34
Mr. Bradley wasn’t a bad shot, but he wasn’t a great one either. Thomas had only invited him to go shooting so that Mr. Bradley wouldn’t spend time with Cordelia. Which was foolish. He was only postponing their inevitable reunion. Thomas pulled the trigger and another bird fell from the sky. He’d always loved to hunt, but today his heart wasn’t in it. Not even the thrill of the hunt could distract him from the mess that was his life. The mess he could only blame on himself.
He should have told Cordelia, before Mr. Bradley came, that he loved her. He should have told her that he wanted her and not her money, but such words seemed trite now. Forced.
Thomas reloaded his gun and pulled the trigger once again—he hit another bird. His dog bounded toward the dead animal to retrieve it.
“You’re a good shot, Lord Farnham,” Mr. Bradley said begrudgingly. “Did your father teach you?”
“No, our rector, Mr. Ryse, did,” he said. “Usually between colleagues, you would just call me Farnham, or you are welcome to call me Thomas, if you’d prefer.”
“Stuyvesant,” he said before taking a shot.
He missed.
Thomas’s dog returned with the bird in his teeth. He took it and bagged it, then patted his dog on the head and gave him a treat.
“So, this is what English lords do all day?” Stuyvesant said, lifting his bag of shot.
“At least on weekends.”
“Have you ever met the queen?”
“Queen Victoria?” Thomas said. “Once; she’s awfully small, but I don’t remember a time I have ever been so terrified.”
“Why is that?”
“I suppose I didn’t want to disgrace my aunt, who secured me an opportunity for a presentation at Windsor Castle,” Thomas explained, and began to clean out his gun. “When the queen nods, it means that she’s done speaking with you, and if you don’t catch the signal, servants come and escort you away. A rather ignominious occurrence.”
“You’re not what I expected,” Stuyvesant said suddenly.
Thomas could feel the other young man’s scrutiny. He felt like a faded photograph next to a more vibrant one. Stuyvesant was tall, tan, and broad-shouldered, whereas Thomas was pale and slight of figure, with narrow, aristocratic hands. He used to console himself with the thought that at least he was taller than his friend Sunny—the Duke of Marlborough—but that wasn’t saying much.
“What did you expect?” Thomas said at last.
“I didn’t expect you to love her.”
Thomas dropped his gun. Luckily, it wasn’t loaded, but he’d always prided himself on his weapon skills and he was fumbling like an amateur. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I thought you’d only married Cordy for her money,” Stuyvesant continued boldly. “The newspapers made you out to be an old villain who was only after his bride’s money.”
“I am the worst sort of villain,” Thomas admitted. “The kind who assuages their guilt by convincing themselves that a wrong action is a noble one... I told myself that I was saving my family, my home, and my tenants. But who I was really saving was myself.”
“Yet you love her.”
“I do,” Thomas said. “And I will do everything in my power to make her want to stay.”
“Then, you won’t force her to stay?”
“I am not her mother. I would never ask her to do something against her own will or conscience.”
Stuyvesant shouldered his gun. “I think if we’d met under different circumstances, Thomas, we might have been friends. But I will not lie to you. I am going to ask Cordelia to come back to America with me, where she belongs.”
“I think Cordelia can decide for herself where she belongs.”
They heard a crack and the falling of a bough.
“What was that?” Stuyvesant said, gripping his gun, ready to fire.
