“You’re the woman that I love.”
How she had longed to hear him speak those words! But not when he thought she was someone else. She stumbled in her steps. Dancing this close to him was agony.
The music ended and she pulled away from him. Being in his arms, while his heart still held another, was unbearable. She didn’t curtsy; she wouldn’t. Cordelia walked a few steps and, before she knew it, found herself in Stuyvesant’s arms again. She leaned her aching head against his broad shoulder, seeking the familiar refuge of their friendship, the relief from revelations that were destroying her carefully constructed world.
“I am tired of waiting for your answer, Cordy,” he said, and stopped in the middle of the dance floor.
“How do you know I am Cordelia?” she said in the same English accent.
“Because I have loved you all my life, and no one else has the same perfect posture as you, no matter what you’re wearing.”
Cordelia’s heart finally fluttered with the delight she’d been waiting for. Stuyvesant did know her truly! “You win the wager. Thomas owes you one hundred pounds.”
“He can keep the money,” Stuyvesant said. “He can keep all of your money. We don’t need it. Once you are divorced, everything will go back to normal.”
Her mother’s divorce had nearly destroyed their family and ruined their social position. The only thing that had saved them from social ostracism was Cordelia’s marriage to an earl. If Cordelia were to leave Thomas, would her family be cast out again? Would Edith be ridiculed at school? Would they no longer be welcome at Mrs. Astor’s home and the parties of the social elite of New York? It would be a lie to tell herself that she cared only for the poor. She did care for the poor, but she also loved beautiful dresses and brilliant parties.
“But I worry that it won’t go back to normal,” Cordelia said. “You don’t understand how people treat someone from a broken marriage. The cold stares and insolent looks. I don’t think you understand how dreadful it is. I don’t think I could endure it again.”
“You don’t need to think,” Stuyvesant said. “I can do the thinking for the both of us.”
Cordelia shuddered as she remembered her mother speaking similar words to her.I don’t ask you to think,I do the thinking… You will do as you are told.Cordelia was tired of being told what to do. What to think. From the servants. From the aristocratic ladies. From her mother. From Stuyvesant.
“I don’t want you to do my thinking for me,” she said. “I am perfectly capable of thinking for myself.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you, Cordy,” he said. “But a woman needs to trust the man in the relationship to make the important decisions.”
“That’s not how my marriage works,” she said, standing taller. “My husband listens to me and respects my opinions. We are equal partners, and we make all of our decisions together.”
“That’s because he’s only half a man.”
“Treating me as an equal does not make him less of a man,” Cordelia said, her posture more rigid than ever. “It makes him more of one.”
“You prefer that pale snipe to me?” he said incredulously. “Have I come all this way for nothing?”
Her head ached and her heart constricted. Did she prefer Thomas? She didn’t want to love a man whose heart belonged to somebody else. But she knew, without a doubt, that Stuyvesant no longer held her heart. The tender feelings she had for him were now all in the past. There was no future for them.
“I have changed in the time since we’ve been parted, Stuyvesant,” she whispered, her chin trembling with every word. “I think we both would no longer be happy together.”
“I will leave immediately.”
“You don’t have to leave. It’s almost midnight and the unmasking.”
“I no longer have a reason to stay.”
Cordelia grabbed his wrist to stop him. “Please do not make a scene. Stay until the unmasking and you can leave first thing in the morning.”
He bowed his head. “As you wish it.”
But nothing was as Cordelia wished it to be.
39
The Viennese orchestra started to play a lively tune and the crowd all counted down.
Ten.
Nine.
