Page 104 of The English Wife

“People will think whatever they want to think. Why should we let it bother us?” Georgie poked Bay in the arm. “Stop worrying at that. You’ll make the whole section unravel.”

Bay stopped worrying at the French knots, but his face was still clouded. Slowly, with an effort, he said, “The house is nearly finished. It wouldn’t be so strange if David were to go back to town.”

Georgie wanted nothing better, but not like this. “Do you really think that would stop it? People would only say you’d discovered the affair and sent him away.”

Bay looked up at her hopelessly. “What do we do, then, to stop the talk?”

Georgie took a deep breath. “We don’t.” She had been thinking about this since Mrs. Van Duyvil had sailed out of her drawing room in high dudgeon, had thought about it while cuddling Sebastian and kissing Viola’s bruised knees and singing the song about a ship a-sailing on the seas until her throat was raw with it. “Quite the contrary. If there are such rumors, we ought to encourage them.”

Bay’s face was bleak. “Because the truth is much less palatable?”

Georgie shrugged. “Society winks at a bit of adultery.” In mock-serious tones, she added, “Provided, that is, that it is conducted with propriety.”

Bay groaned. “My mother.”

Georgie nodded, her lip pulling up into a lopsided grin. “I’m sure David and I between us can provide them a proper show. Don’t you agree?”

Bay didn’t smile back. “You would do that for me?”

“It’s not just for you, you dunce,” said Georgie with mock severity, even though her chest felt tight and she wanted nothing so much as to weep. “It’s for all of us. But, yes, also for you.”

Bay didn’t say anything for a moment, just put his head into her lap. His voice muffled, he said, “What did I do to deserve you?”

Georgie threaded her fingers through his short hair, feeling the familiar texture of it. Thick but fine, like Vi’s and Bast’s, not heavy like hers. “Wander into the wrong theater on the wrong day?”

Bay looked up at her, his eyes very wide and very blue. “That was, without doubt, the luckiest day of my life.”

“Even if it didn’t feel so at the time,” said Georgie drily. She could remember that night, Bay a stranger in his caped coat and tall hat. She’d had no idea then, no idea at all. The reality of Bay, of their life together, was so very different, so much more complicated, than she would ever have imagined. That she loved him, she knew; that he loved her, she also knew. But it was never that simple, was it?

Or could it be?

Bay was still wandering down memory lane. “We never did get any supper that night, did we?”

Kitty and Sir Hugo and gas lamps and a stranger hurrying down the stairs behind her. “No. You put me into a hackney.”

Bay’s hand reached up; his fingers laced through hers. “You were so determined and so … small. I couldn’t leave you to make your way home alone.”

Georgie blinked against an itch in her eye. “And then you came back to the theater, and that awful play.”

“Eleven and One Nights.” Releasing her hand, Bay pushed himself up to a sitting position, making the bed bob and shake. He grinned at her, slightly sheepish, and she had an image of him in Paris, in the sunlight of the Tuileries Garden, before the shadows had begun to gather. “I still have the program. I kept it. Like a talisman.”

Georgie wrinkled her nose at him. “Desdemona’s handkerchief?” She was more touched than she wanted to say. “Am I Othello or Desdemona?”

Bay tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear. “Neither, I hope. I prefer comedies to tragedies. Much Ado About Nothing, All’s Well That Ends Well…”

Georgie’s eyes met Bay’s, her lips curving into a rueful smile. “Twelfth Night.”

“That’s it.” Bay sat up straighter. “That should be the theme of our ball. Twelfth Night. We could hold it on the sixth of January. A Twelfth Night ball in Illyria.”

Georgie regarded him skeptically. “Your mother will hate it.”

Bay’s smile broadened into a grin. “So much the better. This is ours, not hers.” He tweaked the tail of her braid. “We can have jesters.”

“And jongleurs?” Georgie felt herself warming to the idea. Ours. It felt nice to have an ours again.

“And roving minstrels with lutes.” Bay swung his long legs over the side of the bed. “Let me get my trousers on. We can work out the details over breakfast. I imagine David will have ideas.”

But I thought this was our ball. Georgie just managed not to say it. “I’m sure he shall.”