“How can you tell?”
Father Martin turned the lump of wax in his fingers. “The parish seal bore the church and a small fish beneath, because the old spring there was said to have fed the village in famine. The seal on Sir Roger’s parchment shows only the church. It is a copy made by a man who saw the mark and did not understand what mattered.”
Wax remembers.
Amelia almost laughed. Not because it was funny, but because the clue was so perfectly medieval. In her own century, someone would check a database or scan a signature. Here, the truth lived in wax, parish gossip, and a dead priest’s fish.
“Can you testify to that?” she asked.
Father Martin’s eyes flicked toward the door. “Before the proper authority, aye.”
“Will you?”
Silence. There it was. The human part. The price.
Dame Margaret looked down. Joan twisted her hands in her apron.
Father Martin’s voice lowered. “Sir Roger holds my brother’s lease.”
Of course he did. Belmaine’s fat fingers were everywhere, tucked under every latch.
Amelia tried to keep the disappointment from her face and failed.
Father Martin saw it and flushed. “I did not say I would not speak. I said there is a cost.”
“I know.” Her voice came out softer than she intended. “I’m sorry.”
The priest looked at her for a long moment. “You are not his wife.”
“No.”
“You are not Edmund Crale’s wife either.”
“Definitely not.”
“You are Lord Ashcombe’s…”
He stopped.
Amelia’s heart did something painful and stupid.
“I’m not anyone’s,” she said.
The priest’s expression gentled. “Few women are granted such danger.”
That landed oddly. Danger, yes. But also truth. She had belonged to no one in this world and because of that, every man with a document thought he could claim the empty space.
Thomas had never claimed it. Not once. He’d sheltered her, protected her, scowled at her quite often. Wanted her, maybe.Loved her, maybe, in the quiet bruised way he had of loving everyone he feared he would fail. But he had not claimed her.
Amelia swallowed hard. “Thomas will come for me.”
Dame Margaret looked toward the chapel door. “Sir Roger expects it.”
“I know.”
“He wants Lord Ashcombe angry enough to trespass with steel.”
“I know that too.”
