Page 8 of Ena’s Surrender

Attending the market was no more dangerous than going to Ena’s hut the night before to return the goat. He hadn’t intended to do so, not until her last desperate cry that her pet would be killed. Ena wasn’t wrong. In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to allow her goat to be sacrificed, especially as thin as the poor beast was.

If he were being honest, he’d admit he hoped to gain favor with the lovely Scottish warrior. He’d never had difficulty melting women with his charm. Until Ena.

Even as he strode through the market, several women smiled at him in appreciative notice. One had even been so brazen as to wink at him.

As if she had been summoned from his thoughts, she appeared on the other side of the market street. Her gown was a dun homespun cloth that hung around her frame and her hair was bound back in a simple braid. She held a basket on her forearm as she made her way down a line of vendor’s stalls.

Renault slipped behind a booth and watched as she purchased a small bit of salted venison and a loaf of crusty bread. She passed near the booth by him and hesitated. Renault froze, thinking she had recognized him. He expected her to shout out his presence to all.

Except that it was not him she was looking at, but the vendor’s wares. Flaky crusted meat pies were laid out in a tempting tower on a board. She paused and gazed at the top pie, her eyes bright with apparent longing. Tendrils had come loose from her braid, pulled free by the wind, and framed her face.

“Would ye care to buy a pasty, miss?” the vendor asked.

Ena leapt slightly, as if interrupted from her thoughts and lifted her large, doe-like brown eyes on the vendor. Her cheeks colored and she shook her head before moving on, but not before taking one last look at the pasty and swallowing.

She had wanted it, that much was clear. Given how her gown hung loose around her and how empty her basket remained in a market full of such fare, it was easy to see she could not afford the luxury.

Renault, however, could. He was by no means a rich man, but he supported himself well. Enough to afford a meat pie for a beautiful woman.

He paid from the purse of coins he’d received the day before from the Earl of Bothbury for his efforts of spying on the Scottish West March earlier that month.

The pasty was hot in his hands and its savory scent promised a center filled with herb-flavored meat and hearty gravy. Maybe even some vegetables as well. Purchase in hand, he followed Ena’s path to where she stood by a grain stand.

He extended the pie toward her. “My lady.”

She saw the meat pasty and sucked in a breath, her longing evident. “I dinna purchase—” Her gaze shifted to him and her face hardened. “What are ye doing here?”

“Buying you something you wanted.” He lifted the gift closer to her.

She stared for a long time, a silent war playing out in her mind. “I dinna want it.” She spun on her heel and strode away from him.

He raced after her, darting this way and that to avoid people in the crowd. “I trust Maribel is well?”

She studied him from the corner of her eye as he caught up with her.

“I could tell she meant a lot to you,” Renault said.

Ena pressed her lips together and sighed. “Thank ye for returning her, though ye shouldna have taken her in the first place.”

“You did help steal a considerable head of cattle…”

“Ye do the same to us,” she countered. “Ye dine on fine food, with enough coin to buy a meat pie. Ye’ve no idea what it’s like to starve for want of food.”

Renault smirked. “I think you’d be surprised.”

She scoffed.

“Why do you dislike me so?” he asked.

“Because ye’re English.” She said the last word like it tasted foul in her mouth.

“I’m a man like any other. One who has found a woman immensely attractive and appealing.” He gave her his most charming grin.

A woman on the other end of the street smiled back at him. Ena did not.

“I know what ye’re capable of,” she hissed.

“Buying you a treat?” He winked and lifted the gift back into her line of sight.