She could not say what broke his look, but in a blink it was gone, replaced by a brief flash of revulsion. For an instant, she thought the pain had brought him to illness, and she took a reflexive step forward. But no – he was not ill. She knew that look. The tiny curled misery that lived hidden in her belly recognized it. It was only herself, her own face that elicited his disgust. His expression was fleeting, there and gone again like the bite of his blade, to be replaced by an indifference that did not fool her.

“Fix this twixt your teeth,” she instructed him, holding forth the worn leather strap that she had used a thousand times for similar purpose.

He eyed it, obviously no stranger to the practice, but did not take it as she bade. He leaned his head back against the tree and watched her from that angle, the corner of his mouth rising in a familiar mockery as shadows played across his face.

“You have not met my daughter, she said to me.” His voice was a rasp above the faint crackle of the fire, his gaze roaming across her as she felt herself turn warm. She could feel the flush creeping up to her temples, imagined how much more uncomely it made her to his eyes. He only smiled with a blandness that was somehow threatening. “Oh, but she lied, did she not? Of course she would lie.”

Words climbed up her throat. This was why she had objected to her mother’s bidding that she escort him to Windsor. To be a nameless woman was safe enough; to be the daughter of Ruardean would bring nothing but shame and condemnation, did he see her wield a weapon and command men. A secret kept close in a corner of her family’s stronghold would turn foul and rotten, if known to the wider world of men. All her days of walking at his back, of staying in the shadows and keeping her silence. All wasted in her own childish pride.

He stared at her, his eyes not moving, the blue of them turned to black in the smoke-tinged night as he watched her.

Slowly, so slowly, like a new lesson to be recited, he said, “But I had not met you until I met your blade, she meant.” He gave a hoarse bark of a laugh, incredulous. His eyes met hers, an intensity she had only seen once before in her life – when he’d held her knife to his own breast in a dark and dirty hut. That same urgency, his voice a thin and papery sound. “What are you?”