He had meant to endure the ride with discipline, keep his thoughts ordered, his body indifferent, his attention on the road. Instead he found himself listening for the next thing she would say, waiting for that wry twist of her voice, for the little huff of breath when the mare stepped awkwardly, for the way she went quiet when the world unsettled her and then made herself brave by mocking it.
By the time the market came into view, Thomas had nearly forgotten to be miserable.
Evesham’s market spread around the square below the church, spilling into the lanes like water from an overturned pail. Though the worst of the war’s fear had passed from the roads, its shadow remained. Men looked twice at strangers. Women kept children close. A few stalls stood empty where traders had not yet returned or never would. Yet the market lived all the same, stubborn as weeds between stones.
Smoke drifted from cook fires. Bells rang faintly from the church tower. A crier’s voice rose above the crowd, announcing news no one quite believed. The air was rich with smells, roasting chestnuts, hot pies, horse dung, leather, onions, fish packed in salt, beeswax, wet straw, and too many bodies gathered beneath a grey sky.
Amelia went quiet behind him.
Thomas turned his head slightly to make sure she had not been rendered mute. “Do not gape.”
“I’m not gaping.”
“You are.”
She snapped her mouth shut.
He dismounted near the edge of the square, then reached up to help her down. She placed her hands on his shoulders because there was no graceful way for her to do anything else, and he lifted her from the mare as if she weighed no more than a bundle of linen.
She landed close. Too close.
For a moment her hands remained on him, her fingers curled in the wool at his shoulders, her face tilted up to his beneath the edge of her veil. There was color in her cheeks from the ride and the cold, and a curl had worked loose at her temple, shining copper against her pale skin.
Thomas released her.
“Thank you,” she said.
He nodded and turned to tie Cygnet to a post before he did something witless in the middle of the market square.
“Hood up,” he said.
Amelia pulled the edge of her cloak higher. “I look suspicious.”
“You look less noticeable.”
“I feel like a turnip in hiding.”
“I have never known a turnip to hide.”
“That’s why you still find them.”
He looked at her despite himself.
She smiled.
Saints preserve him from this woman.
The first stall sold salt, and Thomas was immediately reminded why he had insisted on coming. The merchant was broad as a barrel and nearly as round, with a beard forked into two little points. He named a price that would have made Walter faint into the rushes.
Thomas named one half of it.
The merchant clutched his chest. “My lord wounds me.”
“Not yet.”
Amelia coughed.
The merchant’s eyes flicked to her, then back to Thomas. “This is fine salt from Droitwich. White as saints’ linen.”
