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Xavier turned from the fridge, set several glass containers on the counter, and frowned. “I don’t understand the question.”
I sighed and stared into my coffee, imagining it would be more articulate than I was right now. Why was this so hard to say? “Never mind.” I wasn’t going to beg.
But he was done examining his food. Now his piercing blue attention was fully on me. “Are you telling me you want to come to the estate? Deal with these stuffy people who hate me and likely will not be particularly welcoming to you or Sof? Just for me?”
I worried my jaw for a moment. I wasn’t used to telling someone what I wanted or how I felt. I was used to teaching children how to do it, waiting for my siblings to take what they wanted, making do with whatever was left over for me. And yet, here was Xavier, asking me point blank for the opposite.
Well. Why not?
I stuck my chin out. “We didn’t come here for Big Ben or Buckingham Palace, Xavi. We came here for you. We came here to be a family. And the way I learned it, you’re supposed to be there for each other when it’s hard too, not just when it’s easy.” I swallowed. “Not every day can be summer and sunshine. Winter has to come eventually. But that won’t make us love you any less.”
His dark blue eyes skipped over me as if looking for something else. A joke, maybe. Or some kind of tell that I was lying.
I wasn’t.
Then he was moving suddenly around the counter until he had picked me clear off my stool and set me on the marble so he could step between my legs and capture my face with both hands. His kiss was brief but thorough, a quick swirl of tongue and promise for much more.
“I love you for that,” he told me when he pulled away. “More than you could possibly know.”
I gazed up at him, basking in his open adoration as I waited for an answer to my question. He opened his mouth, then let his hands drop so he could take my left hand and look at it for a long time. His mouth opened, like he wanted to say something.
I swallowed. This…he wasn’t…was he going to ask what I thought, maybe evenhopedhe would? Right here in his kitchen, with no warning, no pomp or circumstance of any kind?
“Francesca,” he said softly. “I…will you…”
I stiffened, practically slipping off the counter in my agitation. In a way, it would be the most perfect way to declare his intentions, in the space he loved the best.
Ask me, Xavi, I begged internally.Please, just ask.
But Xavier just offered a lopsided smile, then stamped another kiss to my forehead and left me on the counter. He returned to the other side, back to his bowl of rice and egg, which he topped with a variety of vegetables, something pickled, and another egg yolk cracked into the middle before he covered the bowl with a plastic lid and set a pair of disposable chopsticks on the top.
“Tamago gohan,” he said before I could ask. “My favorite breakfast, in case you were wondering. I’ll eat it on the way.”
I twisted around, unsure of what to do here. Was that whole interaction a figment of my imagination? Or had he really just been about to ask me to marry him?
I got no indication either way.
“Should I get Sof up?” I prodded, returning to my original request. He still hadn’t answered one way or another. Were we going with him? Did he want us to stay?
“Don’t bother.” My heart fell as Xavier swept toward the door. “I’ll have Elsie arrange everything. Go back to bed and get some more rest, babe. I’ll see you in Kendal.”
Kendal? We were going after all?
But before I could ask exactly when that would be, he was gone, leaving me with the inexorable feeling that despite very little happening at this moment, everything was once again about to change.
TEN
“Mama, sheep!” Sofia shrieked for what had to be the fifteenth time in two hours.
“Yep, sweet pea. There they are again.”
I smiled down at her, then offered an apologetic glance to the elderly couple sitting across a plastic tabletop from us. They had gotten on the train in Manchester and were no doubt weary of hearing about passing livestock. Ten-minute updates about every cow, horse, sheep, and duck in the country was probably not how they intended to spend their trip this afternoon.
But these things were extremely interesting for a little girl who had grown up in a concrete jungle, and I wasn’t about to spoil her fun. The most green Sofia had ever seen was Central Park in the summer, and while the Green Meadows Farm in Brooklyn was a fun place for city kids to see a goat, this kind of spread was beyond her comprehension.
For the last several hours, Sofia and I had been chugging along fast enough that the hedges bordering the tracks blurred into long green snakes. Beyond that, though, the English countryside had been yawning in front of us as industrial suburbs and suburban villages gradually gave way to the rolling green hills and tiny hamlets that appeared in countless films. Sometimes, when the train turned, I spotted the shadows of sharper peaks in the distance, informing me that we were approaching our final destination, nearly three hours north of London.
True to his word, Xavier had contacted Elsie, who had arranged for transport from King’s Cross to Kendal. It wasn’t until I’d risen fully, alone in our sprawling bedroom, and spotted the first-class tickets on the nightstand that I understood exactly what was happening. Which only became clearer when Ben showed up to take us to the station.
