Kitty did not look up.
Norman sat, not on the blanket, but just beside it, legs crossed neatly at the ankles. His palms rested on his knees, as though holding himself in check by sheer discipline.
The breeze tugged at the edges of her shawl, but she didn’t move to fix it. He wanted to—God, he wanted to. But her posture was guarded, and her face remained turned slightly away, presenting him only with her cheek and the edge of her jaw.
Norman cleared his throat.
No response.
He leaned forward just slightly. “Am I so frightful to behold this evening?”
Still nothing.
“I must ask because I have been in the sun for some time,” he went on lightly, “and perhaps my face has become so severely scorched that you fear to gaze upon it directly.”
Her shoulders shifted in a motion that might have been a laugh. Still, she refused to look at him.
“Kitty,” he said, softer now, “am I truly so undeserving of your eyes?”
That got her.
She turned her head—slowly, deliberately—and fixed him with a look of exasperated amusement. “You’re insufferable, do you know that?”
He grinned, shameless. “I’ve been told.”
“I was trying not to look at you,” she said, folding her arms with more drama than true malice. “It was an active choice.”
He lifted a brow. “And why, pray, would you make such a choice?”
“Because,” she said, her eyes narrowing, “you are very… distracting.”
Norman blinked.
Kitty flushed the moment the word left her mouth. She shifted, tucking her legs beneath her and adjusting her skirts with unnecessary fuss.
He tried to catch her eyes again, but now she was looking out across the lawn—at anything but him.
It was his turn to tease. “I see. So you weren’t ignoring me because you were angry. Merely because I fluster you.”
“You do not fluster me.”
“You just called me distracting.”
“That was a slip of the tongue.”
“Was it?”
Her jaw clenched as she looked back at him, and something in her gaze flickered—heat, mischief, frustration, and something else he couldn’t quite name.
“You’re very full of yourself.”
“Perhaps,” he murmured, his voice dipping unconsciously.
Kitty’s breath hitched. Just barely. But he noticed.
And she noticed him noticing.
A beat passed.
