Chapter 21 #3
She had begun to measure safety by the sound of his step. And Walter was right.
He was not small-minded, not cruel, not jealous of her place in the household.
He had not come to shame her. He had come because he loved Thomas in the old, difficult way of men who had changed nappies, taught sums, watched boys grow into burdens, and could still remember the child inside the lord everyone else feared.
He had come because Ashcombe was not a backdrop. It was a place full of people who would bleed if she forgot the rules.
Amelia pressed both hands over her face, but didn’t cry. Not because she was strong, though people often mistook not crying for strength. She didn’t cry because if she started, she wasn’t certain she could stop before Edith found her and demanded to know who needed smiting.
There was no one to smite. That was inconvenient.
A sound at the door made her drop her hands. Alyson stood there, small and round-eyed, clutching a heel of bread in one hand and a wooden doll in the other. Her pale brown hair had come loose from its plait, and there was a smear of jam at the corner of her mouth.
“Mistress Amelia?”
Amelia inhaled. Smiled. The effort felt like lifting a cart.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
Alyson frowned. “Are you sick?”
“No.”
“Did Walter scold you?”
Amelia almost laughed. “A little.”
Alyson nodded with deep understanding. “He scolds everyone. Once he scolded the rain.”
“That sounds like Walter.”
“He said it came at the wrong time.”
“Did the rain improve?”
“No.” Alyson came closer and held out the bread. “You can have my crust.”
And there it was again. The cost.
Amelia crouched. She took the crust as if it were treasure. It was hard and a little damp at one end.
“Thank you.”
Alyson studied her face with a seriousness far too old for six.
“Lord Thomas says when people are sad, you give them bread if you don’t know what else to do.”
A crack opened in Amelia’s chest.
“Does he?”
“Aye. Hob says ale is better, but Edith says Hob is why ale cannot be trusted.”
Amelia laughed then, a real laugh and a broken one. “Edith is usually right.”
Alyson leaned forward and touched one of Amelia’s escaped curls. “You can sit with me after dinner.”
“I’d like that.”
“Lord Thomas too?”
The question was innocent.
Amelia looked down at the crust in her hand. “Maybe not tonight.”
Alyson’s face fell. “Is he cross?”
“No.” Amelia brushed jam from the child’s cheek with her thumb. “No, he’s not cross. I just have things to do.”
That wasn’t exactly a lie. She had the hardest thing in the world to do.
Alyson accepted this with the flexible suspicion of children and went skipping back toward the passage, calling for Wat before she’d even reached the door.
Amelia stood slowly. Through the window, narrow and wavy with old glass, she could see a piece of the yard.
The day had brightened, pale sun touching the wet stones.
Men moved with sacks near the storehouse.
A girl carried a basket of apples toward the kitchens.
Smoke lifted from the bakehouse. Life. Work. Winter coming.
Then Thomas crossed the yard. He was speaking with Hob, his dark head bent, one hand resting on the hilt at his hip.
He wore a plain blue tunic, the sleeves pushed up as usual, showing the strong forearms that had once made Amelia lose her train of thought in the lists like an absolute idiot.
His hair was wind-ruffled. The scar along his jaw caught the light when he turned.
As if he sensed her looking, he paused. His gaze lifted toward the stillroom window. He couldn’t see her clearly. Surely he could not. The glass was too thick, too warped, the interior too shadowed.
Still, Amelia stepped back.
Thomas looked at the window for one heartbeat longer, then Hob said something, and he turned away.
Amelia leaned against the shelves and closed her eyes. There was no spreadsheet for this. No plan. No clever reorganization of people, supplies, rooms, wagons, and time that would make loving Thomas Ashcombe harmless.
There was only the oldest, worst fix in the world. She would have to pull away from him herself.
Not enough to make people ask questions.
She would still work, still laugh with the children, still sit with Edith, still make Walter’s cursed columns tidy enough to withstand a royal inspection.
She would be useful, because useful was safe and because Ashcombe needed her.
But she would stop looking for Thomas when she entered a room, would stop standing too near, stop letting her hand linger, and stop making him smile.
At that thought, the tears finally came. She wiped them away at once with the heel of her hand and was annoyed to discover she had smudged green herb paste across her cheek.
“Get it together,” she whispered.
Amelia picked up the tally she had abandoned, stared at the marks until they swam, and forced herself to count.
Sage. Rue. Yarrow. Lavender.
She could do this. And if it felt, with every breath, like taking a knife to the life that had only just begun to feel like hers, then no one needed to know.