She didn’t want to hear the reasons he had for not kissing her, and so she forged onward. “About what is going to happen after I get to London. You say I’ll be fine, but… I’m not as confident.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“I’m afraid… that I’ll be lonelier there than I was at home.” She laughed at herself, at her own insignificance.
“You will not be lonely.” He stood very close to her, both of them still leaning against the giant stone.
She turned her head to see his face, if only his profile. “But how can you know?” Genuine curiosity compelled her to ask.
“Because of who you are. You are smart, you are beautiful, you are warm and real. You are…special. Never forget that.” A raw edge in his voice sent warmth flooding through her. But she shook her head.
“I am not beautiful.” She was just…Ambrosia.
“You are. Tres belle.” At some point he’d taken hold of her hand again, and he squeezed it. “Some gentlemen, many, I imagine, are going to pursue you. And none of them will be good enough, but you will marry one of them.” He finally turned his head and met her gaze, his eyes looking even more brilliant against the gray sky. “You will have children, and then grandchildren, and they will all love you.”
Ambrosia hadn’t even considered that. “But I wasn’t going to marry again. Ever.” She surprised herself in that she put her intentions in the past tense, as though knowing him had caused her to change her mind about something so important already.
“Just choose carefully. Know him the way you know me.”
“I should not care who his family are or what he does or who his acquaintances are?” she asked, only half teasing, her throat thickening.
“Know all those things—him—better than you know me.” He smiled faintly. “But you understand, oui? Know also the other… who he is inside. Make him show you, prove he is worthy of you.”
The trouble was, Ambrosia couldn’t imagine any other man making her trust him the way she’d come to trust this one.
And yet… he was preparing her. Warning her.
“What of you? Will you marry? Do you plan to have children?”
He turned his head away again. “Perhaps.”
The thought of him marrying some other woman… It hurt. To imagine him holding another lady’s hand, of smiling at her with those laughing eyes, of another woman having the right to touch that dimple whenever she wanted…
It hurt Ambrosia’s soul. “Will you marry for love?”
She watched his throat move as he swallowed hard. “I will marry for duty. I always hoped love would play a part, though.”
Oh, but this conversation had grown far too heavy.
She didn’t like it.
“I am picturing a roomful of tiny little Mister Beckmans… creating havoc and tearing through a giant castle.” Because at some point, she’d decided in her imagination that he must live in a castle. What she did not know of him, she filled in with her own inventiveness.
“And you shall raise tiny little princesses, with hair the color of sunset and wide emerald eyes. Each of them exquisitely lovely, filled with compassion and wonder and courage… just like their mother.”
He sounded serious again.
“Absurd,” she said, her voice shaking. Because he was not suggesting in any way that any of those girls would have cinnamon hair, or that any might have eyes that were blue but could also appear gray.
What was she thinking?
Oh, but why would he say such things?
“We shall see.” In the wake of the warmth of his compliments, uncertainty brought a chill.
She pushed away from the stone, and also away from him. Away from the tumultuous feelings he sent spiraling inside.
One minute he’d make a comment that led her to believe he esteemed her, held her in affection even, and then his next words seemed intent on ensuring that she did not build any expectations of him for the future.
