The English Wife: A Novel

by Lauren Willig

  “But does it make them someone other than themselves?” Janie yanked open the door, felt herself stagger as it gave more quickly than she had expected. She grabbed at the wall to steady herself. “Love is supposed to ennoble the soul, not degrade it.”

  Mr. Burke followed her into the house, shutting the door behind them. Without the moon, it felt very dark in the hall, very dark and close. He leaned a hand on the wall beside her head. “You’ve been reading too much poetry, Miss Van Duyvil. An honorable man might steal to feed his starving child. That’s love, too. Is that out of character?”

  Janie squinted at him, trying to make out his features. “But it’s not the same. That’s a question of … of survival.”

  “And love, romantic love, isn’t?” Mr. Burke’s voice was very soft. Janie could smell the whisky on his breath, feel his arm flex as he leaned against the wall. “If you can say that, Miss Van Duyvil, you’ve never been in love.”

  Janie wasn’t sure why, but she found that particularly infuriating. Perhaps because it was true. She shifted, bringing their bodies closer, chest to chest. “Just because I don’t believe love needs to destroy everything it touches?”

  “Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide arch / Of the ranged empire fall. Here is my space.” Mr. Burke’s voice was beautiful in the darkness. Janie could feel the words like a caress.

  But not for her. They were someone else’s words. Antony’s to Cleopatra. Mr. Burke had been an actor once. Janie lifted her chin. “Kingdoms are but clay? That’s not love; that’s selfishness.”

  Mr. Burke laughed softly. “Mark Antony wasn’t exactly known for his public spiritedness. But then it was his enemies who wrote the histories. So what do we know?”

  Here, in this dark and empty house. What did she know, indeed? Janie felt strangely deflated. Janie ducked her head. “Nothing.” What did she know of love or hate or deep emotion? “Nothing at all.”

  Mr. Burke put a finger under her chin, tilting her face up. “You’re shivering.”

  Janie met his eyes. “It’s cold.”

  Janie couldn’t see his face in the gloom, even so close to hers, but she could hear the smile in Mr. Burke’s voice. “Ever practical.”

  She knew she shouldn’t, but the compulsion was too strong. Janie put a hand up to touch his face. Her finger grazed his lip. How odd that a man’s lips should be so soft. His cheek was lightly stubbled against her palm. “You’re mocking me.”

  He caught her hand in his, too tightly. “Don’t they say we mock what we most admire?”

  Janie shook her head, feeling the wall behind her chignon, her hair catching on the cracks in the paper. “I’ve never heard that.”

  “You have now.” Her hand was still caught in his, suspended in space. With his free hand, Mr. Burke traced the line of a stray lock of hair, tucking it back behind her ear. His knuckle brushed her cheek. “We mock what we can’t have.”

  Janie’s brain didn’t quite want to work. The world had narrowed to the tiny square of hallway, to Mr. Burke’s fingers against her cheek, to the powerful grip of his fingers around hers.

  This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t her. She was somewhere else entirely—in her cold bed in town, or sitting in a chair by the library, dreaming a whisky-soaked dream. But it certainly felt real: Mr. Burke’s hand around hers, his breath against her cheek, the warmth of him, the scent of him.

  She meant to say something clever, but her voice wouldn’t work properly. Her hand was against Mr. Burke’s chest; she could feel every fiber of his coat beneath her fingers, every fold and wrinkle.

  Mr. Burke’s fingers tangled in the thickness of her chignon, and there was no more room for anything but the feeling of his lips against hers in the chill dark of the abandoned house.

  Tarrytown, 1894

  October

  “You may kiss the bride.”

  Teddy Newland turned the requisite peck into something a little less traditional, provoking titters and raised eyebrows and more than one discreet harrumph.

  “What would you expect?” one dowager trumpeted to another behind Georgie.

  What, indeed?

  Georgie had expected to feel relief at Anne’s wedding, but mostly she felt queasy. The festivities had been held at Teddy’s family home, the Knoll. Private trains had ferried the guests from Grand Central to the local station, where they had been met with ribbon-bedecked carriages driven by liveried coachmen who had taken them to a village church decked with a fortune in orchids.

  There had been something more than a little disconcerting about watching Bay deliver his cousin down the aisle, her arm tucked in his. Georgie could hear the whispers, see the heads turning. Carrie Rheinlander had done her work well.

  Everything was too much: too many bridesmaids milling about with flowers in their hair; too many jewels; too much perfume. The whispers were too loud, the music too bold, even the sunlight slanting through the stained glass seemed too bright.

  The toasts at the wedding luncheon seemed to go on forever, although Georgie couldn’t make herself concentrate on them. Mouths open, lips moving, forks laden with food. The scent of the lobster mousse made her gag. Georgie set down her fork, hoping no one would notice.

  She nibbled on bread, instead, and choked down the champagne without tasting it; her stomach wouldn’t seem to settle, no matter what she did.

  “Are you all right?” It was her husband, appearing behind her chair.

  “It’s very close in here,” said Georgie. It was true. The dining room was large, but the windows had been closed, and the scent of hothouse flowers was overpowering. Georgie could smell them slowly rotting, like funeral flowers, strewn on a grave.

  Fancies. Fancies and foolishness. Her dress was laced too tight, that was all. She’d wanted to put on a good show today, for Bay. And for herself.

  “Shall we seek some air?” suggested Bay, and Georgie nodded wordlessly, not trusting herself to open her mouth.

  The terrace was deserted, save for a handful of smokers banished from the house, puffing on their cigars and Turkish cigarettes. Georgie leaned her head back and concentrated on the cool October air, the scent of mud and dying leaves, fresh and clean after the cloying perfumes of the house.

  Around them, the trees blazed red, orange, and gold, and in the distance, the hills rose in mottled beauty, rising and falling like the back of a sleeping giant.

  Georgie felt Bay’s hand on the small of her back. “Better?”

  Georgie braced her hands against the cool white paint of the veranda rail. “The lobster mousse—it was too rich. I’ll be all right in a moment. You can go back if you like.”

  “I’d rather go for a stroll if you don’t mind missing the fun.”

  Georgie glanced up at him, then regretted the movement, which made her stomach lurch. “Aren’t you expected to do the pretty?”

  Bay drew in a deep breath, letting his eyes close for a moment. “I’ve done all the pretty I need to do. I’d rather be with you. If you don’t mind.”

  Pining for what couldn’t be? Georgie bit back the words. She didn’t have the energy to voice them. And to what end? Anne was married. She would be gone tomorrow on an extended tour of the Continent. Months and months and months without Anne. Georgie clung to that thought, feeling a rise of optimism even as her stomach rebelled. They’d been happy before Anne. They would be happy again once she had gone, when the whispers and rumors had trembled to a stop.

  Anne would be gone and she would be here, and perhaps something else, which she hadn’t quite confided to Bay yet, because she wasn’t entirely sure.

  Georgie let herself lean back against Bay, in the familiar curve of his arms. “If you’re sure you won’t be missed…”

  “They’ll all be busy gawking at the wedding gifts,” said Bay drily. This was a new Bay, a Bay with a bite beneath his gentle manner, a bitter undertone she hadn’t been aware of in Paris or London. “No one will notice me unless you cover me with sapphires and gold plate.”


  “Or I could just wrap you around with pearls,” suggested Georgie, speaking at random through the fog of sickness.

  “Like Carrie? No, thank you.” There were no dead leaves to crunch beneath her feet. The Newland gardeners had done their work too well. “Pearls are for tears.”

  “That doesn’t seem to stop anyone from wearing them.” The garden was almost too quiet. It was as if even the wind had been warned not to rustle the branches too loudly. Georgie tilted her head back, looking for a breeze. “Or do they think the wealth is worth the sorrow?”

  Bay tugged at his cravat. “Paris was worth a mass.”

  “Yes, but that was Paris,” said Georgie, and felt a surge of relief as Bay choked on a laugh.

  “There is that.” He looked down at her, looked as though he were really seeing her, for the first time in days. “I miss Paris. Do you?”

  Picnics in the Tuileries Garden, mornings, days, nights together, uninterrupted. “Sometimes.” There were days when she wished she could turn the clock back, be again in their suite in the Meurice. But was that only memory? Hadn’t there been a snake in the garden there, too? And Anne would be in Paris now. Georgie looked at the hills, at the glimmer of the river. “It is beautiful here.”

  Bay glanced sideways at her. “Sometimes I forget that you were raised in the country. I should take you to Duyvil’s Kill.”

  “Duyvil’s what?”

  “Our house on the Hudson.” Bay grinned, looking like himself again. “Kill is the Dutch word for river, that’s all. Peekskill, Fishkill, Miller’s Kill…”

  “Duyvil’s Kill.” Georgie tried the name on her tongue and grimaced. “Have you ever thought of changing it to something more euphonious?”

  “Bellomont? The Knoll?” Bay looked down at her, his expression tender, his voice softening. “Illyria?”

  Even now, even with her stomach churning, even with the gossiping world feasting on their reputations in the dining room of the Knoll, when Bay looked at her like that, Georgie felt herself melting, like wax in the sun. “Are you picturing yourself as Orsino?” she mocked. “Just don’t go pining after any Olivias.”

  “How could I with my Viola here before me?” They paused at an elaborate belvedere, a viewing point for the river below. One crimson leaf had been missed by the vigilant gardeners; it rested, ruby red, on the pale, fluted stone. “I’ll never forget that first time I saw you staggering from the sea, still clinging to a broken spar…”

  “Singing off-key,” Georgie provided for him.

  Bay touched a finger to her cheek. “You sang like a siren. It was the orchestra that was off-key.”

  Georgie set her reticule down on the broad marble rail. “Drunk, most of them. It was the only way they could get through the show again and again.”

  “I stayed sober.”

  Georgie slid her arms around his waist, feeling her stomach settle at the contact, the warmth of him, the peace. “You’re something out of the ordinary.” She rested her cheek against his waistcoat, bruising the petals of the flower in his buttonhole. “Your strength is as the strength of ten.”

  “Because my heart is pure?” Bay rested his cheek against her hair. Georgie could feel the rise and fall of his chest against hers, hear the steady rhythm of his breath as the leaves rustled gently around them and the water whispered on its course below. Haltingly, he said, “I’m no Galahad, Georgie.”

  Georgie tilted her head and smiled up at him, even though her stomach protested the motion. “I should hope not,” she said cheerfully. “He always struck me as a cheerless sort. All that time crusading for a cup. And not even anything at the bottom of it.”

  “Hush,” said Bay, but he was laughing. “Philistine.”

  “Pragmatist,” Georgie corrected. “Someone has to be.”

  “Perhaps.” Bay tucked a strand of hair into her chignon, his fingers grazing the opal earrings that had been one of his first gifts to her. “What’s your grail, Georgie?”

  A pint of gin, she almost said. But he would know that for a lie in a moment. Bay? True and not. People changed, people left you. People might not be what they seemed. She leaned against her husband, looking out at the river.

  One last go, Georgie? For a moment, it seemed that she could see Annabelle, lifting a hand imperiously to her. And then the sun winked on the water and she was gone.

  A place of peace, that was what she wanted. Someplace that was really and truly hers.

  “Right now? A cup of weak tea and a biscuit.”

  Bay examined her face with concern. “You are looking a bit rough. I’m sure Mrs. Newland could find you a bed. Or at least a divan.”

  “To loll on like an odalisque?”

  “That would certainly enliven the proceedings.” A new voice spoke from behind them, clipped and caustic.

  Georgie turned to see one of the groomsmen approaching them. He doffed his tall hat to her. “Forgive me. I seem to be intruding.”

  “Charlie.” Bay drew into himself in, like a snail hiding in its shell. With practiced courtesy, he said, “Annabelle, may I introduce my old comrade-in-arms, Charles Ogden?”

  The name struck a bell. Carrie Rheinlander’s brother. The resemblance was faint, but it was there, in the sharp features, not unhandsome, but with a fox-like shrewdness that put her on her guard. Great friends, Janie had called them, but there was a chill in the air between them; Georgie could feel it in Bay’s withdrawal and Mr. Ogden’s watchful gaze.

  “Comrade-in-arms?” said Georgie, holding out a hand to Mr. Ogden. “Were you in the wars together, then?”

  “The supposition is not entirely inaccurate,” said Mr. Ogden, bowing over her hand. “We were at the law school at Harvard together.”

  Bay put a hand to the small of Georgie’s back, ranging himself with her. “I hear you’ve been making a name for yourself at the bar.”

  Mr. Ogden’s face was thinner than his sister’s, his eyes more intense. “You might have done the same.”

  “My heart was never in it.” Bay’s voice was apologetic, but Georgie could feel the tension in him, the controlled stillness. “I still have nightmares about Dean Langdell’s Cases on the Law of Contracts.”

  “You never seemed to mind burning the midnight oil at the Law Review.” Mr. Ogden’s eyes had the zeal of the inquisitor sighting an apostate. Georgie might not have been there, a mere fly on the windowsill. “Your note on the right to privacy, the right to be let alone, is one of the best I’ve read.”

  Bay made a slight gesture of negation. “Mr. Brandeis’s note, you mean. I only helped in editing it.”

  “‘The matters of which the publication should be repressed may be described as those which concern the private life, habits, acts, and relations of an individual.…’ It’s a powerful idea, that a man’s private life should be his own.”

  “An idealistic one, you mean,” said Bay. “Even Mr. Brandeis admitted to exceptions. And he only spoke of publication in print, not of gossip.”

  Mr. Ogden took a step forward. “But if one once admits a right to privacy, where might it lead? If the principle could be established…”

  “Would it change human nature? The law can only do so much.”

  Charlie’s eyes burned with the inner fire of the born debater. “Where the law leads, people will follow.”

  Bay shook his head. “The law might constrain behavior, but it lacks the power to shape it.”

  This was apparently an old argument, and one in which Georgie had no part. She stepped away from Bay’s hand. “Would you excuse me?”

  Bay blinked and recalled his attention to her. “Are we boring you?”

  “Not at all,” Georgie lied. “It makes a change from hunting stories.”

  “The fox that got away?” Georgie sensed hostility beneath the casual words. Not surprising, she supposed, from Carrie’s brother. He looked deliberately back at Bay. “There’s a case on that. Pierson v. Post.”

  Bay cocked his head. “Supreme Court of New York … 1806?�
��

  Charlie looked smug. “1805.”

  Georgie rolled her eyes. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  Bay hurried after her. “And leave me to be embarrassed by how much I’ve forgotten? He’ll bring out the rule against perpetuities next, and then I’ll be truly lost.”

  Georgie’s stomach was roiling again. She managed a smile. “Perpetually?”

  Bay looked at her with concern. “I’ll walk you back to the house.”

  Georgie put out a hand, a fleeting touch to his arm. “No, stay. Enjoy your perpetuities. I won’t be a moment.” She turned to nod to Carrie’s brother. “Mr. Ogden.”

  Charlie Ogden tipped his hat to her. “Mrs. Van Duyvil.” To Bay, he said, “If you won’t admit the power of law to shape opinion, what about the Ten Commandments?”

  “Divine law, not human.” Georgie could hear Bay’s voice behind her as she made her way around a hedge, back to the path to the house. “You can hardly compare the second circuit to Moses.”

  “What about the Supreme Court, then?” Their voices faded as Georgie climbed up the slope, following the twisting path through a lane of hedges, past the dry twigs of a rose arbor. They had come farther than she realized. She had a stitch in her side; she felt light-headed.

  They had had a governess once who swore by a drop or two of scent for dizziness. Georgie paused by a bench, reaching for her reticule, but her wrist was bare. She could picture her reticule, the beads flat and lusterless, resting on the belvedere below.

  Bother. She rested on the bench for a moment, but people were beginning to drift from the house into the gardens, and she didn’t want anyone to find her here, like this. She could only imagine what Carrie Rheinlander would have to say.

  She should, she supposed, tell Bay she was increasing. Georgie let out a little puff of air. She had wanted to wait until after Anne’s wedding, to keep the news something between them, not marred by Anne’s acid congratulations.

  Only a few hours more.

  In the meantime, she could go to the house and make polite conversation or return to the belvedere and fetch her reticule and her husband.