Fact one: the sword wasn’t there.
Fact two: she didn’t have anywhere else to go.
Fact three: Thomas Ashcombe had offered her shelter.
Those were all true, but they weren’t the whole truth. The rest of the truth walked beside her through the cold yard, carrying a lantern, scowling at shadows, and pretending that offering her a place in his household was merely practical.
Amelia had failed to plan for many things lately. A vanished sword, a missing century, and a castle full of people who were starting to matter to her.
But Thomas? He was going to be the most dangerous thing she’d ever failed to plan for.
AMELIA
Amelia had been stuck in the thirteenth century long enough to figure out three things with absolute certainty.
First, no one at Ashcombe believed in breakfast as a civilized event.
Second, wool was itchy and heavy.
Third, if she did not introduce this household to the concept of washing hands before meals, she was going to lose her mind, her appetite, or possibly both before Michaelmas.
She’d accepted, more or less, that she was never going to taste coffee again or have access to dental floss, hot showers, fitted cotton percale sheets, nor would she hear the hum of a refrigerator when her apartment was quiet.
The sword that had dragged her here didn’t exist yet, which meant there was no way home, and no amount of standing in the tower and swearing would make the universe apologize.
She had also accepted, with only a moderate amount of private screaming, that Lord Thomas Ashcombe had offered her a home and his protection, and that she had gladly accepted.
Protection, in this century, meant shelter, food, clothing, and the annoyance of being talked about by everyone from thestableboys to the laundress as if she were either a tragic runaway wife or a supernatural being.
What she had not accepted, was watching Wat plunge both hands into a bowl of porridge after helping muck out the stable.
“No,” she said, before she could stop herself.
Wat froze.
His sister, Alyson, who sat beside him on the bench with her legs swinging and a smear of honey already shining on her chin, blinked up at Amelia with wide, solemn eyes.
Around them, the hall paused in the slow way a large animal paused when it scented something odd on the wind.
Edith stood at the hearth, sleeves rolled to her elbows, a wooden spoon in one hand and a look on her face that suggested she already regretted Amelia staying at the castle. Smoke curled above the central fire and tangled in the rafters, carrying with it the smell of oat pottage, yesterday’s rushes, baking bread, and the sharp sour tang of the ale that men drank in the morning as if it were a perfectly reasonable substitute for water.
Wat looked down at his hands, then at the porridge, then back at Amelia. “What?”
“You need to wash your hands first.”
He frowned. “I washed.”
“When?”
“Yestereve.” A bit of sun-streaked hair fell across one eye, making him look like a small pirate.
Alyson nodded, as if this were proof of great moral discipline.
Amelia closed her eyes for one second. “Before eating.”
Wat blinked at her.
A man down the table snorted into his cup. Hob, who had been tearing into a hunk of bread with his teeth, lowered it and turned his head with interest.
