“Well, perhaps you will show a bit more restraint this evening,” she said, finally letting the smile show. “At the feast.”
“Yes, the feast,” Kyle said, kicking his foot about in the mud a bit. “Listen, Laila.”
“Yes?” she asked, feeling her heart flutter at his vulnerability.
“I’m sorry,” he said, bring his eyes back up to meet hers. “For how I behaved last night. Ye dinnae deserve such treatment,” then he added in a halfhearted attempt at a jest, “even as an Englishwoman.” Then, he suddenly reached out his hand and took hers, and she felt that gentle grip that he had imposed the night before and leaned down to kiss the top of her hand. “I hope ye can forgive me.”
“Well,” Laila said, a bit flustered by his overall gentile behavior, “I suppose that would depend.”
“Depend on what?” Kyle asked, rising from kissing her hand, yet he still had her palm in his.
“How was it?” she asked, looking at him pointedly. “Kissing an Englishwoman?”
Kyle’s face went immediately red, and Laila felt hers doing the same. She was trying to have some fun with him while maintaining the upper hand in their exchanges, but suddenly she had betrayed herself, for she was thinking of the kiss and longing for another.
“Ha,” Kyle mused, kicking back his foot again, finally letting her hand drop back to her side. “I should ask ye the same.”
“Oh?” Laila asked, holding her hands together in front of her, wringing her palms together nervously. She had lost the upper hand, and they both knew it. It was a level playing field now. They shared a brief moment of eye contact before they both looked down, and then Kyle gave off a little laugh. “What?” she asked.
“Well, I suppose I need some new clothes,” Kyle said, glancing about the market. “For this evening.”
“Ah yes,” she said, “I burned the other ones.”
“Did ye?” Kyle mused, grinning a bit, and Laila returned the smile.
“I did.”
“Well then, I certainly need new clothes,” Kyle said with a bit of a laugh.
“I should say so,” Laila replied, smiling, and they shared yet another bout of nervous eye contact, the way that two people who are hopelessly attracted to one another only can, the both of them blushing in the fierce Scottish wind.
“Will ye help me?” Kyle asked. “Find new clothes?”
“I suppose that is my duty,” Laila answered, twisting her hips back and forth anxiously.
“I suppose so,” Kyle replied awkwardly. They looked at one another in the breezy market for a moment longer, the both of them trying to figure out what the other was thinking while the wind howled overhead until everything was shattered by a trumpet blast from the gate.
Kyle’s head snapped that way, his eyes narrowing, as the gate tower guard shouted back down into the yard.
“Knights approaching!”
