“Noted.”
Mistress Bell’s face crumpled a little around the edges. “I did not come to cause hurt.”
“Intent is a pretty veil,” Edith said. “But it doesn’t warm the person left standing in the cold.”
The rebuke landed as Mistress Bell dipped her head.
Thomas took one step closer, his voice low and flat.
“Mistress Quinn eats at my table, works beneath my roof, and is under my protection. Any man with questions about her may bring them to me.”
Mistress Bell looked as if the thought of doing so had all the appeal of climbing into a wolf’s mouth to count its teeth.
“Aye, my lord.”
“And any woman with questions,” Edith said.
Thomas looked at her.
Edith lifted her chin. “What? Women do half the damage. More, if the men are slow.”
Mistress Bell’s blush deepened as Amelia pressed her lips together.
Thomas didn’t even crack a smile, but she caught the tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth. It steadied her in a way that annoyed her. She didn’t want steadiness from him. Not when every inch of him looked ready to stand between her and the world until the world either backed down or lost a limb.
That sort of thing was dangerous to a woman trying very hard to remain sensible.
A gust of colder wind pushed through the open door, bringing with it the smell of wet leaves, mud, and horse. Behind Mistress Bell, the yard lay grey beneath the low sky, men carrying arms full of firewood, a cart creaking near the barn, chickens scratching with purpose near the well.
Then Friar Huck came through the doorway carrying a covered basket, his walking staff, and the look of a man who had gone out into the village, heard enough nonsense for one morning, and returned with reinforcements.
“Good,” he said. “Everyone’s gathered.”
Thomas closed his eyes, muttering under his breath as the children leaned closer, hoping to pick up a new curse or two.
Amelia looked at the friar. “Do I want to know why that sounds ominous?”
“Probably not,” Huck said cheerfully. “But you shall.”
His habit was damp at the hem and flecked with burrs from the road. There was a leaf stuck in his beard. He smelled faintly of rain, smoke, and beeswax, which was not a combination Amelia had ever expected to find comforting and now did. He set the basket on the nearest table and lifted the cloth.
Inside sat two small jars of honey and a round loaf so fresh that steam still clung to the split in its crust.
Alyson gasped as if he had unveiled treasure from a dragon’s hoard.
“Honey?” she whispered, going up on her tiptoes.
“For medicinal purposes,” Huck said.
Wat’s eyes narrowed. “What medicine?”
“The kind that keeps mouths too full for foolish talk.”
Edith made a satisfied sound. “A worthy cure.”
Huck glanced at Mistress Bell, and his weathered face gentled in a way that was somehow more devastating than Thomas’s scowl.
“Mistress Bell, I’m told men have taken to asking whether our Amelia sits properly in God’s world.”
