“I should like to see New York,” Penelope said. “I hear that there are people from all over the world there.”
“Yes, there are. It’s quite a melting pot of cultures.”
“How very irregular and highly uncomfortable,” Blanche said.
Cordelia smiled slightly before taking a bite of her food. Penelope skillfully led the rest of the meal conversation away from controversial topics. After luncheon, Cordelia went down to the kitchen to collect the tins for the tenants. She asked for fresh fruit and vegetables as well to be put in baskets. Cook clearly resented the waste of the food but did as she was asked.
The poverty in Petersley no longer shocked Cordelia. The people were not unknowns but acquaintances, with names and stories. Despite their diminished circumstances, they had been kind to her. She gladly stopped to chat with each of them in their kitchens and asked about their families. Visiting the village was becoming one of her favorite things to do. It felt as if she was doing something truly meaningful with her life, besides changing her clothes every couple of hours.
Thomas stepped onto the road in front of the carriage. The driver pulled the landau to a stop. He was wearing a hat and a tweed coat, carrying a shotgun, with a shot bag slung over his shoulder.
“Hello!” he called.
“Would you like a ride home?” Cordelia asked.
Thomas’s smile widened when she said “home,” but he shook his head. “It’s a lovely spring day, so I’d rather walk.”
“Ah,” Cordelia said, and looked away to hide her disappointment.
“Would you like to join me?” Thomas asked.
She glanced down at the empty baskets and her umbrella. She picked up her umbrella and said, “Yes.”
Thomas offered her a hand out of the carriage and told the driver to continue to Ashdown. They walked side by side for a few minutes in silence until they reached the field of ash trees that surrounded the west side of the abbey.
“Do you like to go shooting?” he asked.
“I’ve never shot a gun before.”
“I could teach you,” he offered. “Most weekend parties will include some shooting. It’s a good skill to have.”
“What am I supposed to shoot?”
“Birds,” Thomas explained.
Unable to resist, Cordelia asked innocently, “Oh, do you have birds in England?”
Without missing a beat, Thomas responded, “Yes, and we have fish too.”
“How extraordinary!” she said in a perfect imitation of his mother.
He threw back his head and laughed. Cordelia laughed so hard that she tripped on a rock and fell forward onto her gloved hands. Before she could feel embarrassed, she heard a shot. Instinctively, she kept her head down. Thomas dropped to his knees beside her.
“What the devil?”
“Did you accidently shoot your gun?” Cordelia asked.
“No. I would never be so careless near you,” Thomas said. “But I could swear I heard a shot nearby. Whoever it is, they shouldn’t be here. These trees are a part of the estate.”
Thomas helped Cordelia to her feet and switched sides of the road with her. He kept looking around and over his shoulder as if he was trying to locate whoever shot their gun. She took off her dirty gloves and unpinned her hat. If she hadn’t laughed, she wouldn’t have tripped over the rock. She held her hat in her hands and they walked the remaining quarter of a mile to Ashdown Abbey. Thomas put a hand on her elbow and continually looked around them.
He insisted on walking her up to her room and Cordelia was glad for the support. She was shaken by her fall and the sound of the shot.
“Shall I take your hat?” he asked when they reached her door.
She handed it over to him. They walked into her room, and she set her umbrella on the side table.
“What the blazes?!” he exclaimed, and she saw his finger pointing through a round hole on the edge of her hat. A bullet hole had burned through the hat’s fabric. “A stray bullet, perhaps? But no one should have been shooting on our property.”
