Thomas took Amelia’s hand and drew her to him, but this time he didn’t hide her. He stood with her beside him, not before him, his fingers wrapped around hers in front of every witness in the orchard.
“She is under my protection,” he said.
Belmaine’s mouth twisted. “You’ve said so before.”
Thomas’s gaze did not waver. “This time, I’m not asking the law to believe me. I brought it with me.”
Pickering’s eyes narrowed.
Walter looked deeply pleased.
Friar Huck murmured, “Saints preserve us, he’s learning.”
Amelia would have laughed if her knees had not chosen that moment to remember the last several hours. The cold, the fear, the slap, the shard, the wax, the orchard, the awful knowledge of how close she had come to disappearing into the wet countryside like one more inconvenient woman in a world built to lose them.
Thomas felt the tremor in her hand. The man noticed a loose buckle at twenty paces and could probably hear guilt fermenting in a cellar. His grip tightened, warm and certain.
“You came,” she whispered.
His face shifted, and suddenly the orchard, the men, Belmaine, all of it dimmed at the edges.
“Aye.”
“Eventually.”
Pain moved through his eyes. “I know.”
No defense or excuse, just the truth, standing between them in the rain, bruised but breathing.
Amelia should have been angrier. She was angry. Somewhere inside her, an entire committee of emotional accountants had begun tabulating damages with ink, ledgers, and a worrying enthusiasm for interest. But Thomas was there, soaked and shaking with fury, holding her hand as if he would rather cut off his own than let go again.
The committee could meet later.
Pickering’s voice cut through the rain. “Sir Roger Belmaine, Edmund Crale, Osric of Belmaine, and all men involved in the making or use of this alleged attestation will remain under guard until I have heard every witness.”
Belmaine went white. “You cannot mean to take the word of servants, women, and a frightened priest over mine.”
Dame Margaret stepped forward.
“I am Dame Margaret of Belmaine,” she said, each word clean enough to shine. “I kept this house before Sir Roger’s first beard. I saw what he did. I heard what he said. And I will speak.”
Joan whispered, “Me too.”
Father Martin lifted the true wax fragment. “And I.”
Walter added, with relish, “And I have accounts.”
Pickering sighed. “God defend us from accounts.”
Walter’s nostrils flared. “These are excellent accounts.”
“Of course they are.”
Hob hauled Osric upright by the back of his tunic. Osric’s face was muddy, furious, and deeply undignified, which Amelia considered a marked improvement over smug.
She looked at him. “You’re welcome for the life lesson.”
Osric spat mud. “Witch.”