Page 109 of The English Wife

A loud crack rent the air.

It was all over in a moment, Anne crouched in the corner of the seat, cradling her cheek with one hand; Janie’s mother sitting very upright, staring straight ahead.

“I would advise,” said Mrs. Van Duyvil in a tight voice, “that you take a tray in your room tonight.”

Slowly, Anne lowered her gloved hand. There was a bold red mark on her cheek, like a brand. “And there you have it,” she said to Mr. Tilden. “My aunt’s favorite way of resolving the matter. Make it disappear.”

Mr. Tilden rubbed his gloved hands together. “Is it just my imagination, or has it grown colder? They say that this may be the coldest February on record.” When no one took up his lead, he tried another tack. “I am looking forward to a hot supper. There is nothing like a warm meal on a cold day. As that great man Samuel Johnson once said—”

Mrs. Van Duyvil just looked at him. “I think,” she said, “we should all take trays in our rooms.”

The rest of the ride to Illyria was conducted in silence.

TWENTY-TWO

Cold Spring, 1898

January 5

“I had a letter from my aunt today.” Georgie smelled Anne’s cigarette before she saw her, heard the thin exhalation of breath that followed her pronouncement.

“Did you?” Georgie asked absently, moving so that she could catch the light from the narrow windowpanes, strategically broken to emulate the originals at Lacey Abbey.

She didn’t have time for Anne’s vapors today. Tomorrow, the house would be overrun with guests, starting with a formal dinner at eight, followed by the ball at ten. Only the family would be staying in the house, but that still meant that rooms needed to be prepared for Mrs. Van Duyvil and Janie, stocked with new stationery, furnished with flowers—and, really, just furnished. The cabinetmakers had been more than accommodating, but only a fraction of the bedrooms were fully furnished, it having seemed wiser to concentrate on the public rooms in the wake of the coming ball.

“Aunt Alva’s told me I’m meant to talk sense into you.”

“Lovely.” Georgie stifled a yawn as she turned away from the window, heading for the blue bedroom. The children had been excited about the idea of the new house until the time had come to move. Bast had taken it well enough, but Viola had kicked and screamed, demanding to be allowed to go back, which, naturally enough, had set Bast off as well. Georgie had been up until the wee hours soothing first one, then the other, cradling them and rocking them and praying they would eventually grow tired enough to sleep.

If she’d gone to Bay, he would have come. He had done his share of sitting up with Bast when he had a cough, or checking under Vi’s bed for goblins. But Bay hadn’t been in his room, and Georgie, while she could be forbearing about her husband’s infidelity in theory, found herself reluctant to see it in practice.

Which was a fancy way of saying that the idea of Bay in bed with someone else made her stomach churn.

After almost two years, one would have thought she would have been used to it. But she wasn’t. And she wasn’t sure she would ever be used to it.

Anne drifted along after Georgie, impervious to her lack of encouragement. “I am to exhort you to return to town. Now that the house is finished.” Anne followed up that last with a sidelong look that spoke far more than her words. “Whatever did you say to my dear aunt? She jabbed her pen so hard, it nearly left holes in the paper. I could practically hear her fulminating.”

Georgie added another note to her list. Fresh writing paper in all the rooms, embossed with a stylized picture of Illyria. “We mostly spoke of you.”

“Touché, my dear. Touché. Was it one of Auntie’s touching homilies on the sanctity of marriage? Tell that to Teddy. Or Ellen Morris.” Anne trailed after Georgie into the Blue Room. “To be fair, if it hadn’t been Ellen, it would have been one of the chambermaids or an Italian contessa or the girl who sells flowers in the street. Teddy wasn’t precisely discriminating with his favors.”

“So you’ve said.” Several times since her arrival. The Iniquities of Teddy: an operetta in three parts. Georgie rubbed her aching temples with the hand holding her pencil, feeling just a bit light-headed from lack of sleep.

Plumping herself down on a blue silk divan, Anne slid another Turkish cigarette out of its gold case and tapped it against her palm. “Janie doesn’t know what a favor I did her.”

Georgie checked the writing desk, making sure there was enough ink in the inkwell: blue, to go with the wallpaper and bed hangings. “I rather doubt she saw it that way.”

“She ought.” Anne struck a match, holding it to the tip of the narrow cylinder. She inhaled deeply. “Divorce isn’t for the faint of heart. Of course, it’s not what it was. You can get away with it now without having to don sackcloth and go around doing good works to atone. After all, if Mrs. Vanderbilt can rid herself of her philandering boor of a husband, surely there’s hope for the rest of us.”

Georgie made a note to herself to see that flowers were put in the rooms. Pansies and sweet peas for Janie, orchids for Mrs. Van Duyvil. She had no idea whether Mrs. Van Duyvil liked orchids, but they were expensive, and as such, her mother-in-law would see them as her due. “The sticklers don’t receive Mrs. Vanderbilt since her divorce, do they?”

Anne smiled crookedly. “That’s the best part. No more dull debutante dances, no more Patriarch’s Ball. I can be as fast as I like and still be invited to the more entertaining sorts of parties.”

Despite herself, Georgie lowered her list and looked at her cousin by marriage. “What will you do once it’s done?”

“Marry someone else, of course. What else?” Anne looked at her sideways. “I’d have Bay, but he’s already taken.”

So much for sympathy. Georgie took up her notebook again. “You might travel.”