“Not since last night.”
His mouth pinched.
Amelia lifted both hands, smiling. “I cross my heart.”
Walter looked suspiciously at the gesture. “That had better not be some oath I’m meant to report to Friar Huck.”
“It means I promise.”
“Hmph.” He went to the table, set down the roll beneath his arm, and touched the stacks in order, not quite moving them. “Harvest. Rents. Stores. Mill.”
“Yes.”
“Labor owed and labor given?”
“Under the rent roll.”
“Repairs?”
“Behind the stores, because he’ll ask after the east wall as soon as he smells the damp.”
Walter gave her a look that, two months ago, would have been nothing but reproach. Today it held annoyance, alarm, and something dangerously close to respect.
“You have a foul habit of being right.”
“It’s one of my more lovable qualities.”
“I did not say lovable.”
“No, but we both heard the implication.”
Walter snorted, which, from him, was practically a song with lute accompaniment.
Below, Thomas was already moving, stride hardening into the lord of Ashcombe before her eyes.
Not the man who had touched her hair, not the man who had kissed her, but the lord.
The one the crown had come to measure.
Amelia heard the changes in the household as word passed. Hooves in the mud. The creak of the gate. Men straightening from tasks, women gathering baskets, Wat’s voice pitching too high before Edith shushed him. Somewhere, a dog barked once and was silenced by someone who understood inspections, danger, or both.
Walter gathered two rolls into his arms.
“Mistress Amelia.”
She looked up.
“If you have kept aught from me that bears upon these accounts, tell me now.”
The words were said quietly, as if he wanted to know, but dreaded it.
Her fingers tightened on the edge of the table. “The accounts are clean.”
“That is not what I asked.”
For one foolish second, she considered lying. Not because she didn’t trust him. Because trust, in this century, was not a soft thing. It was a knife handed hilt-first to someone who might one day be forced to use it.
Walter watched her with the patience of old stone.
