Amelia told herself she was observing for cultural understanding. This was research. Immersive learning. A practical study of martial customs in thirteenth-century England, which any reasonable woman flung through time ought to conduct if she wanted to survive.
She was absolutely not standing there with her mouth slightly open because Thomas’s shirt clung to his shoulders and his pale eyes went cold and focused when he held a blade.
No, that would be inappropriate, unhelpful, and probably visible from France.
Wat leaned toward her. “He’s the best.”
“I can see that.”
“No, thebest,” Wat insisted. “Hob says Lord Thomas could split a man’s wishbone before the man finished drawing breath.”
“Colorful.”
“Hob says many colorful things.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Alyson, who had climbed onto the lower rail, whispered, “Mistress Amelia, your cheeks are pink.”
Amelia snapped her mouth closed. “It’s hot.”
Wat squinted at the sky. “Not that warm.”
“Children are supposed to be sweet and kind.”
Wat looked alarmed. “Who told you that?”
In the lists, Thomas faced Osbern now, a broad-shouldered man with a scar through one eyebrow and a grin that suggested either bravery or an insufficient sense of self-preservation. They used dulled steel this time instead of wood, and the sound of blade against blade went through Amelia’s bones.
She had seen stage combat. She’d once planned a charity gala where a historical fencing group performed between the saladcourse and dessert, and one of the fencers had spent twenty minutes explaining longsword technique while Amelia nodded and wondered whether the chocolate mousse would hold in the warm ballroom.
This was not that.
Thomas didn’t rage when he fought. That was almost worse. He didn’t waste a single breath on snarls or swagger. He watched. Waited. Struck. Every movement seemed spare until the moment it became violence. Osbern was good. Amelia could see that much. He was strong, quick, and aggressive, forcing Thomas backward three steps.
The watching men shifted with interest.
Hob’s brows rose.
Thomas let Osbern drive him, let the man believe he had won ground, and then he moved.
It happened fast enough that Amelia made an undignified sound in the back of her throat.
One heartbeat Thomas was retreating. The next his blade had hooked Osbern’s, his shoulder had turned, and Osbern was flat on his back in the dust with Thomas’s boot planted lightly beside his ribs and the dulled point of steel at his throat.
There was a moment of silence, then the men roared.
Osbern lay there staring at the sky. “I dislike you.”
Thomas stepped back and offered a hand. “So you have said.”
Osbern accepted it, and Thomas hauled him to his feet as if the man weighed nothing.
Amelia swallowed. That was the problem with competence. Real competence. Not a man loudly explaining how much he knew while everyone else quietly fixed his mistakes. The kind that lived in the body and bones. The kind that didn’t need applause. Thomas wasn’t handsome in a polished way. He was too hard for that, too scarred, too grim, too weathered by grief and sun and war. But here, with dust on his boots and a bladein his hand, he was so entirely himself that Amelia could hardly look straight at him.
Which was inconvenient, because she also couldn’t look away.
Then he turned his head. Across the lists, through men and dust and mid-morning light, his gaze found hers.
