Walter retired early, clutching the wrapped rolls as though someone might seduce them into disorder overnight.
Thomas remained near the hearth longer than he intended. He told himself it was because this was his hall, his people, and his duty to be seen among them on a day that had ended better than it might have. He told himself he watched everyone. That was a bloody lie. He watched her.
She sat on a low bench near the fire with Alyson half asleep against her side and Wat at her feet, pretending not to drowse. Hob had cornered her with Osbern and Martin and was apparently teaching her another French curse, judging by her scandalized expression.
“No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”
Hob looked wounded. “It is useful.”
“That is not useful unless I am being attacked by a cheese.”
Osbern laughed into his cup.
Friar Huck leaned over, interested. “What curse?”
“No,” Amelia and Hob said together.
The friar looked delighted. “Then it must be a good one.”
Amelia shook her head, curls slipping further free, and laughed.
There it was. Not helpless, not wholly unguarded, but close enough to make Thomas ache. He wanted to be the cause of it, wanted it so fiercely he had to look away. He stared into the fire until the flames blurred and became another field, another orange light over mud, another day when wanting men to live had not been enough to make it so.
A small hand tugged at his sleeve as he looked down. Alyson stood beside him, blinking sleepily, her hair coming loose from its braid. “Mistress Amelia says I must tell you good night because I am too tired to remember my manners.”
Thomas looked over the child’s head.
Amelia was watching them. Her expression was soft as his treacherous heart did something foolish. Merde. He was utterly besotted and in love with her.
“Then I bid you a good night,” he said.
Alyson held up both hands.
Thomas frowned. “What?”
“She says you’re to inspect them.”
Amelia pressed her lips together from across the hearth.
Thomas looked at the child’s hands. They were clean enough, though there was honey near one wrist.
He considered the matter gravely. “You will live.”
Alyson beamed. “I washed twice.”
“A fearsome achievement.”
She leaned against his leg for one brief, trusting moment before scampering back to Amelia.
Thomas wanted to cross the hall, sit beside her, take the cup from her hand, tell Hob to go corrupt someone else, and feel Alyson’s small weight against both of them as if this were a life that could simply be chosen because it fit. Instead he gave one short nod and turned away.
The cold outside struck him cleanly when he stepped into the yard. Good. He needed cold.
The bailey lay under a low sky, the stones slick with mist. The tower rose dark at the corner of the wall, whole and silent, holding whatever secrets had brought Amelia to him. Somewhere in the stable, Galahad stamped and blew. A dog barked once in the village, then stopped. The air smelled of smoke, wet earth, and coming frost.
Michaelmas was done. Ashcombe had scraped through. The rolls would stand if Pickering came. The rents were reckoned. The coffer held enough. The barns held enough. The people, by some stubborn grace, held enough.
And Thomas stood in the cold with his hands curled into fists, trying to crush a wanting that had rooted beneath his ribs while he was too busy counting grain to notice.