His shoulders moved once in a contained laugh, though no sound came of it.
"As ye command. I am very bad anyway, but ye’ll see fer yerself."
She stared at him. At the back of his head, the set of his shoulders, the absolute composure of a man who had just accepted to sing in the middle of a forest in the dark so hisbetrothed could relieve herself in private, as though this were a perfectly normal negotiation.
"Ye'd actually dae that?" she said.
"I'm already daein' it." And without further preamble, without embarrassment or performance, he began to sing.
He was not wrong about being bad.
It was a Norse thing, low and rhythmic and completely tuneless, delivered at a volume that suggested he genuinely couldn’t hear himself.
Matilda stood in the dark between the trees and pressed her lips together very hard and did what she'd come to do.
The strangest thing wasn't his singing, bad as it was. The strangest thing was that she wasn't afraid.
The dark between the trees was thick and genuine and she was alone in it, which was the combination that usually sent her pulse climbing before she could stop it.
She had her candle in her cloak pocket, unlit, and her hand found it by habit, the familiar shape of it.
She didn't light it.
She didn't need to.
She straightened her skirts, took a step, and looked back at him through the trees.
He was still singing.
Loudly. Completely without shame, facing resolutely away, his broad shoulders set against the dark like he had all night and no opinions about how he spent it.
She picked up a pine cone from the ground at her feet and threw it at the back of his head.
"Stop," she said.
He stopped. Turned around.
His expression was entirely composed, not a trace of amusement on it, which was somehow worse than if he'd been laughing openly.
"Better?" he said.
"Dinnae," she said, "ever speak of this. I’m mortified."
"Speak of what?"
He was already moving toward her. Already cupping his hands to help her remount.
She put her foot in his hands and let him lift her because her knee hurt, she was tired and she was, despite everything, fighting a smile so hard her jaw ached.
She was back in the saddle. His chest was warm against her back. His arms came around her on either side, loose on the reins, and the horse moved forward.
And then she heard it.
Small and quiet and quickly swallowed, but unmistakable.
A laugh.
Not performed, not offered to her, just a real one. Low and brief, like something had caught him off guard and he hadn’t quite managed to put it away in time.