He pressed his lips together. “Nay, they say he cannot get a woman with child. He has pleasured many women.”
“Why are you getting so defensive? It’s not like you know the guy.”
But something on his face must’ve given him away, for she pursed her lips.
“Oh, you do know him.”
Instead of answering, he stomped about.
“Is he your boss?”
At his blank look, she tried again.
“Your lord?”
“Nay.”
“Oh my gosh, don’t tell me it’s one of your brothers?”
“Nay, none of them. I no longer wish to speak on the matter.” He lifted her back on the horse and climbed up behind her.
As they rode, she kept asking questions to vex him.
“Who cares if this guy can’t have kids? Why does it matter?”
He snarled in her ear. “Why? A man is not a man if he cannot get a woman with child, just as a woman is no woman if she cannot bear babes. ’Tis our duty to have children, to carry on our name.”
When she spoke, her voice was so quiet he had to lean close to hear her words.
“I didn’t know you felt so strongly.”
“How could you? You are a stranger to my land.”
He felt her stiffen, but she did not say anything, choosing to keep the secret from whence she came, the one she’d told him when she was in her cups.
And she did as he had seen Robert’s wife Elizabeth do many times: she changed the course of their speech.
“So where is Winterforth? Is it close to London?”
“Four days’ ride from London. It controls a vast expanse of land. You will see its bridge controls the only way across the river.”
CHAPTER 16
Ashley had cometo recognize the tone in Christian’s voice when he was angry. Spending twenty-four hours a day with him, she’d learned his moods, knew him better than Ben. By the tic in his jaw, he was not just annoyed, he was furious. Who owned Winterforth and why were they so important?
It hurt deeper than she thought hearing him say a woman wasn’t a woman if she couldn’t have kids. Her heart sank knowing how important children were to him. Deal-breaker territory. For her, a deal breaker was a guy who wasn’t ambitious or didn’t want to work. With those lines drawn, there could be no future for them, since she could not give him the one thing he wanted above all else. Not being able to have children had never bothered her before…not until today.
While other little girls played pretend weddings with dolls and dreamed of getting married and having families, Ashley used to play school and office. An old, battered briefcase belonging to her dad went everywhere with her. When she played, she was always the teacher or CEO of the company. There wasn’t a single instanceshe could remember she’d ever played wedding or even thought about getting married.
Sure, she’d thought someday she’d get married. And later, when she knew she was unable to have children, she accepted her new reality and went on with her life. There was a woman at work who couldn’t have children and desperately wanted them, and it was heartbreaking. Ashley wished the woman could have her heart’s desire.
But her? She’d never felt the yearning for a child of her own. To hold flesh and blood in her arms, knowing she and her husband had created the baby. More power to all those who wanted to procreate, but not her. Two of her friends from college got married when they graduated and immediately got pregnant. When she held their babies, Ashley thought they were cute, but that was it. All she thought about was how much sleep she would lose and how much time she would have to devote to another human being.
Happy being childless, Ashley respected others’ wishes to have babies. Saw the joy it brought her friends as they went on and on about how having a baby had changed them. Made them less selfish and more aware of the world around them. No longer self-absorbed. While she hoped she had grown out of that phase over the past couple of years, Ashley didn’t know if having a child would change her—or would it? But in the end, it didn’t really matter, because she would never know. Being with Christian made her wonder if she hadn’t had surgery so long ago, might she have made different choices or felt differently?
Maybe some people just weren’t meant to have children. She’d seen a few parents she thought would’ve been better off never having kids, and she’d seen others that didn’t have kids that she thought would be wonderful parents. Tired of thinking about it, she was about to ask Christian a question, when they rode through the trees and there was a massive fortress.
“That’s a castle.”
