“I’ll bring her home,” he said.
No one answered. They were wise enough, or kind enough, not to tell him that home was the thing he had just let leave.
Above Ashcombe, the autumn sky lowered, thick with cloud, and the wind moved over the bailey with the smell of storms on the air.
AMELIA
Amelia had never hated a horse before, but she hated this one. Not personally, because the poor animal had done nothing except obey the nearest idiot with reins, but after the first half mile of being carried away from Ashcombe on a side-saddle that felt as if it had been designed by a committee of medieval chiropractors, she was ready to file a formal complaint against the entire species.
Or possibly against the thirteenth century. Honestly, the list was growing.
Her legs were trapped to one side, her gown twisted beneath her, and every rut in the road seemed determined to introduce itself to her spine. Her hands had been left free, which was either a mercy or proof that Sir Roger Belmaine had never once been on the receiving end of a woman with rage, hairpins, and nothing left to lose.
The road unwound beneath them in a ribbon of wet leaves and mud, hedgerows stripped thin by the wind, the fields beyond lying stubbled and brown beneath a sky the color of old pewter. The air smelled of damp wool, horse, leather, and the faint sour tang of old leaves rotting in the ditches. Somewhere behindthem, hidden by distance and a bend in the road, Ashcombe was still standing.
Ashcombe, with its smoky hall, adorable children, murderous kitchen women, honey-scented friar, and one stubborn, battle-scarred lord who had promised to bring her back even while letting her ride away.
No. She wasn’t thinking about Thomas. Not yet. If she thought about him standing in the bailey with that awful stillness in his face, if she remembered the way his voice had roughened aroundI’ll bring you back, if she let herself touch the bruise of that final moment when she’d asked him why it felt like he didn’t believe her, she would come undone right here in the saddle. Amelia had not survived board meetings with men named Brad, budget disasters, malfunctioning microphones, and one memorable charity gala where the ice sculpture had melted into the shrimp display by falling apart in public.
She straightened her back. Not today.
A crow lifted from a bare-limbed oak and shouted at them like a witness for the prosecution. Amelia agreed with the crow.
Sir Roger Belmaine rode ahead, his cloak snapping behind him. Edmund Crale rode to her left, close enough to play concerned husband for anyone watching, not close enough for her to kick without leaning so far she might tumble off and crack her skull on a rock, though the thought was tempting.
One of Belmaine’s men rode to her right, hand resting on his reins, eyes fixed ahead with the purposeful blankness of someone paid not to hear. Behind them came two more men in murrey and gold, their mail hidden beneath travel-stained cloaks, swords at their hips.
A cage on horseback.
Crale cleared his throat. “You’ll find Sir Roger’s household comfortable.”
Amelia turned her head and looked at him. He smiled with his mouth only. The bruise on his cheek had gone an ugly green at the edges, and the beard he’d trimmed looked dirty.
“You don’t have to pretend,” she said.
His smile slipped, an ugly look replacing it. “You’re a sharp-tongued woman.”
“Funny how strange men abducting me brings that out.”
“I have a lawful claim.”
“You have a piece of parchment and the morals of a rat.”
The guard on her right made a sound that might have been a cough.
Crale’s eyes narrowed. “A woman in your position should speak gently.”
“My position is on a horse in a ridiculous saddle, between a liar and a man who’s pretending not to listen. My tone is the least of your problems.”
Sir Roger turned in the saddle. His pale hair, smoothed beneath his cap, looked as if even the wind had been paid to leave it alone.
“Mistress Crale.”
“Not my name.”
“Until the matter is decided,” Belmaine said, “it is the name the law recognizes.”
He gave her that smooth, pitying look she wanted to knock off his face with a rock.
