The English Wife: A Novel

by Lauren Willig

  Bay bowed to Monsieur de Montesquiou. “It is an honor to meet a great poet in person, monsieur. We have both enjoyed your Chauve-Souris.”

  That was a lie if ever Georgie had heard one. Bay had brought it to her, an expensive volume bound in gray moiré, fantastically decorated with bats made of jet beads. “The poetry is self-indulgent,” he had said, “but the illustrations are worth the price.”

  Under other circumstances, Georgie would have made a face at her husband, would have enjoyed the shared joke. But not now. She could feel herself freezing into the silhouette of the woman she was meant to be, Mrs. Van Duyvil, prim and tongue-tied.

  Monsieur de Montesquiou slowly drew the glove from one hand. The empty fingers flapped disconcertingly as he waved it about. “You disappoint me, monsieur. The poetry isn’t meant to be enjoyed. It is meant to be experienced, ingested like absinthe.”

  “I’ve never developed a taste for absinthe,” said Bay, at his most American. His hand was warm on Georgie’s back. “I find I prefer port.”

  Sir Hugo did not like being ignored. “Perhaps you merely need to sample its pleasures.” His eyes narrowed on Georgie’s face beneath her absurd chip of a hat. “Have you been long in Paris, Mrs. Van Duyvil?”

  “About a fortnight.” Georgie kept her hands folded at her waist, a caricature of a gently bred young lady. “It is quite as lovely as I had imagined.”

  “The Season is nearly over. Your husband has hardly been doing his duty to you, keeping you to himself.” Without waiting for her to answer, Sir Hugo turned back to Bay. “You must allow me to make some introductions. Mme de Polignac, perhaps? One of your countrywomen, Bay. Although she is quick to tell you that she was raised on the Continent. She considers herself … almost … French.”

  Monsieur de Montesquiou’s pointed goatee quivered with indignation. “Swimming in a lake does not make one a fish. No more than marrying a prince sweetens the stench of the shop.”

  “No, it doesn’t, does it?” Sir Hugo smiled languidly at Georgie. “It is as absurd as the current fashion for marrying Gaiety Girls. Once the glamor is gone, what is left? A mésalliance, pure and simple.”

  Georgie found she was shaking. Not with fear, but anger. “That depends on how one defines a misalliance, Sir Hugo.”

  “Let there to the marriage of true minds be no impediment,” said Bay softly, and Georgie could feel the tension in her shoulders lighten.

  “How quaint,” said Sir Hugo. He adjusted one of the mother-of-pearl buttons on his dove-gray gloves. “They have what is known as a mariage blanc, the Prince and Princesse de Polignac. They are both of a … shall we say … Greek tendency. Do I shock you, Mrs. Van Duyvil? Do forgive me. I had forgot your, er, sheltered background.”

  Georgie could only force herself to smile, even as she saw Bay’s color go sickly. That Sir Hugo had recognized her, was taunting her with her past, she had no doubt. “You forget yourself, Sir Hugo. You have been in Paris too long.”

  “I believe I shall design a coat of arms for Mme de Polignac,” announced the count, loudly enough for that lady to hear. “A sewing machine beneath crossed spindles.”

  Sir Hugo turned his cane about in his hand, making the silver tip glitter. “You have a crest of sorts, don’t you, Bay? Acorns, is it? So industrious, gathering one’s acorns together for winter.” To Georgie, he said, “If I might borrow your husband for a moment, my dear?”

  No, Georgie wanted to say, you can’t. But Sir Hugo was already moving away, drawing Bay with him with an imperious flick of his wrist.

  She found herself left with Monsieur de Montesquiou, who was striking an attitude and quite plainly looking about for a more likely audience.

  “And what of you, monsieur?” said Georgie quickly, in her correct but stilted French. Bay and Sir Hugo had paused beneath the photo of a man—or was it a woman?—belabored by a storm. “What do you think of the photographic exhibition? I should be honored to have the opinion of an artist of your caliber.”

  Monsieur de Montesquiou emitted his famous, high-pitched laugh. It seemed to go on and on, one hand screening his mouth, his teeth as small and black as pebbles. “I have no objection to photography as such; I merely deplore their poor taste in failing to include a picture of me.”

  “It was very gracious of you to attend in the face of such a bêtise, Monsieur le Comte.” In the corner of the room, Sir Hugo was smiling a particularly unpleasant smile. Bay replied, his voice too low for Georgie to make out the sound, much less the words.

  “I am the sovereign of transitory things,” Montesquiou declaimed. Georgie recognized the line as one from Les Chauve-Souris.

  Bay had slipped his hand into his waistcoat pocket. He was writing something on a slip of paper.

  “In which case, monsieur,” said Georgie, her eyes fixed on her husband, “as your loyal subject, I shall take it as necessary to make myself disappear. Au revoir, Monsieur le Comte.”

  She paused long enough to sketch a bow. Only housemaids curtsied; she’d been taught that by her governess long ago. Her governess hadn’t told her whether it was comme il faut to leave a count standing by himself in the middle of an art exhibition, but Georgie didn’t care. Her husband was an American; surely, that entitled her to some latitude? No one expected correctness of Americans.

  She slipped around the Princesse de Polignac, coming up behind Bay, just in time to hear him say, in a low voice, “Wasn’t that enough?”

  Sir Hugo lifted his eyes to Georgie’s over Bay’s shoulder. Loudly, deliberately, he said, “The girls at Le Chabanais don’t come cheap. Ah, Mrs. Van Duyvil. Has the comte wearied you so soon?”

  “Like a rich pastry, the comte is best in small bites.” She slipped an arm through Bay’s, limpid and clinging. Her smile was like a candied violet, a precious bit of confectionary, stiff with sugar. “May I claim a wife’s privilege, Sir Hugo, and retrieve my husband?”

  “But of course, my dear. I cede him to you.” The cabochon ruby in Sir Hugo’s cravat glimmered sullenly, the deep red of freshly spilled blood. “For the moment.”

  NINE

  Paris, 1894

  June

  “What an appalling man.” It was all Georgie could trust herself to say.

  “Yes. He is.” Bay summoned up a shadow of a smile as he offered Georgie his arm. “Shall we have that picnic?”

  They purchased their hamper, but the savor had gone out of the potted goose liver. They set out their blanket near the large round fountain, too far from shade. The sun burned down on Georgie’s inadequate hat, and the colors of the garden seemed flat and hard, the flowers too garish, the water too bright. The squawks of the puppeteer and the delighted cries of the children grated on Georgie’s ears.

  “What did you think of the Comte de Montesquiou?” Bay propped himself on one elbow, his pose a pretense of ease. “He is one of the sights of Paris.”

  “I was a sight more interested in his companion. What did he say to you, Bay?”

  Bay bowed his head, pretending great interest in a confection of chocolate and cream. “They say the crystal ring on Monsieur de Montesquiou’s finger contains a single tear, but he won’t tell anyone whose. Some say it’s Lamartine’s, others the empress Josephine’s.”

  “In that case,” said Georgie tartly, “who did Sir Hugo stick to get the blood to fill his cravat pin?”

  “It’s a ruby, I think,” said Bay helpfully, but dropped his eyes to his pastry again at Georgie’s hard look.

  “What did Sir Hugo want, Bay? And don’t tell me it was merely to congratulate you on your nuptials.”

  “He recognized you from the Ali Baba.” Bay set the pastry aside, uneaten. “I told him the truth.”

  “Which is?”

  “That you were a gentlewoman.” Bay didn’t raise his head. With difficulty, he said, “He … understood.”

  Her husband was a very bad liar. Georgie supposed she ought to be grateful for that. It was one of the qualities she generally admired in him, his ear
nestness. “What was the price of his understanding?”

  The color rose up to the tips of Bay’s ears. “Five hundred francs. I don’t mind the money, Georgie.”

  “You might have told me.”

  “I didn’t want to worry you.” Bay plucked a blade of grass, bending it between his fingers. “It was bad luck running into Sir Hugo.”

  “You knew that we ran the risk of discovery when you married me.” She sounded sharper than she’d meant to. But she minded. She minded terribly that their peace had been disturbed. Over the past month, there were times she had believed herself entirely what she pretended to be. “He won’t be satisfied with five hundred francs.”

  “No.” Bay hesitated and then said, “He has invited us to join his party at the Grand Prix. I am to pay him the next installment there.”

  “To fund his adventures at Le Chabanais?” It was the most expensive whorehouse in Paris, patronized by the Prince of Wales, among others. Georgie found herself suddenly angry. “You can tell Sir Hugo to find another banker. You won’t frank him again.”

  Bay pressed his eyes shut. “What else are we to do, Georgie? If he makes good on his threats—”

  “Then we’ll tell the world a thing or two about him.” Her voice was strident. Georgie made herself lower it, leaning her head close to her husband’s. To the world, they must have been the picture of a courting couple, but her words were anything but lover-like. “Actresses hear things, Bay. There was a girl hurt a few years ago while Sir Hugo and his friends were playing at their Hellfire Club. An actress. And that’s only the tip of it.”

  Kitty. Her face hard and old beneath her paints. Dozens of others. It would be a wonder if his lordship didn’t have the pox.

  “Well? Don’t you imagine Sir Hugo’s rich fiancée might want to know some of the details?”

  Bay sat back on his heels, lines on either side of his mouth. “Blackmail for blackmail?”

  It was a good job he’d married her; her husband was too good to survive on his own. “Call it measure for measure. Or self-defense, if you will. You’d hardly hold your fire if someone pointed his pistol at you, would you?”

  Bay cleared his throat. “That would depend on the circumstances, I would think.”

  “This isn’t a discussion of the law in Blackstone, Bay!” There were times when it was well to look at all sides of a situation, others where one needed to act. “If you won’t defend yourself, let me. Let me deal with Sir Hugo.”

  Bay made an instinctive movement of negation. “Did I … did I tell you I had a letter from my mother this morning?”

  Georgie didn’t know whether to hug him or empty the dregs of their lemonade over his head. He might well have had a letter from his mother, but if it hadn’t been his mother, it would have been something else. Her husband, she was learning, shied from confrontation; his chosen weapon was diversion.

  “How very timely,” said Georgie drily.

  The color rose in her husband’s cheeks, but he said, doggedly, “It is, at that. She wants us to return to New York.” After a pause, he added, “My sister’s engagement is off.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought that would cause you to repine. You didn’t sound very fond of the man.”

  “It’s worse. He’s proposed to Anne.”

  “Oh, dear.” Georgie was momentarily diverted. “Perhaps she sees something in him?”

  “The chance of escaping my mother, perhaps.” Bay nudged a clump of grass with the polished toe of his shoe. “My mother is … well, let’s just say she’s not an easy woman.”

  “And I imagine she’s about as pleasant as a nest of hornets about now.” Georgie leaned back on one arm. “Would you be so keen to do your filial duty if it weren’t for Sir Hugo?”

  Bay’s eyes met hers, charmingly rueful. “I will admit, our present circumstances add a spur. But,” he added quickly, “I would have wanted to go anyway. For Anne.”

  It was his sister, Georgie would have thought, who would be in need of sympathy. She was the one who had been jilted, and publicly. But that was all beside the point. “Sir Hugo won’t just disappear because we cross the ocean.”

  “Won’t he? I can’t imagine he’ll follow us to New York.” Bay lifted the lemonade bottle, emptying the dregs over her glass. He offered it to Georgie. “You’ll like Newport, I think.”

  He was doing it again, changing the subject. Georgie pushed the glass back at him. “It’s all very well to play ostrich, Bay. But burying your head in the sand doesn’t stop nasty things from creeping up on you. It just stops you seeing them before they strike.”

  Bay reached for her hand, balked by the fact that he was still holding the lemonade. The expression on his face made Georgie chuckle. It was a bit rusty, but it was still a laugh. Bay’s face softened.

  “You see?” he said. “It’s not so bad as all that.”

  Georgie shook her head. “I don’t like to think that Sir Hugo is holding my past over your head. I’d rather be done with him, once and for all.”

  “We’d meant to return to New York anyway.” At Georgie’s look, Bay set the lemonade carefully down next to the hamper. “All right. But let me deal with Sir Hugo in my own way? I’d rather not expose you to his unpleasantness.”

  Georgie didn’t know whether to be frustrated or touched. “You know what my life was before, Bay. There’s no reason to wrap me in cotton wool.”

  Bay reached for her, but paused, letting his hand rest on the blanket between them. “Maybe that’s why I want to wrap you in cotton wool,” he said quietly. “Because I know what you’ve suffered.”

  He treated her like a porcelain doll. Not with his words; he was nothing but frank with her, or as frank as Bay could be. It wasn’t his mind he shielded her from, but his body. It was a strange paradox: when they were awake, clothed, strolling arm and arm in the gardens, Georgie had never felt closer to another soul, more loved, more protected. It was at night, in the marital bed, that she felt the gulf between them, that she felt him holding himself apart from her, afraid to hurt her.

  It was maddening. From time immemorial, men and women had been coupling behind haystacks, but her husband was too much of a gentleman and she too craven to turn their tentative caresses to good purpose.

  I’m not afraid anymore, she wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t find the words. And he would know her for a liar. She was afraid still.

  But she was afraid of other things as well. No marriage was a true marriage until it was consummated. Bay had never indicated that he thought of her as anything but a true wife, no matter the irregularity of their courtship. He had written immediately to his mother to announce their union. He had outfitted her as his wife, introduced her as his wife.

  But as long as the marriage remained unconsummated, the fear was there.

  The lady or the tiger? The marriage bed or no marriage at all?

  “Well, don’t,” said Georgie shortly. It was the closest she could come to broaching the topic that had been most on her mind. “You said once you wouldn’t put me in a glass case.”

  “Not even a particularly charming one?”

  “Bay…”

  “Pax!” Bay held up both hands in mock defense. “Aren’t married people meant to have disagreements? We should toast Sir Hugo. He’s helped us to our first argument.”

  “If you can call it that,” Georgie grumbled. It wasn’t much of an argument when the other party wouldn’t argue back. Although Bay did, she realized. It was just that he did it so quietly and in such reasonable tones that it was impossible to maintain any sense of being wronged. Carefully, she said, “It doesn’t feel real, does it? Being married.”

  “I imagine,” said Bay wryly, “that it will feel more real than you like once you meet my mother. You will instantly be instructed in the vast responsibilities attendant on being a Van Duyvil—and you’ll wish I’d never set foot across the threshold of the Ali Baba.”

  “Never that.” She hadn’t meant to speak so vehemently. Display
ing that sort of emotion made Georgie feel more naked than she had ever been on the stage. She could say something frivolous, turn it all into a joke; Bay would laugh with her, she knew. But why? If she didn’t want to be set in a case, she shouldn’t put herself in one.

  On an impulse, Georgie rose on her knees and pressed a kiss to Bay’s lips, clumsy, inexpert. She felt his start of surprise, his arm close around her waist.

  Better to be hanged for a sheep than a lamb, she told herself. Her voice ragged, she said, “If we’re to leave for New York soon, then we’d best make the most of our time here, hadn’t we? It’s nearly time for the cinq à sept.”

  “It isn’t quite three.” There was a question in his voice.

  Georgie looked into Bay’s blue eyes and wished she were bolder, braver. Facing down Sir Hugo was one thing, propositioning her own husband quite another. Fear made her curt. “I don’t mind the time. If you don’t.”

  Bay’s lips twisted in a crooked smile. She felt his fingers fan out against her back, warming her, steadying her. “Though we cannot make our sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run?”

  “Something like that.” Georgie drew in a shallow breath, wondering where all her words had gone. Her world had narrowed to the space between her body and Bay’s. “It is France, after all.”

  Bay gave a choking laugh. “Truer words.” He rose to his feet and held out a hand to her, and Georgie saw that his fingers were shaking. He was, she realized, her own fears easing, as nervous as she. “Shall we retire, Mrs. Van Duyvil?”

  “Yes,” said Georgie and put her hand in his.

  New York, 1899

  January

  The bedroom Bay and Annabelle had shared was relentlessly tidy.

  It made Janie feel more than a little unclean, pawing through Bay’s and Annabelle’s things, dresses that had never been worn and now never would, books with the pages still uncut, a pristine blotter on a new writing desk in Annabelle’s private sitting room.

  Janie retreated to the baronial splendor of the breakfast room, where Mrs. Gerritt had set out tea and toast for her, both of which had long since gone cold. What had she expected, really? A page torn out of a parish register, with the details of Annabelle’s birth? She set the toast down on the plate, recalling, dimly, something Annabelle had told her in one of their rare conversations. Annabelle hadn’t been born in England. She had been born in India, she had said, in a hill station, whatever that was.