The woman carried it to the table and laid it nearer Amelia’s hand.
“Do not kill him unless you must,” she said as Amelia stared at her.
Dame Margaret’s eyes gave away nothing. Then she turned for the door.
“Dame Margaret.”
She paused.
“Father Martin said Father Odo was dead.”
The stillness that followed was answer enough.
Amelia stepped closer. “You know something.”
“I know many things. Most of them cost more than I wish to pay.”
“Did Sir Roger forge that paper?”
Dame Margaret’s hand closed around her keys. “Ask Father Martin.”
“How?”
The woman opened the door. “By being less obedient than you look.”
Then she left and the lock turned.
Amelia stood there, heart hammering, staring at the poker on the table.
Less obedient than you look.
For the first time since Ashcombe’s gate vanished behind her, Amelia smiled.
Not because she was safe. She wasn’t. And not because Thomas was coming. He was, but Belmaine had built the road between them out of traps.
No, she smiled because the house around her had begun to reveal its cracks. Joan had heard too much. Father Martin suspected the seal. Dame Margaret was not Belmaine’s creature in the way Belmaine believed. Crale was impatient, sloppy, and afraid of the man who had bought him.
And Amelia, daughter of Linda Quinn, event planner, list-maker, accidental medieval problem, was very good at cracks.
She went to the window and looked into the dark orchard. Wind stirred the branches, rattling them like dry bones. Somewhere beyond those fields lay Ashcombe, with its smoky hall and stubborn people, its honey-scented friar, murderous housekeeper, dangerous children, and its lord who had let her go because he believed saving everyone meant sacrificing himself first.
She pressed one hand to the cold shutter.
“I told you the truth,” she whispered.
The horn panes gave back a faint, warped reflection. Pale face. Red hair coming loose. Green eyes gone hard.
Thomas might have failed her at the gate, but he would come for her, and when he did, Amelia intended to have something sharper than heartbreak waiting for him.
She turned from the window, picked up the poker, and weighed it in her hand.
“Okay,” she told the room. “Let’s ruin Sir Roger’s evening.”
AMELIA
By Amelia’s estimation, there were four kinds of bad rooms.
There were ugly rooms, which could be improved with flowers, candles, and a decorating budget.