Thomas, seated beside her at the high table with the air of a man who had expected battle but found himself ambushed by happiness, looked at Walter.
Then at Amelia.
Then down at their joined hands, which he had placed openly on the bench between them as if he were daring God, crown, Walter, and the entire English system of propriety to object.
“Aye,” he said.
Walter looked relieved.
Thomas added, “I considered that I wanted her.”
Hob made a delighted choking sound into his cup.
Walter closed his eyes.
Amelia’s heart did something deeply inconvenient behind her ribs.
“You cannot put that in a contract,” Walter said faintly.
“Nay,” Thomas said. “But it seems useful in a marriage.”
Friar Huck lifted his cup. “Sound theology.”
“Is it?” Amelia asked.
“It is now,” Huck said.
The hall had changed overnight. Not in any way a mason could measure. The roof still leaked in two places, one shutter still banged whenever the wind caught it from the east, andthe table nearest the hearth had a wobble that made every cup placed upon it live a brief but exciting life. Yet the air itself felt different. Lighter. As if the manor had been carrying a stone in its chest and someone had finally lifted it away.
People smiled at Amelia when she passed. Not the cautious smiles they had given the strange woman from nowhere. Not the fond, worried smiles after Belmaine’s defeat. These were wide, conspiratorial smiles, full of plans and meaning and a truly alarming amount of opinion.
Betrothed, Amelia had learned, was not a private condition. It was a public sport.
Mald advised her to praise Thomas’s shoulders often, because men liked to believe their shoulders had achieved something through merit rather than bone structure.
Joan said a husband should always be kept slightly uncertain whether he had pleased his wife, as it encouraged effort.
Edith said both girls were fools and that a husband required feeding, managing, and correction in equal parts.
Friar Huck said honey softened tempers, sweetened tongues, and should be present at all important conversations.
Hob said ale worked faster.
Walter said none of this was useful and attempted to explain dower rights.
Alyson asked if wooing involved presents and whether she might also be wooed with cherries.
Wat asked Thomas if he intended to compose a love song.
At that, the entire hall went silent.
Thomas stared at the boy.
“No.”
“You could,” Wat said, with the wary bravery of a child poking a sleeping bear to see whether it had improved overnight.
“I could not.”
