Also, Thomas would likely tell her to go. The sensible thing, the planned thing, was to pretend she hadn’t seen him. She could climb back up, relocate two feet to the left, and spend the rest of the night not sleeping while rain dripped on someone else.
Thunder rolled over the roof, long and low.
Amelia climbed down. The ladder creaked beneath her foot. A dog lifted its head, blinked at her, decided she was not carrying food, and went back to sleep. She crossed the rushes carefully, avoiding the puddles she knew about and discovering one she did not with the cold shock of wet against her toes.
“Great,” she whispered. “Perfect. Love that.”
Thomas turned. His eyes found her in the firelight. For a moment he looked as if he had traveled far from the hall and her movement had called him back unwillingly.
“Mistress Quinn.”
His voice was low and rough from disuse or wine, scraped down to the bone.
She stopped near the edge of the hearth light, suddenly aware of herself in a way that made her wish for about fifteen more layers. She wore a plain linen shift beneath her kirtle, because she had learned quickly that medieval sleeping arrangements required more clothing than modern ones. Over that she had wrapped a faded wool cloak, the hem dragging a little because it had been made for a taller woman. Her hair was loose. Her feet were bare. Her dignity, as usual, was limping along bravely several paces behind.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said.
His gaze lifted briefly toward the roof, where another leak struck a bowl with a plink that sounded almost smug. “No one could sleep through this.”
“The snoring man by the second table is giving it a noble effort.”
A faint ghost of expression crossed his face, then vanished.
She should leave. Instead she picked up an empty wooden bowl from the sideboard, placed it beneath the new drip near the hearth, and sat down across from him on the opposite bench.
Thomas watched her do it, but didn’t tell her to leave. That was the first surprise.
The storm filled the silence between them. Rain beat hard against the shutters. The fire shifted, one charred log collapsing inward with a sigh and a brief flare of sparks.
Thomas lifted the cup and drank. Amelia folded her hands inside the cloak. “Is it bad wine or are you angry at it?”
His eyes came back to her.
“What?”
“You looked like you were punishing the cup.”
For a breath, she thought he would dismiss her. Instead he looked down at the cup.
“It is bad wine.”
“Ah. So justified.”
He turned it in his hand. The cup looked small between his fingers, which were scarred and blunt and marked by old cuts. Hands that knew swords, reins, stone, rope, and all the hard things a lord insisted on carrying himself because asking for help would apparently kill him. He rubbed his thumb slowly along the rim.
“It was raining at the end,” he said. He wasn’t looking at her now.
“At Evesham,” he said. “Not at first. At first the sky was close and hot and full of smoke. But at the end, there was rain much like this.”
She held very still, the way you did when something wounded had come near enough to touch but might bolt if you breathed too loudly.
“I didn’t know that,” she said softly.
He huffed once, not quite a laugh. “Why would you?”
The coals glowed red between them. In that low, flickering light, Thomas seemed both larger and more worn than he did by day. Alone with bad wine and a storm, his ghosts gathered close enough that Amelia could almost feel them watching.
“There was a storm that morning,” he said. “Black as night at noon, the old men said ’twas an omen.”
