Page 132 of The English Wife

Bay hesitated, but he didn’t falter. His eyes met Georgie’s, rueful, resolved. “Yes.”

Mrs. Van Duyvil stepped towards him. “You will not,” she said succinctly, “say that again. This did not happen. This conversation did not happen.”

“Just the way my final year at the law school didn’t happen?” said Bay with a tired smile. “I can pretend in public, Mother, but not for you. And certainly not for my wife.”

“Your wife.” Mrs. Van Duyvil turned back to Georgie, her voice dripping venom. “None of this needed to have been said but for you. None of this will be said again. Send the architect away—goodness knows, he’s outlived his use. All of his uses.”

Georgie saw Bay wince at his mother’s casual treatment of his lover. She might have had her own battles with Bay over David, but it was none of Mrs. Van Duyvil’s affair. And certainly not like this.

“That isn’t your decision to make,” said Georgie levelly. “It’s Bay’s. And mine. Not yours.”

“You made it my concern,” retorted her mother-in-law. “All you needed to do was turn a blind eye. Do you think I cared that my husband shared his bed with a pile of dusty books? Stop whining and fulfill your social obligations.”

“Your social obligations,” said Georgie. “Not mine.”

The breath misted around Mrs. Van Duyvil’s mouth like a dragon in a storybook. “You married into them when you married into this family.”

If Georgie hadn’t wanted a divorce before, she would certainly be demanding one now. She spoke in her most Annabelle voice, all clipped hauteur. “And I’ll be free of them when I’m no longer in this family.”

“No.” Mrs. Van Duyvil moved so quickly that the jewels on her breast formed a rainbow blur. She snatched the dagger from Bay’s belt, holding it up so that the tip dazzled in front of Georgie’s eyes. “There will be no divorce.”

Just a bauble, Bay had said. But it was a bauble with a very sharp point. Mrs. Van Duyvil glittered with diamonds and rage, as if every irritant, every slight, had come to this, had narrowed to this moment, to Georgie. The rage of a monarch who saw his kingdom slipping from his grasp, his power waning.

“Put down the knife, Mother,” said Bay, but Mrs. Van Duyvil didn’t pay any notice.

Georgie took a step back, keeping one eye on the dagger. “If divorce was good enough for Henry VIII, surely, it’s good enough for a Van Duyvil.”

Her mother-in-law was not impressed.

“I will not,” said Mrs. Van Duyvil, stalking forward as Georgie retreated, “have you dragging our good name through the mud.”

“There needn’t be a scandal,” said Bay quietly, his eyes meeting Georgie’s. “We can divorce in Rhode Island. Their divorce laws are laxer than New York’s. And the Newport house is in my name. We’ll have no trouble establishing residency.”

“There will be no divorce.” Georgie’s back bumped into the stone of the balustrade. The tip of the dagger pressed against the silver lace edging the square bodice, silver against silver. “If you won’t take your wife in hand, I will.”

Georgie sucked in her breath at the touch of the cold steel.

“You don’t want to do this,” said Georgie breathlessly. “Think what a scandal it would cause if you skewered your son’s wife.”

Bay cast her a warning look. “Put down the knife, Mother.”

“Not,” said Mrs. Van Duyvil, “until you both see sense. There cannot be a divorce. Not now. Not ever. Do you want people to speculate? To know?”

The point pressed deeper. Georgie could feel the cool damp of blood, sticking to the silver lace. Just a trickle. Surely, she wouldn’t go farther than that. But the knife was sharp, frighteningly sharp.

Bay put a hand on his mother’s arm, speaking in his most sensible voice. “This isn’t your decision to make.”

Mrs. Van Duyvil’s lip curled. “You’ll just let her do this? You’ll let her make a mockery of you? Of us?”

Bay’s eyes met Georgie’s, and, for just a moment, she saw in them what she had seen all those years ago, something that made her feel as though, after a long journey, she had come home. “If that’s what she wants.” In a moment of ill-judged levity, he added, “After all, if Mrs. Vanderbilt can do it—”

“Do not talk to me about that woman!” Mrs. Van Duyvil turned sharply towards her son, letting Georgie go so abruptly that Georgie stumbled back against the balustrade, catching herself just in time to see Bay stagger back, both hands closed around something that was protruding from his chest, a look of shock on his face.

Mrs. Van Duyvil’s face was no less shocked than Bay’s, her mouth a red circle in the midst of her white face paint.

“Georgie,” Bay said and tried to reach for her, but he stumbled instead, weaving like a drunkard.

The sapphire in the hilt of the dagger gleamed darkly between Bay’s fingers as he slumped to his knees.