Chapter 30
AMELIA
Amelia had never hated a horse before, but she hated this one.
Not personally, because the poor animal had done nothing except obey the nearest idiot with reins, but after the first half mile of being carried away from Ashcombe on a side-saddle that felt as if it had been designed by a committee of medieval chiropractors, she was ready to file a formal complaint against the entire species.
Or possibly against the thirteenth century. Honestly, the list was growing.
Her legs were trapped to one side, her gown twisted beneath her, and every rut in the road seemed determined to introduce itself to her spine.
Her hands had been left free, which was either a mercy or proof that Sir Roger Belmaine had never once been on the receiving end of a woman with rage, hairpins, and nothing left to lose.
The road unwound beneath them in a ribbon of wet leaves and mud, hedgerows stripped thin by the wind, the fields beyond lying stubbled and brown beneath a sky the color of old pewter.
The air smelled of damp wool, horse, leather, and the faint sour tang of old leaves rotting in the ditches.
Somewhere behind them, hidden by distance and a bend in the road, Ashcombe was still standing.
Ashcombe, with its smoky hall, adorable children, murderous kitchen women, honey-scented friar, and one stubborn, battle-scarred lord who had promised to bring her back even while letting her ride away.
No. She wasn’t thinking about Thomas. Not yet.
If she thought about him standing in the bailey with that awful stillness in his face, if she remembered the way his voice had roughened around I’ll bring you back, if she let herself touch the bruise of that final moment when she’d asked him why it felt like he didn’t believe her, she would come undone right here in the saddle.
Amelia had not survived board meetings with men named Brad, budget disasters, malfunctioning microphones, and one memorable charity gala where the ice sculpture had melted into the shrimp display by falling apart in public.
She straightened her back. Not today.
A crow lifted from a bare-limbed oak and shouted at them like a witness for the prosecution. Amelia agreed with the crow.
Sir Roger Belmaine rode ahead, his cloak snapping behind him. Edmund Crale rode to her left, close enough to play concerned husband for anyone watching, not close enough for her to kick without leaning so far she might tumble off and crack her skull on a rock, though the thought was tempting.
One of Belmaine’s men rode to her right, hand resting on his reins, eyes fixed ahead with the purposeful blankness of someone paid not to hear. Behind them came two more men in murrey and gold, their mail hidden beneath travel-stained cloaks, swords at their hips.
A cage on horseback.
Crale cleared his throat. “You’ll find Sir Roger’s household comfortable.”
Amelia turned her head and looked at him. He smiled with his mouth only. The bruise on his cheek had gone an ugly green at the edges, and the beard he’d trimmed looked dirty.
“You don’t have to pretend,” she said.
His smile slipped, an ugly look replacing it. “You’re a sharp-tongued woman.”
“Funny how strange men abducting me brings that out.”
“I have a lawful claim.”
“You have a piece of parchment and the morals of a rat.”
The guard on her right made a sound that might have been a cough.
Crale’s eyes narrowed. “A woman in your position should speak gently.”
“My position is on a horse in a ridiculous saddle, between a liar and a man who’s pretending not to listen. My tone is the least of your problems.”
Sir Roger turned in the saddle. His pale hair, smoothed beneath his cap, looked as if even the wind had been paid to leave it alone.
“Mistress Crale.”
“Not my name.”
“Until the matter is decided,” Belmaine said, “it is the name the law recognizes.”
He gave her that smooth, pitying look she wanted to knock off his face with a rock.
“You are frightened. I understand.”
“Then you’re overqualified, because I don’t.”
His mouth tightened.
The road dipped into a narrow hollow where wet leaves clung to the mud, and the wheels of old carts had cut deep scars into the track. Somewhere beyond the hedge, water moved over stone.
Amelia fixed her eyes on every turn, every broken marker, every crossroad and distant roofline.
Left past the pollarded willow. Right where the lane narrowed by the leaning stone cross. Through the shallow ford that soaked the hem of her gown and made the palfrey toss its head.
Remember.
She had planned enough corporate retreats to know that panic loved empty space. Give panic a clipboard and a task list, and it had less room to run around screaming in your skull.
Ashcombe behind her. Belmaine ahead. She drew in a slow breath through her nose.
Horse. Mud. Wet wool. Leather. Crale’s sour anxiety. The faint sweetness of honey cake still wrapped in cloth inside her sleeve, warm from her hand. Friar Huck had given her cake for an abduction.
The thought almost made her laugh. Almost.
Crale glanced at her sleeve. “What did the friar give you?”
“A curse.”
The guard coughed again as Crale leaned away.
Excellent.
Belmaine’s manor rose out of the dull afternoon.
It sat behind a timber palisade and a ditch newly cleared of brush, the gatehouse smaller than Ashcombe’s but better dressed, with fresh limewash bright on the upper timbers and iron hinges black as beetle shells.
Beyond it lay a busy yard. Men crossed from stable to storehouse with brisk purpose.
A boy carried a basket of turnips nearly as large as he was.
A woman in a blue kirtle scattered grain for geese that hissed at the riders.
The hall stood two stories high, its lower walls of stone and upper frame jettied slightly over the yard, all dark beams and pale plaster. Smoke rose from roof vents. Shutters were open along the solar side, and the little chapel window held a slice of weak light in its glass, cold and watchful.
Belmaine dismounted first. Crale dismounted badly, almost falling. Amelia enjoyed that more than Christian charity probably allowed.
A groom came for her horse, but before he could touch the bridle, a woman swept down the hall steps in a gown of dark green wool and a mantle lined in squirrel fur.
She was broad-shouldered and handsome in a practical way.
Silver threaded through her hair that was braided tight at the temples.
Keys hung at her belt in a bright, heavy cluster, and she wore authority the way Edith wore an apron.
Naturally, and with the implied threat that someone was about to be corrected.
“Sir Roger,” she said.
“Dame Margaret.” Belmaine inclined his head. “Our guest.”
Not prisoner. Sure. And a bear trap was a seating arrangement.
Dame Margaret’s gaze moved over Amelia, swift and measuring. Crooked wimple. Mud-splashed hem. Hands clenched in the reins. Face probably pale enough to concern ghosts.
The woman’s expression didn’t soften, exactly, but something in it shifted.
“My lady,” she said.
“Not his wife,” Amelia said at once.
Dame Margaret’s eyes flicked to Crale, then back to Amelia. “So I gather.”
Crale stiffened. “She is overwrought.”
“I’m standing right here.”
“Yes,” Dame Margaret said dryly. “We’ve all observed it.”
Amelia blinked.
Behind her, one of Belmaine’s guards found sudden interest in the geese.
Belmaine smiled as if they were all enjoying a harmless domestic quibble.
“She has had a difficult day. See her placed in the east chamber. The matter must be handled with Christian charity.”
“Christian charity has a lock on the door now?” Amelia asked.
Belmaine looked at her. “For your safety.”
“Of course. Nothing says safety like being kidnapped by committee.”
Dame Margaret held out a hand to help her dismount. “Step carefully. Side-saddles are the devil’s furniture.”
Amelia took the hand before she could stop herself.
Dame Margaret’s grip was warm and strong. As Amelia slid down, her legs nearly folded beneath her. The ground swayed for one miserable second. She hated that too, because weakness was information, and Belmaine collected information the way other men collected rents.
Dame Margaret caught her elbow and steadied her without making a fuss. “There now.”
“I’m fine.”
“A common lie,” the woman said. “Often told by people about to fall down.”
“I’m not about to fall down.”
“Then we shall both enjoy being correct.”
Amelia might have liked her under better circumstances. Unfortunately, these circumstances involved abduction, fraud, and a man named Crale looking at her as if she were a cow he’d stolen and expected to be admired for returning to market.
Belmaine stepped closer. “You’ll be treated with dignity here.”
“You’re off to a fascinating start.”
“I do not wish to be your enemy.”
“Then you should’ve opened with not kidnapping me.”
A flicker of irritation crossed his face. There he was, underneath the velvet. A man who liked control because control made him feel powerful.
“You would be wise,” he said softly, “to remember that Lord Ashcombe cannot help you from here.”
There it was. The little knife between the ribs.
Amelia lifted her chin. “You’d be wise to remember that I don’t need rescuing.”
Dame Margaret made a faint sound that might have been approval or indigestion.
Belmaine heard it and turned cold. “Take her inside.”
The hall smelled of rushes, woodsmoke, roasted onions, and a sharper note of vinegar from some pickling crock nearby.
It was crowded with chests along the walls and trestle tables stacked away for the day.
A tapestry hung behind the high table, all faded huntsmen and improbably calm deer.
Servants stopped as Amelia entered, eyes darting, whispers tucked behind sleeves.
She kept her spine straight. If she was going to be dragged through a hostile medieval household, she would do it with good posture.
Her mother would have been proud. Her mother. No. Not now.