“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.”