Chapter 28 #3
He glanced at her. “That is a deeply unsettling amount of agreement from you.”
“I’m tired. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
“Hmph.”
Amelia sank onto the bench across from him.
The account room smelled of vellum, candle wax, damp wool, and the ghost of ink.
Her shoulders ached from sitting too still.
Her fingers bore three needle pricks from pretending not to know exactly which roll Walter needed before he asked for it.
Her heart, that traitorous little medieval convert, still had not recovered from Thomas looking at her across the hall as if the kiss had been both wound and medicine.
Walter tapped the roll. “Belmaine’s coffers are too full,” he said.
“Yes.”
“His cousin in Pershore is spending coin like he has plenty to spare.”
“Yes.”
“Messenger out of Pershore after Michaelmas.”
“That’s what Hob’s man heard.”
“And this name.” Walter tapped one line. “Gilbert atte Wode.”
“You know him?”
“I know of him. He serves men who wish not to be seen giving orders.”
“That sounds promising in a horrible way.”
“It is not proof.”
“No. But it’s a string.”
“A string can hang a man if tied properly.”
His gaze moved back to the roll. “Hob’s men heard this?”
“One of them. At the alehouse near the ford. Second-hand.”
“Second-hand gossip is wind in a cracked jug.”
“Friar Huck heard the same name.”
Walter paused. “From whom?”
“He wouldn’t say. He said confession is sacred, kitchens are not, and women selling eggs have better ears than kings.”
Walter stared at her for a long second. “That man is a menace.”
“He also brought honey.”
“That does not absolve him.”
“It absolves a surprising amount.”
Walter rubbed his brow. “We need the date, the messenger, and we need to know whether Belmaine sent word before Pickering rode.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“And if we find it, Lord Ashcombe must know before another soul.”
Her stomach tightened as she frowned.
Walter saw it, because she had the worst poker face on the planet.
“You meant to fix this without telling him.”
“I meant to find out enough to be useful before I gave him one more thing to carry.”
“He is lord here.”
“I know.”
“He bears what threatens Ashcombe.”
“I know.”
“And you are not protecting him by keeping danger in your apron pocket.”
Amelia looked down at her hands. There was flour still caught in the crease of one finger, ink on another, and a tiny red mark from where the needle had pricked her.
Medieval life had made her hands strange to her.
Rougher. More useful. Less decorative than they’d ever been around conference tables and hotel ballrooms with her nails painted pretty pastel colors.
“I’m trying not to be the reason he loses everything,” she said.
Walter’s face softened by no more than the width of a thread.
“Mistress Amelia, every soul under this roof is trying the same. Some of us have been failing longer.”
She looked up as he rolled the parchment again, careful and precise.
“You have a sharp head. It is alarming, but there it is. Use it properly. With us, not around us.”
Us.
The word sank into her like warmth from the hearth.
She swallowed. “All right.”
“Good. Tomorrow, I’ll send a boy to my cousin’s man in Pershore. Quietly. Hob can ask after Gilbert atte Wode without seeming to ask. Friar Huck will come by because he always appears when least convenient, and we shall see if honey has loosened any more tongues.”
“And Thomas?”
Walter’s gaze sharpened.
“Lord Ashcombe,” she corrected.
“That was not my objection.”
Her cheeks warmed.
Walter looked deeply pained by the sight of it. “Saints preserve me from young women.”
“I’m twenty-nine.”
“Old enough to know better, young enough not to.”
“I don’t suppose you could embroider that on a pillow?”
“Women’s work.”
She laughed softly as the door swung open and both of them froze at the sight of Thomas standing there.
The candlelight caught the planes of his face, the grey eyes that gave so little away even when, as now, they came dangerously close to giving away everything.
His gaze moved from Walter to Amelia to the narrow roll half-hidden beneath Walter’s hand.
Walter stood. “My lord.”
Thomas entered and shut the door behind him. The room seemed to shrink, full of smoke, candlelight, parchment, and all the things no one had said for three days.
“You have both been busy,” he said.
Amelia opened her mouth.
Walter spoke first. “Aye.”
Thomas looked at him but Walter didn’t flinch.
“Mistress Amelia has been gathering pieces of a matter that may bear upon Sir Roger Belmaine and Master Pickering’s sudden arrival. She should have brought it to me sooner. She has been told so.”
Amelia turned her head slowly and gave him a look.
Walter ignored it.
Thomas’s gaze settled on her.
“You have been investigating Belmaine?”
“I wouldn’t use investigating.”
“What would you use?”
“Peeking into.”
Walter made a sound that might have been pain.
“I told you he would look for a weapon,” Amelia said. “I thought if we could find proof he’d been whispering to the crown, or better, if he’d been doing something he shouldn’t while pretending he’s loyal, then Pickering’s second visit might become something other than a threat.”
Thomas’s face didn’t change, but she saw the flicker in his eyes.
“He’ll come back,” Thomas said.
Walter nodded. “Aye. The accounts held too well for a man expecting ruin. Someone told him where to dig, and he found stone instead.”
Amelia, despite everything, glanced at Walter with admiration. “That was very good.”
“I have my moments.”
Thomas crossed to the table and held out his hand.
Walter hesitated only long enough to make it clear he was choosing to surrender the roll, not being relieved of it like a servant caught with stolen bread.
Amelia watched his face as he read. The man had an excellent poker face. When he finished, he set the roll down.
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
The quiet answer seemed to strike him harder than argument would have.
He looked at Walter. “And you?”
“I know now.”
“That was not what I asked.”
“No, my lord.”
For one mad instant Amelia thought Thomas might laugh. Not because any of this was funny, but because Walter’s talent for being technically obedient and spiritually mutinous was one of Ashcombe’s more under appreciated wonders.
Thomas pinched the bridge of his nose. “You will not move against Belmaine without me knowing.”
“No,” Walter said.
“Of course not,” Amelia said.
Thomas looked at her.