Chapter 17 #3
There it was. Not helpless, not wholly unguarded, but close enough to make Thomas ache.
He wanted to be the cause of it, wanted it so fiercely he had to look away.
He stared into the fire until the flames blurred and became another field, another orange light over mud, another day when wanting men to live had not been enough to make it so.
A small hand tugged at his sleeve as he looked down. Alyson stood beside him, blinking sleepily, her hair coming loose from its braid. “Mistress Amelia says I must tell you good night because I am too tired to remember my manners.”
Thomas looked over the child’s head.
Amelia was watching them. Her expression was soft as his treacherous heart did something foolish. Merde. He was utterly besotted and in love with her.
“Then I bid you a good night,” he said.
Alyson held up both hands.
Thomas frowned. “What?”
“She says you’re to inspect them.”
Amelia pressed her lips together from across the hearth.
Thomas looked at the child’s hands. They were clean enough, though there was honey near one wrist.
He considered the matter gravely. “You will live.”
Alyson beamed. “I washed twice.”
“A fearsome achievement.”
She leaned against his leg for one brief, trusting moment before scampering back to Amelia.
Thomas wanted to cross the hall, sit beside her, take the cup from her hand, tell Hob to go corrupt someone else, and feel Alyson’s small weight against both of them as if this were a life that could simply be chosen because it fit. Instead he gave one short nod and turned away.
The cold outside struck him cleanly when he stepped into the yard. Good. He needed cold.
The bailey lay under a low sky, the stones slick with mist. The tower rose dark at the corner of the wall, whole and silent, holding whatever secrets had brought Amelia to him.
Somewhere in the stable, Galahad stamped and blew.
A dog barked once in the village, then stopped.
The air smelled of smoke, wet earth, and coming frost.
Michaelmas was done. Ashcombe had scraped through. The rolls would stand if Pickering came. The rents were reckoned. The coffer held enough. The barns held enough. The people, by some stubborn grace, held enough.
And Thomas stood in the cold with his hands curled into fists, trying to crush a wanting that had rooted beneath his ribs while he was too busy counting grain to notice.
The hall door opened behind him. Warmth spilled out, along with laughter, smoke, and the smell of honeyed apples.
“Thomas?”
He closed his eyes briefly then turned.
Amelia stood in the doorway with her veil half slipping, a cloak clutched around her shoulders, and a small wrapped bundle in her hands.
“You left before dessert,” she said.
“I was not aware there was dessert.”
“There are honeyed apples. Edith said you stole some this morning, but I saved you one.”
He looked at the bundle as if it were a siege demand.
“You came out into the cold to bring me an apple?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She seemed puzzled by the question. “Because you like them.”
It was such a simple answer that he had no defense against it.
The wind caught a curl and blew it across her mouth. She pushed it back with an impatient hand, leaving a faint streak of honey near her cheek now, because apparently the woman collected marks of the day the way soldiers collected scars.
“You did well,” she said softly.
He looked past her into the hall. “You said that already.”
“I know. You looked like you didn’t believe me the first time.”
“I believe the rolls.”
“Do you believe me?”
The question landed too near the truth.
He looked at her then, properly, though it was unwise and he knew it. Grey light behind him, firelight behind her.
“Aye,” he said.
Her face changed, just a little, as she held out the wrapped apple. He took it, their fingers brushing.
It was absurd that something so small could feel like a vow.
“Good night,” she said.
“Amelia.”
She paused.
There were a hundred things he could not say.
Stay. Do not look at me like that. Look at me again. I cannot keep you. I would kill any man who tried to take you. I am not safe for wanting. You have made my house feel like a home, and I am in love with you.
He said the only safe thing left.
“Bolt the door behind you.”
For a moment, disappointment flickered across her face, or mayhap he imagined it because he deserved to see it.
Then her mouth curved, wry and small. “Very romantic.”
He frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.” She stepped back into the warmth. “Good night, Lord Thundercloud.”
The door closed before he could ask what in God’s name a lord thundercloud was.
Thomas made the decision, then. Not because he wished it, but because he must. He would depend on Amelia’s system, her numbers, her lists, her fierce strange mind that had turned chaos into order and given Ashcombe a fighting chance.
He would let the castle lean on her because he was not so proud as to refuse salvation when it came in a blue gown with ink on its face.
But he would not let himself lean. Not with the whole weight of what he wanted.
Not where anyone could see. Not where she might be hurt by it.
Thomas closed his eyes, set his jaw, and crushed the wanting down as hard as he could.
It did not go quietly.