Chapter 22 #3
Hob made a low approving sound. Belmaine ignored him. His gaze fixed on Thomas, assessing, recalculating. “A woman of unknown birth is not worth the forfeiture of Ashcombe.”
Thomas’s temper stirred, slow and black.
“No.”
Belmaine looked almost relieved.
Thomas continued. “No woman beneath my roof is coin for you to weigh.”
The relief vanished.
For one moment Belmaine’s face showed itself. Not the polished neighbor. Not the friend with courtly connections. Not the father offering a daughter with good grazing attached. Something colder. Hungrier. A man who had stretched out a hand and found the fruit still out of reach.
Then the smile returned. It was not warm nor was it meant to be.
“You are a stubborn man.”
“Aye.”
“Stubborn men often mistake pride for honor.”
“Men with offers often mistake hunger for friendship.”
Belmaine’s jaw tightened. “I had hoped reason would serve.”
“You hoped fear would.”
Belmaine’s eyes went flat.
The yard had grown quiet. Too quiet. Thomas did not turn, but he knew folk had paused in their work. A boy near the stable. One of Edith’s girls by the kitchen door. Perhaps Walter at the hall entrance, drawn by the scent of disaster as surely as hounds by cooking meat.
Belmaine spread his hands. “Think on it, at least. No haste.”
Thomas almost laughed. No haste, from a man who had arrived before breakfast.
Belmaine continued, voice smooth again. “My daughter will not lack suitors. Nor will Ashcombe lack enemies. I offer you a path between them.”
“Your path requires I throw a woman out into the cold.”
“The nuns are not wolves.”
“No,” Thomas said. “But men are.”
Something flickered in Belmaine’s face. Thomas knew then, with the cold certainty that came before battle, that the man had heard more than he had said. Belmaine had already begun picking at the edges of the tale.
This offer had never been only an offer. It was a probe. A finger pressed to a bruise.
Belmaine drew on his gloves one finger at a time. “You are making a grave mistake.”
“I have made many. This is not one.”
“We shall see.”
“Aye,” Thomas said. “We shall.”
Belmaine looked toward the hall.
Thomas moved half a step before thinking, placing himself more fully in the man’s line of sight.
Belmaine noticed and the corner of his mouth lifted. It was a small expression, but Thomas hated it more than any threat spoken aloud.
“I wish you well, Ashcombe,” Belmaine said.
“I do not believe you.”
“No,” Belmaine said softly. “I can see that.”
He turned away. His men mounted with the quick precision of those who had expected no hospitality. The grey gelding tossed its head as Belmaine swung into the saddle. He did not look back until he reached the gate.
Then he turned in the saddle, his cloak falling neatly around him, murrey lining bright against the morning.
“Give Mistress Quinn my regards,” he called.
Thomas’s hand moved toward his sword.
Hob caught his wrist. Not hard. Just enough.
Belmaine smiled, then rode out.
The gates closed behind him, and Thomas stood in the yard until the sound of hooves on the track faded beneath the ordinary noises of Ashcombe. A hen complaining, a cart wheel creaking, someone in the kitchen yard dropping something heavy and being cursed for it by Edith.
“He’ll not leave it,” Hob said behind him.
“No.”
“What will he do?”
Thomas looked at the closed gate.
He thought of the smile with nothing behind it. The patience of a man who had just discovered a locked door and begun considering windows.
“I do not know yet.”
“A bargain failed,” Hob said. “A man like that does not forgive a failed bargain.”
“No.”
“He’ll look for another way.”
“A weapon,” Thomas said.
Hob said nothing, which was answer enough.
Thomas turned toward the hall where Amelia stood just inside the doorway.
She had heard. Not all, mayhap. Not every word. But enough. Thomas saw it in the set of her shoulders, the pallor beneath her freckles, the way one hand gripped the doorframe as if she had needed it to stay upright and had not yet remembered to let go.
She wore a grey gown today, not the green. The color did not suit her. It made her look smaller, quieter, as if she had chosen the cloth because it would not draw the eye. Her hair was covered properly, brutally, not a single curl escaping. That more than anything struck him like a blow.
Amelia without one curl out of place felt like a room after all the candles had been snuffed.
Their eyes met across the yard. He saw the question in hers.
Not Did you refuse?
She knew he had.
Not Did you want to accept?
She feared he had.
The distance between them filled with all the things they could not say while half the household pretended not to watch.
Thomas took one step toward her.
Walter appeared behind her, pale and rigid as Amelia’s gaze flicked toward the old steward.
Then she looked back at Thomas, and something closed.
She lowered her eyes. Curtsied.
“My lord,” she said.
The words carried just far enough, then she turned and went back into the hall.
Thomas stood in the yard, feeling as though Belmaine had left a blade behind after all.
Hob exhaled through his nose. “Bloody hell.”