Page 18 of The English Wife

“No?” Georgie rather thought he hadn’t, but she wasn’t going to let him off that easily.

“No.” Earnestly, Mr. Van Duyvil said, as though it made all the difference. “He has a fiancée. In Buckinghamshire.”

Did Mr. Van Duyvil really think a man’s vows precluded him from taking his pleasure where he found it? Perhaps it was different in New York. Or perhaps it was just Mr. Van Duyvil who was different.

Georgie poked her head up over the edge of the screen. “How did someone like you get mixed up with Sir Hugo? If you don’t mind my asking. You seem an odd pair.”

Mr. Van Duyvil looked down at the hat balanced on his knees. His hair was the color of August wheat, a dark blond with lighter streaks speaking of a recent sojourn in sunnier climes. “I’d been traveling with friends of the family. But when I met Hugo, he … well, he persuaded me to leave my party. They’re all in Switzerland now.”

Georgie emerged from around the side of the screen, dressed now in a reasonable imitation of what a lady might wear, buttoned high to the chin, long and narrow through the sleeves.

Mr. Van Duyvil sprang up from his seat, moving aside so that Georgie might reclaim it.

It might be as Mr. Van Duyvil said. There were plenty of impoverished nobles eager to batten off the wealthy and naïve. Americans, in their perpetual innocence, made a particularly tempting target.

Georgie reclaimed her gloves from the dressing table, directing her attention to drawing them on, finger by finger. “Whatever persuaded you to go with him?”

Mr. Van Duyvil turned his hat around in his hands, his expression rueful. “Hugo can be very charming—when he likes. I’d never met anyone quite like him. When he invited me to return with him to London…”

Despite herself, Georgie felt herself softening towards him. “Will you join your friends in Switzerland?”

Mr. Van Duyvil grimaced. “Not now. It’s always rather galling to have to admit one’s own foolishness. I suppose … I suppose I ought to have stayed with them. But I’d thought there must be something more to Europe than trotting around with a Baedeker and making a fuss over the locals not speaking a civilized language.”

Georgie grinned at his depiction of his party. “It seems you got your wish. I imagine that Sir Hugo knows more than Baedeker about certain corners of the world and that he was willing to share it … for a fee?”

“Something like that.” Mr. Van Duyvil didn’t share her amusement. “I’d never imagined myself worldly, but I hadn’t thought myself quite so … gullible.”

The words hit Georgie harder than she liked to show. She could remember that first month in London, pawning first one, then another piece of jewelry, not sure who to trust, not trusting her own instincts. The one thing she’d learned those first few weeks was how little she knew, how ill prepared she was to face the world beyond Lincolnshire.

But there’d been no choice in it for her.

“What will you do now?” Georgie asked. “Go back to New York?”

“I ought, I suppose,” Mr. Van Duyvil said without enthusiasm. “Hugo was the only person I knew in London.”

He’d got off lightly, Georgie knew. Sir Hugo might have fleeced him in a million ways. Gaming houses had arrangements with the likes of Sir Hugo to bring in likely flats, drawing them deeper and deeper into debt. There were also houses promising all sorts of pleasures. While the pleasure might endure for an evening, the resulting blackmail could go on for years after. Some hardy souls declared “publish and be damned,” but far more stumped up the blunt demanded for silence.

But she couldn’t help feeling just a little sorry for Mr. Van Duyvil, all the same.

It might be a gull, but if it was, Mr. Van Duyvil was a far better actor than anyone she had ever known, either on the stage or off.

Slowly, wondering if she was making a mistake, Georgie said, “We never did have that supper last night…”

They could go to the Feathers, where the landlord knew her. She’d be safe there, so long as they stayed in plain view. And it wasn’t as though Kitty were likely to join her tonight. They’d both lost a friend from this.

Making up her mind, Georgie jammed her hat on her head and gestured imperiously to Mr. Van Duyvil. “What you need is a warm meal in you. A good meat pie does wonders for melancholy.”

FOUR

London, 1894

February

“I don’t think I’ve been warm since I left Italy.”

Mr. Van Duyvil hunched down into the collar of his coat, rubbing his hands together for warmth. The coveted table by the fire had already been taken when they arrived at the Feathers, leaving only this spot, by the crack in the window that never quite seemed to be mended.

“Here,” said Georgie, pushing a cup across the table. “This will chase the chill away.”