“Hold on, Amelia.”
“I’m holding. Your stomach is very hard, rather like marble.”
Hob made a strangled sound.
Thomas looked down at him. “Say one word.”
“I would not dream of it, my lord.”
Cygnet tossed her head as if bored by all of them.
Amelia’s arms tightened when the mare took her first step.
Thomas’s body, treacherous thing that it was, noticed. Every part of him noticed. The soft weight of her against his back. Her breath catching when Cygnet moved from a walk to a brisker pace. The way her fingers gripped the front of his tunic, careful at first, then less careful when the mare reached the gate and the uneven ground beyond. The scent of her, wool warmed by her skin, faint smoke from the hall, a trace of honey from breakfast, and something that was simply Amelia, bright and clean, reminding him of a summer day when he was but a boy.
They rode out beneath the gatehouse while Wat and Alyson waved from the yard. Alyson shouted something about apples. Wat shouted something about bandits. Hob told him not to give the lady ideas.
The road to the market curled through fields stubbled gold after harvest, past hedgerows flushed red with haws and hips, past damp copses where leaves clung in copper, brown, and stubborn green. Mist lay low in the hollows and lifted slowly as the sun struggled through the clouds. The Malvern Hills rose in the distance, blue-grey beneath the pale morning, and the Avon moved unseen beyond the lower fields, betrayed only by the glint of water between willows and the sudden cry of birds.
“Is that allowed?” she asked.
Amelia’s breath made his ear twitch, which made him think about her mouth.
“What?” He told himself to stop acting like a witless dolt.
“That sheep.”
Thomas looked. A large ewe stood in the middle of a narrow strip of field, staring at them with the bleak suspicion of a woman who had seen empires rise and found them lacking.
“It is a sheep.”
“It’s staring at me.”
“Mayhap it does not approve of your seat.”
“My seat is doing its best.”
“You are leaning left.”
“I’m avoiding leaning into you.”
“That is why you are leaning left.”
“Would you prefer I lean into you?”
No.
Yes.
Damnation.
Thomas kept his gaze on the road. “I would prefer you sit steady.”
“Oh, is that all?”
“Aye.”
“Well, forgive me for not being born in the saddle.”
