Abigail rolled her eyes. “Keep your charm of wine and women, friend, the jewels my husband gave me are better cut, and I wear them little enough as it is.”
Not that any vendor would let it go at that. “But the lady’s husband will not pine, says the servant, and so she will get no more jewels if she does not ensure his faithfulness. Or perhaps more, if she is one to accept them as apology?”
“I tire of this.” Abigail sighed and motioned for Antonia and Panther to move on with her.
“Is Titus your husband now, Mother?” Samuel asked with curiosity.
Abigail smiled down at the boy. “No, Samuel, Titus is only my friend.”
“Oh.” He sounded mildly disappointed, and Abigail squeezed his hand.
“You will miss him, I know,” she said softly to him, “and so will I. But Titus belongs here in Rome, and we in Israel.”
He nodded, though it seemed her words had only made him sadder. Abigail let it go, figuring the markets were not the place to have a serious talk with a six-year-old boy.
They spent the next couple hours browsing, and by the time they returned to the Asinius house, Samuel had cheered, and Abigail had forgotten about the episode. Until, of course, Titus returned home from his day at the Forum and Samuel practically pounced on him.
“Titus.” He sounded serious as the man scooped him up in his arms in greeting.
Titus smiled into the frown that knit together the fair brows.“Yes, Samuel?”
“Why will you not pine for Mother when we leave?”
Abigail had been changing Benjamin and now stepped into the room afraid she was either going to laugh or choke. “Samuel! That is not a question to be asking him.”
Titus just chuckled and didn’t take his eyes off Samuel’s serious face. “And who said I would not pine for your mother when she left?”
“Antonia.” The boy paid no attention to the flame she felt in her cheeks. “She said Mother should get an amethyst, even though you love her.”
She nearly coughed with the humor and humiliation that lodged in her chest. “That is not quite what Antonia said.”
Titus grinned at her. “I imagine it is close enough, given how well Antonia has known me in the past.”
“But Antonia is under false impressions that Samuel does not understand, so Antonia says things that little ears should probably not overhear.”
“What does the size of my ears have to do with it?” Samuel asked in confusion.
Titus looked to be struggling to contain his laughter as much as she.
“What your mother means, Samuel, is that Antonia may have said some things that are not a reflection of the truth. Because I will miss you and your mother terribly when you leave, and she will not need an amethyst to make it so. But Antonia cannot know how much I love you both, because she has not been through all that we have together. Understand?”
Samuel looked relieved as he nodded, sending curls bouncing. He wrapped his little arms around the man’s neck. “But Titus, if you do decide to be Mother’s husband, you will be my father, too, right?”
Titus laughed, probably at the shade of red Abigail’s face must be. “Yes, Samuel, I imagine that is the way it would work.”
“And Benjamin?”
“I would also love him as a son,” Titus said with a hint more seriousness, “though he would retain the name of his father. I would never try to end Jason’s legacy.”
Samuel, looking fully satisfied, wriggled to be put back on his feet. He scurried out the door in search of the boys of the house.
While Abigail closed her eyes and took a moment to draw in a deep, calming breath, Titus approached and lifted Benjamin from her arms. “He is a child, Abigail,” he said softly. “Do not be embarrassed by what spills forth from his young lips. He only wanted to be reassured that he was loved, that the mother he loved was loved, and that the brother he loved was loved, but I figured I had better also remind him that the father he loved was loved, too.”
The complexity brought a smile to Abigail’s lips as she opened her eyes to look on his face. “You are a good man, Titus Asinius. I never would have guessed at how patient you have proven to be with the children.”
“I would not have either.” He smiled down into Benjamin’s cherub face.
“You will be a better father, someday, than the one you have had to learn by. You will surely love your own children more than you love mine, and even with mine you are wonderful.”
He chuckled. “But yours are perhaps easier to love because they have none of me in them. My own will undoubtedly share my stubbornness and drive me to madness with it, which is perhaps why I have so long ignored my mother’s prodding to look for a wife.”