Oh,Archie. He was so . . . Archielike. So very much himself, and that was such a good thing to be. They found a spot to eat, and as they feasted on the contents of his picnic basket, he told her tales of his school days with Lords Marsden and Featherfinch. She liked his friends a great deal, and it made her smile to think of the boy versions of them having adventures.
“All right,” he said after they’d finished their repast and he’d laid down and stared at the sky for a bit. “I’d better get up or I’ll fall asleep when I’m meant to be hunting.” He sat up and brushed breadcrumbs off his coat.
“Yes, why hasn’t that happened yet?”
“I suppose because we’ve been talking too much.”
Her first impulse was to apologize. Of course one couldn’t sneak up on defenseless animals if one was making a racket.
Her second impulse was to keep talking, to say more things and to say them louder.
But that would violate the spirit of their agreement, and he was already packing up.
“But also,” he continued, “because we’re in the wrong spot entirely for hunting. We’ll leave our things here and circle back to get them before returning to the castle.” He was tidying as they spoke, folding the square of muslin on which they’d reposed.
He got up. She reluctantly followed.
“The first rule of hunting is safety. I want you to stay behind me once we’re out of the woods. Be mindful of where my weapon is and in which direction it’s pointing.”
“What do you mean once we’re out of the woods? Where are we going?”
“Back the way we came. To that old pastureland we traversed earlier.”
It was true that they had passed over a scrubby, relatively open patch of land punctuated with the odd grouping of trees, but many fewer and much younger than in the forest proper. It seemed as if it had been cleared at some point in the past and subsequently abandoned. “Whatever for?”
“Because we’re hunting birds. Pheasant. Perhaps grouse. One finds birds in scrubby bush, not so much in mature forests such as this.”
“But then why did we come into the forest at all?”
“Because you love it so, and I—” He looked abruptly stricken, as if he’d thought through to the end of what he’d meant to say and found it lacking. “I remember how much fun we used to have in the woods around Mollybrook,” he finished weakly.
That was true, though she still had the sense that was not what he’d initially meant to say.
“I wasn’t supposed to be hunting on this trip, you understand, so I only brought this fowling piece. Too bad, as I saw a stag in these woods yesterday. What a kill that would be.” He waved dismissively. “Much too big a kill, though. We wouldn’t be able to take it home. And although I’m sure Sir Lionel wouldn’t mind my hunting a few birds—technically one requires the permission of the landowner to hunt—anything else seems an overreach without his express permission.”
Clementine started to feel ill as she trudged along. A stag was such a majestic creature. Antlers; big, liquid eyes; legs vibrating with leashed power. While she was, of course, glad they weren’t out here stalking one, it was dismaying to think that in Archie’s mind, the only barriers to doing so were logistical ones such as not having permission.
To think of such a creature versus a man. In a fair fight, the stag would gore the man. But the gun would make all the difference, its shot tearing through the stag’s rippling musculature, allowing it to be cut down from a great distance, its life snuffed out in an instant.
Her lunch was sitting like a pile of buckshot in her stomach. “Why was there no meat in our lunch basket?” she asked suddenly.
“Because you don’t want to eat any,” Archie said, as if the answer should have been obvious.
“But you do.”
“But I’m dining with you.”
“But our meatless day isn’t until tomorrow. I have no jurisdiction over what you do or do not eat until then.”
“I was under the impression that not only did you not want to eat meat, you didn’t want towitnessthe eating of meat.”
That was true, in an ideal world, but she was well aware that the world was far from ideal. She would never have expected Archie to be so accommodating, especially on “his” day of their agreement. He could be so very thoughtful, and also . . .
“Part of the art of the hunt is to match your weapon and any other tools with your target,” Archie said, adopting a lecture-like tone.
. . . so very maddening.
“We’ve a fowling piece, so we’re hunting birds,” he continued. “And happily, we have a habitat in which we’re likely to find birds. We marry our knowledge of local fauna and terrain with the proper tools.”
