“Think on it. There is no haste, though I would not leave matters too long. Men at court grow hungry when they smell weakness.”
His gaze moved again to the doorway Amelia had disappeared through.
Thomas saw red so quickly he almost welcomed it.
Belmaine’s voice dropped. “A widow with no people of her own is a vulnerable creature. Such things have a way of being claimed by men bold enough to put out a hand.”
The world sharpened around Thomas. The hens scratching in the dust. The creak of Belmaine’s gloves. Hob’s low warning rumble somewhere behind him. The faint clatter from the kitchen where someone had dropped a pot.
Once, men had crossed roads to avoid him.
Once, his name alone had been enough.
Now a smiling court favorite rode into Ashcombe, laid claim to the future, and looked at Amelia as if she were another prize to be gathered.
Thomas found he preferred those times. Steel was simpler than politics.
He had not yet drawn his sword. That seemed important. He made certain of it by taking his hand from the hilt one finger at a time.
“Mistress Quinn is under my protection,” Thomas said.
“So you have said.”
“Then you have no need to speak of her again.”
Belmaine’s smile remained exactly where it was, which made Thomas want to remove it with his fists.
“As you wish, Ashcombe.”
He turned back toward the yard with the ease of a man who believed he had done exactly what he came to do.
Which, curse him, he had. By the time they reached the horses, Belmaine’s smile had regained all its warmth. He accepted a cup of ale from Hob and praised it loudly enough for the yard to hear.
“Good brew,” he said. “Ashcombe has not lost all its gifts.”
Hob’s expression suggested he would like to gift Belmaine the cup through his teeth.
Thomas shook his head once.
Belmaine’s men mounted. Fine cloaks. Fine horses. He turned his gelding toward the gate, then paused as if a thought had only just come to him.
“Do give my regards to Mistress Quinn,” he said. “A singular woman. One does not often see such fiery hair.”
Thomas stood in the clean autumn morning and watched the dust of Belmaine’s going rise behind the horses. The barn was full. The barley was in. The wall might hold. Yet every bit of good had gone out of the day.
“He was pleasant,” Hob said.
Thomas looked at him.
Hob shrugged. “In the way a boil is pleasant afore it bursts.”
Walter approached from the well, his face gray beneath its usual disapproval. “My lord.”
“I know.”
“You do not know what I would say.”
“You would say Belmaine has friends at court, that he is royalist to the bone when it profits him, that his daughters, nieces, and every other woman bred in that nest come withchains hidden in their sleeves, and that I must think of Ashcombe before I think of my temper.”
