Page 142 of The English Wife

Burke winced. “I had hoped I had lived that down.”

“You did. You have.” Memories surged between them. The orange-lit drawing room, Burke’s arms around her. I love you. A product of circumstance and momentary madness? Or something more. “I didn’t see you at the funeral.”

“There were enough gawkers at the gates.” Burke stayed where he was, a good yard away. “How are you?”

The frost seeped through her thin shoes, better suited to the church than the graveyard. Janie managed an uneven smile. “Cold. This winter—it feels as though it will never be warm again.”

Burke looked at her carefully. “Are we really talking about the weather?”

Janie bit her lip. “Possibly.”

“It’s starting to thaw, they say.” Burke started to step forward and then stopped, jamming his hands in his pockets. “Should I have kept quiet? Ever since the story came out … I’ve wished it hadn’t. I feel like I’ve thrown you in it.”

“I was already in it. And I asked you to write that story. To tell the truth.”

“If I hadn’t—” Burke gestured awkwardly at the empty spaces around them. “You might at least have had others with you today.”

“Do you mean toadeaters and distant cousins who had to be bullied into dancing with me? I would as soon do without their consolation. Do you think you’ve wronged me?” Burke’s involuntary wince gave her all the answer she needed. Janie could feel her spine straightening, the fog falling away around her. “You didn’t. You did just what I asked you to do.”

“At a horrible and confusing time,” Burke prevaricated.

“Are you saying I don’t know my own mind?”

“Er—” Burke looked around for aid. The marble angel provided none. “You tell me.”

“I think I already have,” said Janie tartly, and found herself, despite herself, grinning back at Burke as they both stared at each other like utter idiots. Feeling suddenly awkward, Janie cleared her throat. “I appreciated your headline yesterday. ANNABELLE EXONERATED. It made the point very nicely.”

“It was that or send flowers.” In a more serious tone, Burke said, “I thought it might be something to show the children someday. If people talk.”

“People always talk,” said Janie frankly. And then, “Anne is taking the children to France until the scandal blows over. She says she’ll suffer Paris for their sake, even if it takes a decade or so. It might be a rather long trip. Viola is already negotiating for a new Paris doll with a complete wardrobe. And a donkey. Someone told her there were donkeys in the Tuileries Garden, and she wants one for her own.”

Burke went very still. “Will you be going with them?”

Janie looked down at the frost-blasted grass. “I would like to see Paris. But not now.”

“Why?” Burke’s breath whistled in the wind. “Why not now?”

Janie stared at him, at a loss for words.

I love you.

Having declared so firmly that she knew her own mind, it was rather lowering to find that she didn’t. Or, rather, that knowing it, she didn’t have the strength to say it.

“This is my home. If I leave, I want to leave on my own terms, not as an exile.” Burke quirked a brow. Janie rushed on, “In Paris, I would be only another American abroad. Here—here I have the chance to do something, something that matters. I know you think my work at the Girls’ Club is silly—”

“I never said that!” Burke grimaced. “Or if I did, it was … well, let’s just say my motives weren’t pure. And I was wrong.”

“Thank you,” said Janie with dignity. She fidgeted with the strap of her reticule. “There are other reasons, of course.”

“Yes?” Burke tried to lean casually back against the angel and missed.

“Oh, legal matters,” babbled Janie, stalling for time. “There’s the house to be closed up, and my mother’s estate dealt with, and Sebastian’s and Viola’s affairs … someone has to stay here to put the furniture in Holland covers and sign the papers.”

The wind whistled between the monuments as the silence stretched between them. “So there’s nothing else that might keep you here?”

“Is there?” Janie looked him full in the face, exhausted with pretending. And there it was, out in the open between them. “I won’t hold you to what you said the other night. If I was overwrought, so were you.”

“When you kissed me—” Burke’s voice came out as a croak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “When you kissed me, was that because you wanted to or just because you were trying to stop me embarrassing myself?”