Page 13 of The English Wife

Don’t fuss. That was what Annabelle used to say, too, so sure of herself, so sure that nothing could touch her.

“Hugo—” Mr. Van Duyvil stepped forward to intercept them.

Sir Hugo merely ushered Kitty past him. “Good night, Miss Evans. Bay. I recommend you try the oysters.”

Arm in arm, not looking back, Sir Hugo and Kitty strolled down the stairs and into the fog. In the mist, they shimmered like ghosts before disappearing around the curve of the street.

And Georgie stood there, watching them go, feeling her chest rise and fall beneath her bodice, her hands damp in her gloves.

Georgie wanted to run after her friend and grab her back—but Kitty wouldn’t thank her for it. She had to remember that.

“Sir?” said the maître d’. “Sir. Will you be wanting a table?”

“No,” said Georgie too loudly. She looked fiercely at Mr. Van Duyvil, daring him to challenge her. With deliberate crudity, she said, “You’d best go fishing for your oysters elsewhere.”

Mr. Van Duyvil blinked several times. He wrenched his eyes away from the misty street and back to Georgie. “I’ll see you home.” Hastily, he handed the long-suffering maître d’ a fistful of coins. “For your troubles.”

Georgie was already halfway down the stairs. “I’ll see myself.”

Mr. Van Duyvil hurried to catch up with her, his greatcoat billowing around him. “Let me put you in a hackney, at least.”

Georgie thrust her hands deep in her pockets and kept walking, setting her face against the wind. “There’s no need.”

“There’s every need.” Cutting around her, Mr. Van Duyvil signaled to the rank of cabs waiting down the street from the Criterion before turning back to Georgie, two deep lines furrowing the skin between his eyes. “He doesn’t mean ill.”

Georgie looked at him incredulously. Did he really believe that? Perhaps. A man might gamble and whore and still be accounted a good fellow provided he held his liquor and paid the most pressing of his debts. “Not to you, maybe.”

The cab pulled up in front of them. Mr. Van Duyvil put a hand to the door, but didn’t open it. He looked down at Georgie, saying slowly, “I don’t understand.”

Georgie shook her head, impatient with herself and with him. “A man might keep his word to his friends. But what’s a woman to him?”

“I—” Mr. Van Duyvil blinked, his Adam’s apple moving up and down in his throat. “Would you like me to go after them?”

Georgie started to laugh, but Mr. Van Duyvil’s face was serious. “Spare your sword, Sir Galahad. They wouldn’t thank you for it, either of them.”

“Did you want a ride or not?” called the cabbie.

More coins, jingling in Mr. Van Duyvil’s hand. Rich American, Kitty had said. Either he was or he was making a good show of it. Mr. Van Duyvil opened the door, stepping back to allow Georgie to enter. “Take this lady—”

Georgie’s lips pressed into a thin line. She was hardly going to tell him her address. Not even if he was what he appeared, an innocent abroad.

Mr. Van Duyvil shut the door and took a step back. “Take this lady wherever she instructs you.”

Georgie felt the breath that she had been holding release. She felt both relieved and yet … not disappointed. Ashamed? If this Mr. Van Duyvil was genuinely kind, then she had used him ill.

He may have been friends with Sir Hugo, but there was something terribly forlorn about him, alone on the street corner, outside the Criterion.

“Good night, Mr. Van Duyvil,” said Georgie, grudgingly.

“Good night, Miss Evans.” He tipped his hat to her, and then, the words almost lost beneath the crack of the coachman’s whip, something that sounded like, “I’m sorry.”

Georgie tightened her hand around the leather strap as the cab jolted forward. She willed herself not to look back. What was the point? It was hardly likely that her path and Mr. Van Duyvil’s would cross again.

But she looked back all the same, to see him standing there still, dwindling away to a creature of mist and fog as the dray horse’s hoofbeats echoed hollowly in Georgie’s ears.

THREE

New York, 1899