Page 127 of The English Wife

When they opened the parlor doors, they were greeted with a rush of smoke and the sight of Mr. Lacey’s backside as he bent over the fire, poking futilely at the coals.

“Can anyone do anything about this blo—this fire? It’s like Hades in here.” At the sound of footsteps, Lacey turned, squinting at them through the smoke, which all appeared to be going in instead of out. “Who’s this? The chimney sweep, I hope.”

“This,” said Janie, “is Mr. Burke of The News of the World.”

“Not,” contributed Anne, “an Eskimo.”

Lacey turned, the poker still in his hand. “You don’t mean to tell me the press are stalking us through the snow?”

“Apparently,” said Janie’s mother acidly. She would not, Janie knew, refer to Anne’s past transgressions in front of Mr. Lacey. Solidarity in distress went only so far. To Janie, she added, “I told you to take him to the kitchens.”

“Mr. Burke has come all this way—at great personal danger—because he had news for us.” Janie could feel a slow burn of anger in her chest. She nurtured it, letting it warm her, letting it drive away her doubts and fears. A new Janie, born from the flames like a phoenix. “You lied, Mr. Lacey. You lied about when you arrived in New York. You weren’t on the—” She had forgotten the name of the ship.

“St. Paul,” supplied Burke.

“Thank you,” said Janie. She turned back to Lacey. “You arrived on the Brittanic.”

Mr. Lacey poked at the fire. “What’s the difference between one ship or another?”

“The difference,” said Janie, “is ten days. You were here on the night of the ball.”

On the side of the room, Anne half rose from her seat, one hand tight on the red velvet arm. “What?”

“What’s more,” said Janie, keeping her eyes on Mr. Lacey and his poker, “you lied about it. You went to the port master and paid him to change his records.”

“Well, yes.” Mr. Lacey waved a dismissive hand, accidentally thwacking a table in the process. He looked down and realized he was holding the poker and, with a shrug, dropped it. “I didn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea.”

“The wrong idea?” Anne’s voice rose on the last word. Her face was very pale in the lamplight. Her rouge stood out like stains on her cheeks. “You mean the idea that you just might have killed my cousin and his wife? That idea?”

“See? That’s just what I mean.” Lacey choked on the smoke from the fire. “It would be just like that whore to try to ruin me from beyond the grave.”

“Language, Mr. Lacey,” snapped Janie’s mother. “There are ladies present.”

Anne shot her aunt a look of pure hatred. “That’s all you can say? Language? Do you have no feelings? Do you not care the least little bit that—”

“Control yourself!” Mrs. Van Duyvil’s voice slashed through the air like a knife.

Anne froze, and in the silence, Mr. Lacey’s voice rose up, loud and petulant.

“She tricked you. Georgie tricked all of you. Wouldn’t think it to look at her, would you? Oh, no. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But there she stood, cool as ice—”

“And what about Bay?” demanded Anne in a tight voice. She was standing, one hand on the arm of her chair, her knuckles white. “What did he do to you?”

“He … I told you!” Mr. Lacey looked from one to the other as the impact of his own words hit him. “I never touched him. Never even met him. Devil take it, I pitied the man. He’d been gulled, right and proper. She was poison, that girl. Pure poison.”

“And what,” said Janie, in a voice she didn’t recognize as her own, “would she have said about you, Mr. Lacey?”

Janie felt Burke step closer to her, prepared to jump to her defense.

“Lies,” Lacey said tightly. “Whatever she told you, it was all a lie.”

“I should never have let Bay go abroad.” Mrs. Van Duyvil paced the back of the room, her heavy skirts sweeping the Aubusson rug. “I should have known what would come of it. He didn’t have the strength to take care of himself, to guard himself from fortune hunters.”

“Annabelle wasn’t a fortune hunter,” said Anne flatly.

“I’ve told you,” said Mr. Lacey. “She wasn’t Annabelle.”

“He’s right. She wasn’t.” Even Janie’s mother stopped to stare. Burke looked apologetically at Janie. “That was the other news from London. There was a Georgiana Smith. Companion to Miss Annabelle Lacey. No one knew what happened to her. She disappeared at the same time as Miss Lacey.”