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?”