Walter suddenly became fascinated by the candle wick.
Thomas’s eyes held hers as the kiss stood between them like a living thing. The memory of wet air by the mill, the rush of water, the warmth of his hand at her nape, his mouth taking hers and then giving her back to herself before gossip or desire or loneliness could ruin her.
“You should sleep,” he said at last.
No title. No Mistress Amelia. Her foolish heart noticed. Walter, curse him, noticed that she noticed.
“So should you,” she said.
Thomas’s mouth almost moved. Almost.
Then he looked to Walter. “Tomorrow. Pershore first. Hob can ask after Gilbert atte Wode. Huck too, if he can be kept from telling the bees before us.”
“Huck tells the bees everything,” Walter said. “He claims it improves their judgment.”
“It may improve ours,” Thomas said dryly.
Amelia smiled before she could stop herself.
Walter wrapped the narrow roll and tucked it into the locked chest where the account copies were kept.
Thomas turned to leave, then stopped with his hand on the latch.
“Mistress Amelia.”
“Yes,my lord?”
He flinched faintly. Good. Let him, two could play that game.
“You did well today.”
The words were quiet. Rough.
Walter looked as if he would rather be outside in freezing rain than witness this.
Amelia’s throat tightened. “So did you.”
Thomas looked at her for a heartbeat longer than he should have, then he opened the door and went out.
Walter waited until his footsteps faded.
“Saints,” he said. “I have sat through tax disputes with more comfort.”
Amelia pressed both hands over her face. “Not one word.”
“I only said one word. Saints. A useful word, broad in application.”
“I’m going to bed.”
“Wise.”
She took the mending basket because Edith would ask for it at dawn and because normal tasks were the ropes by which a person hauled herself through difficult days.
In the hall, the fire had burned low. Pickering’s clerks were asleep on their benches, their cloaks pulled over their shoulders, mouths slack in the undignified manner of all men once they stopped being official. At the high table, Thomas sat in his chair, half in shadow, as if he had been carved there out of oak, smoke, and stubbornness. It was perhaps the most Thomas thing he had ever done.
Three days ago, she might have walked past him, left him to brood. But that was before the kiss, and before the way his mouth had softened on hers.
She stopped at the edge of the hearthlight.