“I forgive many of your flaws.”
Her gasp was loud enough to startle a crow from the hedge. “My flaws?”
“You asked.”
“I did not. Also, I’m a delight.”
Cygnet flicked an ear.
“Your horse agrees with me.”
“Cygnet agrees with no one.”
“I can tell she likes me.”
“She is considering whether you have food.”
“That’s how most relationships begin.”
Despite himself, Thomas smiled. He was glad she could not see it. Or mayhap not glad. That was the difficulty. With Ameliaat his back, every sensible thought became two thoughts, and the second was always the dangerous one.
She talked about the countryside as they rode. Not continually, but the lands around them pulled the words out of her. A flock of crows lifting from the field became an omen she did not approve of. Three pigs rooting beneath an oak became a moral inquiry into whether pigs always looked so pleased with themselves. A boy driving geese along the lane earned a whispered lecture about how geese were mean and ducks were kind.
“Everything here feels like an omen,” she said as a raven flapped across the road ahead of them.
“Most things are simply hungry.”
They passed a wayside cross where someone had left a little twist of flowers, rain-battered and brown at the edges. Amelia quieted then. Her arms remained around him, but her grip softened. Thomas felt the question in her silence before she asked it.
“What is that?”
“A cross.”
“I can see that.”
“A man died near here last winter. Cart overturned.”
“Oh.” She shifted behind him.
“He was not from Ashcombe.”
“But someone leaves flowers?”
“Aye.”
“That’s kind.”
“It costs little.”
“Kindness often does,” she said quietly. “People still don’t spend it.”
Thomas had no answer for that. The road narrowed beneath a stand of trees, their branches interlaced overhead, the last leaves rattling in the wind. Cygnet picked her way through theruts. A squirrel shot across the path. Amelia made a small startled sound and clutched him tighter.
Thomas closed his eyes briefly.
“Did a squirrel just attack us?” she demanded.
The first hour passed too quickly, which annoyed him greatly.
