Belmaine continued, his voice mild enough that a man passing by might think they spoke of oxen or weather. “He needs to be seen as loyal. Ordered. Settled.”
Thomas had expected it, and still his belly tightened.
“A good harvest helps,” Belmaine said. “A mended wall and rents paid at Michaelmas will help more. But none of it changes memory. A man may bring in every sheaf in Worcestershire and still be remembered for riding under the wrong banner.”
“Is that why you came? To bring me court gossip?”
“To bring you a rope before others bring a noose.”
Thomas almost admired that.
Belmaine had always enjoyed himself most when pretending cruelty was wit.
“There are doors,” Belmaine said, “that open only by marriage. My family is not without unwed daughters.”
Thomas turned his head.
Belmaine smiled. “Nieces, cousins. Girls of good blood, good training, and no unfortunate habit of appearing from nowhere.”
The words struck exactly where he meant them to strike.
Thomas kept his voice flat. “Take care.”
For a heartbeat Belmaine’s smile slipped. Not much. A twitch. A hesitation. A man remembering something he preferred safely buried.
Thomas saw it because Blackmere still walked beside him some days, not only before dawn when the keep was quiet, but in the eyes of men who had survived it and in the eyes of men who had only heard the tale.
Belmaine recovered quickly, but not before Thomas saw the fear, small and old and real.
“There now,” Belmaine said, summoning the smile again. “You do understand.”
Thomas didn’t move.
“She is fetching,” Belmaine continued, softer now. “Unusual. Men will speak of such a woman. Some kindly, some not. A suspect baron does himself no favors keeping a strange beauty under his roof without clear place or purpose.”
“She has both.”
“Does she?”
Thomas thought of Amelia in the field, laughing with Alyson, her hair full of straw. Amelia bent over the rolls, finding waste and errors. And Amelia looking at him as if he were more than a sword and less than the ruin he feared himself to be.
“She is under my protection,” Thomas said.
“Protection is a generous thing. Dangerous too, when given to the wrong woman.”
Thomas’s hand found the hilt of his sword before he could stop it.
He made himself loosen his grip.
“No insult meant,” Belmaine said, with a little bow of his head. “I speak as one concerned for you. For Ashcombe. You area hard man, Thomas, but hard men break when pressure is put in the proper place.”
The bastard smiled. “I can help. A marriage into a house above suspicion would do more to keep Ashcombe in Ashcombe hands than ten new walls.”
“How generous.”
Belmaine laughed softly. “That almost sounds friendly.”
Belmaine studied him, then glanced toward the hall.