Jamys could barely feel his fingers by the time he pushed open the door to the small room he shared with his wife in the servants' wing of Lothian Manor. The hinges protested with a familiar squeal that he'd been meaning to oil for the better part of a year, and the sound drew a soft murmur from the bed where Lilee had been dozing beneath a threadbare quilt.
The quilt had been plush and luxurious when they bought it to celebrate Jamys' promotion from the carriage yard to stables used by visiting knights and noblemen for their mounts, but like many things they owned, it had long passed the age when it should have been replaced if either of them could have managed the coin to do so.
