letter she received, more than eight years ago now, when he’d first left Camburg to foster, Regina had melted at the turn of phrase. “With all my love, your best friend, Tristan,” he’d signed.

“Until?” he prompted.