But. Ambrosia was torn.
He tilted the fork forward, the fragrant bite hovering just in front of her mouth.
When she parted her lips, he slipped it past them with a smug kind of ease.
The flavor was warm and decadent, rich with salt and butter and savory textures. Her eyes fluttered shut before she could stop them. She chewed, swallowed, and only then did she open her eyes again.
She glanced up, startled to find Mr. Beckman watching her. His gaze was darker than usual, his lids heavy, as though he had drifted somewhere far away. A muscle ticked in his jaw, and his breath seemed to catch before he spoke, low and unsteady.
“My poor heart…” he murmured, so softly she might have imagined it.
“This food. It is delicious,” she conceded, flustered.
“First no kisses, now no proper breakfast—were you his wife or his prisoner, princesse?”
She ignored his question. “I’ve never had this. What is it?”
He held his fork out to her so that she could take another bite.
“Kidneys and potatoes. They were one of my grandmother’s favorites—my father’s mother. Thought I’d died and gone to heaven the first time I tried it.”
He scooped a mouthful for himself, eating off the same utensil he’d fed her with. Eating from the same utensil as this handsome stranger struck Ambrosia, once again, as being unimaginably intimate.
And yet she pushed her toast aside, reached over, and stabbed her fork into a piece of kidney and egg from Mr. Beckman’s plate. She expected some sort of mocking comment, but he apparently was exercising self-restraint this morning.
Even if she was not.
“Out with it,” she demanded.
His brows lifted, a slow smile forming. “Out with what?”
She dropped her gaze to her plate, her voice tightening. “You think I don’t notice, but I do. Every time I try to speak for myself, every time I make a decision—you smile. As though I’m some child to be indulged. I am trying, Mr. Beckman. I am doing my best to stand on my own two feet, to be independent. And I would rather you not laugh at me for it.”
She paused, then lifted her hand in a small, helpless gesture that encapsulated the room, the inn, the world beyond. “All of this—the travel, being on my own—it’s completely foreign to me. And you just sit there and grin, as if I’m a child playing at being grown.”
Her voice had shrunk to something small and tight by the end, and when she stopped, she didn’t dare look at him.
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then, softly: “I’m not laughing at you.”
Her eyes flicked up, uncertain.
“I smile because you… surprise me,” he continued, slower now, choosing his words with unusual care. “You say things no lady would ever say. You’re bold one moment and flustered the next and—” He huffed a quiet breath, his brow tugging. “It’s not mockery. It’s… delight.”
He seemed almost confused by the word, as if it had chosen itself.
“I find you delightful,” he added, more firmly now.
Ambrosia’s breath caught. Her fork stilled halfway to her mouth.
“Oh.”
But that was all she could manage.
He nodded.
“So you really don’t mind traveling with me?”
