Page 35 of The English Wife

Janie’s mother stared at the picture of Annabelle and Bay, her expression inscrutable. “For now.”

Anne looked back sharply. “He can’t think anyone would believe that rot.”

“People will believe anything.” Mrs. Van Duyvil’s eyes were narrowed on the picture of her daughter-in-law, Proserpina turned from spring to fall in shades of sepia. “Particularly if it’s true.”

“Mother?” Janie rose from her chair.

“I never liked her. Impertinent, insolent, self-willed. So proud of the Laceys and their abbey. Ha!” Her mother set down the picture with a force that made the other frames on the table rattle. “What do we know of that woman? Only that she trapped your brother and insinuated herself into our family. I shouldn’t be surprised if she were everything our visitor claimed.”

Her words fell on Janie like an ice storm, each a stinging shard. “But you told Mr. Lacey—”

“That it was nonsense? Of course I did. We can’t have people casting aspersions on Sebastian’s parentage.” Mrs. Van Duyvil’s voice broke on the last word. She looked fiercely from Janie to Anne. “Not a word of this, either of you. Let me deal with Mr. Lacey in my own way.”

“And what way is that?” demanded Anne.

But Mrs. Van Duyvil didn’t answer. She simply turned and stalked away, the long train of her skirt catching the leg of the table as she went, making the picture of Bay and Annabelle fall forward, the glass shattering into a thousand shards.

SEVEN

London, 1894

May

“I need to go,” Georgie said to Mr. Van Duyvil. Bay.

It seemed a year ago that he had held her hand. The sunshine that had gilded the leaves had turned flat and hard; the voices of the people around them as piercing as a murder of crows.

“Let me help you to a hack.” He didn’t ask for further explanations and for that Georgie was grateful, so grateful that she didn’t even protest when he put a hand beneath her elbow.

She should tell him, she knew, that she didn’t need his support, but her head was aching, the sun making rainbows at the corners of her eyes. And it was nice, just this last time, to feel cared for, protected, to cloak herself in Bay’s shadow, his broad frame standing between her and the world.

She shouldn’t get used to it. Despair and rage coursed through her. What had she done to be doomed to this, to live her life like a hunted thing?

The worst of her crime was to be seventeen and foolish.

Tell anyone you like, Giles had said. They won’t believe you.

Bay was leading her away from the path, past nannies with prams and young children who chased after each other, darting in front of and around them. Georgie closed her eyes against a wave of dizziness. Food, that was all. A sausage roll or some bread and cheese. Once she got something into her stomach, she would be right as rain. She would not, could not, let Giles defeat her.

Not again.

“It’s all right.” Her voice came out in a croak. “I can manage.”

“I’m sure you can,” said Bay, but he didn’t remove his hand from her elbow. “Do me the privilege of letting me feel useful.”

“Some privilege,” said Georgie gruffly, closer to breaking than she wanted to admit. All she wanted was to turn her face into his waistcoat, sink into the warmth of him. She held herself rigid.

Bay gave her elbow a squeeze. “Won’t you let me be the judge of that?”

They emerged at Aldford Street. Bay snapped his fingers at a hansom, handing Georgie in over the wheel before climbing in beside her. Georgie held to the strap and peered out the window at the park, at the flower sellers and the children with their hoops, the Americans wearing the wrong sort of clothes. The normalcy of the scene ought to have belied her fears, but it only made it worse. At night, in the dark, she might have dismissed Giles as fancy. But not here in the sunshine, where the children played, where nightmares weren’t meant to come true.

She had spent years looking over her shoulder for Giles, but London was a large city, a place where people could lose themselves. And Giles would never think, never imagine, that she might go on the stage. Giles had never been a particularly imaginative man. She’d known that, even at the height of her infatuation, when he was new to the abbey, a welcome addition to the confines of their small society.

He had been with a woman. An heiress? It should have occurred to her that sooner or later Giles would come to London to try his chances on the great marriage market. He had a high opinion of his own face and form, which, coupled with the charms of Lacey Abbey, might win him a woman to replace what he felt Annabelle had unjustly stolen from him, the money sitting untouched and untouchable in Annabelle’s name.

The hack lurched to a stop on the strand, near the D’Oyly Carte Theatre.

“Why are we stopping? What is it?” Georgie tried not to let anxiety course through her. It might be a hundred things, from a balky horse to a basket of apples fallen in the street.