Page 114 of Marry in Secret
Thomas went in search of Ambrose, praying he hadn’t already boarded his ship. He searched. It wasn’t easy—the wharves were a blaze of light where the work was going on, studded with pockets of intense darkness where no lights were needed.
At last he saw him, standing waiting in the shadows. The ship’s master must be making the last-minute passengers wait until the cargo was loaded. Thomas would have missed him except that his silhouette stood out against the light farther along the wharf. Thomas approached him stealthily.
“Ambrose,” he said when he was a few feet away.
His cousin started violently, grabbed his luggage and tried to run, but he tripped and went sprawling. He scrambled to his feet and reached again for his luggage, but Thomas put his foot on the smaller piece, the little leather-bound trunk.
Ambrose stared wildly around, then pulled a pistol from his pocket. “Give me that trunk.”
Thomas shook his head. “Not until you’ve explained.”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m leaving. What more explanation do you want?”
“I want to know why, Ambrose. Why you’ve tried to kill me, several times. Why you left me to rot in that Barbary hellhole.”
“Because I needed to get out, go someplace else, get away from that god-damned place. Travel.”
“Get away? From Brierdon? But I thought you loved the place.”
“I hate it. I always have.”
Thomas was stunned. It was the last answer he’d expected. “But you could have left any time you wanted. I never knew you wanted to travel.”
Ambrose snorted. “You never asked.”
“Surely you knew I would have helped you. The three of us were always so close, more like brothers than cousins.”
“When we were children, perhaps, sharing the same tutor. But it was an illusion. You and Gerald were sent away to school, and even though I was clever and worked hard and did well at my books, I was kept at Brierdon and given to the old estate manager to learn his job. Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to go away to school. I did, desperately.”
“I didn’t realize.”
His voice was bitter. “Why would you? It was always understood that I would take over and manage the estate on Gerald’s behalf—well, you and I both know that Gerald cared only for his poetry and his painting.”
Thomas nodded.
“And then when you were sixteen, and it was clear that Gerald would be going to Cambridge, the earl asked you what you wanted to do.”
Thomas remembered. For him, as the son of a younger son, the choices were to enter the church, take up politics or become a military man. And since Thomas’s father was a navy man, Thomas chose the navy.
“So again, you two went away, on your chosen paths, traveling the world, meeting new people. And me? I was clever, but did I get the chance to go to a fine school? Or attend university?”
Ambrose gestured angrily. The pistol barrel glinted, catching the light of a lantern. “Nobody ever considered thatImight want to go to university. Gerald frittered away his time there, painting and scribbling—dabbling, he had no real talent, we both know that—and drinking away the nights with his friends. I would have killed for the chance he had to study at university.”
Interesting choice of words, Thomas thought.
“Nobody ever asked me what I wanted to do. Nobody considered the bastard son might have dreams of his own, oh, no. My ordained place was at Brierdon, serving the needs of Brierdon, doing what I’d been trained for from birth.”
His words and the bitterness with which he spoke them hit an unexpected chord in Thomas.Doing what I’d been trained for from birth.
“I asked my father once for leave to go and travel—to see something of the world—and you know what he said? He laughed, and told me the day I walked off the estate was the day I left it forever, that I’d have to find work for myself. He told me he wouldn’t give me a reference. Or a penny extra. Or take me back. That if I ever left, I’d be on my own—forever.”
And he was Ambrose’sfather. Thomas was shocked. He’d never much thought about the relationship between Uncle Walter and his illegitimate son. He’d always treated Thomas with careless kindness—of course he’d favored Gerald in all things, but that was natural because Gerald was the heir. But Thomas had assumed Uncle Walter had treated Ambrose much the same as he’d treated Thomas. Apparently not.
“All those letters you used to send from strange and exciting foreign places. I’d never even been to London until last month.”
“Last month?” Thomas narrowed his eyes.
Ambrose sighed. “Yes, I fired that shot at you in the park. I’m sorry. Hitting Rose was an accident. It frightened me.”
