Oh, right.
Her fingers went to the ribbon at the back of her head. She hesitated. The movement felt small, and the cost felt large.
She thought of Hilda tying her hair that morning. She thought of her mother pushing the basket at her, saying she must not come home skinny. She knew it was ultimately better for her to loosen it anyway, and soon, the knot slid loose. She lifted the mask free and held it in both hands.
The cold night air touched her cheeks and felt like hands. She kept her gaze on his mouth because looking into his one good eye without the barrier felt like stepping too close to the edge of the rise.
He studied her without hurry, and his gaze moved like a man reading a map he intended to walk by dawn. Brow, cheek, the set of her mouth, the line of her jaw. The look in his eye was not admiration or any kind of hunger. She liked to think she recognized looks by now.
No. It looked like he was counting what trouble she brought and deciding whether he wanted to carry it or not.
Heat rose under her skin for a different reason than shame. She had expected men to check her face and find a reason to smile or not. Usually, men were either highly obsessed with her curves or put off by them.
Not him.
This was cleaner and harder. He was deciding if she was worth the work.
“Are ye done?” she asked, keeping her voice level.
“Nay,” he said.
He kept looking, as if the new angle might show a fault she had hidden in light. It made her want to look away.
She did not.
“Happy?” she prompted.
“Aye,” he said. “With the part that matters.”
“And which part is that?”
“That ye did as ye were told when it counted,” he said. “Some rules are there for a reason.”
“Ye really like giving orders, do ye nae? Does it give ye some kind of pleasure?”
“I like seeing what people do when they hear one,” he said. “It saves time.”
“And if I had told ye nay?”
“I would still have seen what I needed,” he said. “Only slower.”
“So, I pleased ye by saving ye time. Is that what ye’re saying?”
“Ye pleased me by showing a face that willnae waste mine,” he said.
She had to stop the corner of her mouth from curling. “Ye ken, for a man who loves to give orders, ye like to talk in one poem lines. Is that also deliberate, or just a way for ye to appear wiser to people?”
He chuckled.
Erica tilted her head.
So, he is capable of that.
For some reason, something about seeing him smile seemed to linger.
“I enjoy talk that means something,” he said. “Ye brought me a claim in front of witnesses. That is talk. This is the part where we decide if it was worth the breath.”
“I see,” Erica responded, her voice cutting through the wind.
