On the ground, drool and bubbles were frothing out of Mr. Dog’s mouth as he searched around his bowl, gumming the pieces of food he managed to get ahold of.
“Oh, look!” Ambrosia announced brightly, happy to discuss anything else. “He’s eaten over half of it. He must like his food quite a bit better this way.”
“The blighter never kissed you?” Mr. Beckman persisted.
Ambrosia winced. It didn’t make her angry, though, that Mr. Beckman would not let go of the painful subject. Ironically, she almost felt as though, by telling him, she was letting some of it go.
It was her past and there was nothing she could do to change it.
Her husband had taken her body, but he had not, after all, stolen her first kiss.
The thought made her smile.
“He did not.”
Mr. Beckman poured some wine into a cup and handed it across to her. She refused to worry about where it would settle on her figure, and instead thoroughly enjoyed it. The wine, the cheese, the meats, the sweets… all of it. But especially the company.
As the fire crackled low, they lingered—at first in a pleasant hush, then in conversation that began lightly and grew in depth. Favorite authors, books they had loved, others not so much.
Ambrosia found herself recalling the volumes she had devoured as a girl before her marriage, tucked into corners with her governess looking on, and later, the well-worn novels she had stolen hours with in Mrs. Tuttle’s library. Those stories had been her solace, her escape, and now—here she was, speaking of them with a man who seemed to understand.
When she mentioned Paul et Virginie, Dash’s eyes lit with surprise.
“Bernardin de Saint-Pierre?” he asked. “You’ve read him?”
She laughed. “Of course. My governess was a dreadful romantic. She wept so hard at the end she had to abandon the lesson altogether.”
Dash smiled. “Et moi, I remember thinking no one would ever love me as purely as Virginie loved Paul.”
“Really?”
He gave one of his Gallic shrugs, the barest smile tugging at his mouth. “But of course.” His voice was velvety-smooth. Then, after a beat, his gaze still locked on hers, “Un jour, peut-être.”
One day.
Her breath caught. Perhaps it was the wine, or the hour, or the intimacy of the firelight—but her pulse tripped all the same. All those books she had read in solitude, imagining what love might be—yet not one had prepared her for the weight of that look, or the tremor it sent through her now.
She reached for her wineglass, if only to busy her hands while she searched for another topic to bring her back to earth.
“So,” she said, swirling the last of her wine, “you’re a bibliophile… Tell me, do you have a fondness for the other arts as well, or is it only poets who capture your heart?”
He chuckled, but let the moment stretch between them—quiet, companionable.
“Why choose just one?” Then he reached for the bottle to pour the last of the wine into her cup. “You must visit the Dulwich Picture Gallery,” he said, as though plucking the next thought from the air. “They have a few Watteaus. Fêtes galantes. The brushwork… it's like breathing in silk.”
“I have heard about him. He was one of Mrs. Tuttle’s favorites. She always said she adored his women—that they seemed like they were trying not to smile, as if they knew something they shouldn’t.”
Dash chuckled. “Like you, then.”
“Ha!” Ambrosia scoffed.
He was flirting again.
He only lifted his brows, amusement still dancing in his eyes, but then turned back to the fire, stirring up the embers. It was as though he was purposefully giving her time to catch up to a truth he had no intention of arguing aloud.
Night had fully fallen, the moon veiled behind drifting clouds.
On the plate, the bread was torn, the ham picked over, only a smear of soft cheese left in the corner. Nearby, Mr. Dog lay curled in sleep, snoring contentedly.
