Page 45 of The English Wife

“But is it art?”

“My dear, that dress!”

“—his wife and both his mistresses! In the Bois de Boulogne!”

Georgie took a step back, feeling the warmth of her husband behind her, cradling and protecting her. “Perhaps that’s the point of it, that there is no reflection. That is what she sees when she sees herself. Nothing but leaves drifting on the river.”

“Or,” said her husband, squeezing her shoulders affectionately, “Mrs. Clarkson tried and failed to capture a reflection. The camera has its limits.”

“Thus spake the solicitor?” Georgie teased. She still found it piquant that her husband, who lived as a gentleman of leisure, had trained as an attorney. It came out in odd ways; for all his whimsy, she was learning, Bay had a surprisingly practical bent when he cared to reveal it. She imagined it had something to do with being an American, this odd juxtaposition of luxury and practicality. “It’s a very limiting reading.”

“Or maybe,” countered Bay, adopting the solemn expression of the expert about to expound, and adding a faint lisp for good measure, “the very failure of the composition to achieve its own aims is a commentary on the power of the paintbrush to depict more than might be visible to the lens.”

“Behave,” Georgie cautioned, but she was grinning as she said it. They had been bored to tears five minutes ago by a writer for the Gazette des Beaux-Arts who had, apparently, attended purely for the pleasure of disapproving.

“Just because the man didn’t pause for breath doesn’t mean there wasn’t something in what he said,” said Bay virtuously.

“High praise,” said Georgie drily, but she took another look at the picture all the same, at the miroir that wasn’t.

It would be comforting to dismiss it as a failed attempt, but there was something about the composition that haunted her. Perhaps it was the scattering of leaves on the surface, or the expression on the woman’s face as she gazed into the depths, seeing … what? Her own reflection? Or a mere nothing where there ought to be something?

Turning away, Georgie said rapidly, “It’s a bit of a sleight of hand, isn’t it? One expects truth in a photograph. But it might obscure more than it reveals.”

Bay moved obediently behind her. “Even the camera lies?”

“Not so much a lie as an omission.” The words tasted sour on Georgie’s lips. Was she an omission or a lie? Taking a firmer grip on her program, she said brightly, “Shall we move on? We’re blocking the throng.”

“They don’t seem to mind terribly,” said Bay, but he followed her all the same, past rural scenes and women dressed as Moorish maidens, past portraits and landscapes.

Georgie knew it was foolish, but she still kept glancing back, checking to make sure her husband was there, that he hadn’t disappeared when she turned her back, nothing more than a figment of her imagination, a prince from a fairy tale brought to life only for a season. She still half expected the rich clothes on her back to disappear, to turn to rags at the sound of a bell, the enchantment gone.

But it wasn’t an enchantment, was it? There was a gold ring on her finger and a piece of paper with their marriage lines, binding her to Bayard van Duyvil.

Binding Annabelle Lacey to Bayard van Duyvil.

The gallery was too small for the press of people, the perfumes too strong, the voices too loud. Faces in sepia tones stared out at them from every surface, caught in perpetuity by the lens of the camera. A girl with long, dark hair falling unbound about her face glared at Georgie; in another, a naked woman lolled in front of the camera, face and form deliberately blurred, nothing but a body, identity lost.

The air felt stale to Georgie, the afternoon flat. “I hate to agree with our friend from the Gazette, but there doesn’t seem to be much to see. Shall we get a hamper and have a picnic in the Jardin des Tuileries?”

“Will you let me ride on the donkey?” Their hotel was on the Rue de Rivoli, across the street from the gardens; they had spent many mornings strolling together, arm in arm, drinking milk warm from the cows who were brought there for that purpose, the froth clinging to their lips.

“You’ll have to battle the nannies for it.”

“Cruel woman.” Bay shuddered extravagantly. “Never mind, then. I’ll content myself with lemonade and the puppet theater. Si vous le permettez, monsieur?”

Two men were blocking the door. One was the unmistakable figure of the Comte de Montesquiou, improbably garbed all in mauve with violets in place of a neckcloth. The other was Sir Hugo.

Bay halted, his hand on Georgie’s arm. “What a pleasant surprise. I didn’t know you were in Paris.”

“You didn’t ask. One can only assume that you have been, er, otherwise occupied? Do you intend to introduce me to this charming creature, or must I live in suspense?”

“This is my wife, Annabelle. We are on our honeymoon.” Bay’s voice was perfectly composed; only Georgie felt the way his fingers dug into her elbow, clinging to her like a sailor to a spar. “My dear, may I present Sir Hugo Medmenham? He was kind enough to introduce me to London.”

“How do you do?” Georgie kept her chin down, hoping Sir Hugo would take her reticence for modesty. She deeply regretted her fashionable hat, a narrow confection crowned with false flowers that perched on the coil of hair at the back of her head and did little to shade her face. A good, old-fashioned poke bonnet would be far preferable for her current circumstances.

“Far better for meeting you, Mrs. Van Duyvil.” Sir Hugo took her fingers, delicately, by the tips, and raised them to his lips.

Georgie saw only dove-gray gloves and the bulbous red of a cabochon ruby set deep in the folds of a black silk cravat. Her heart was beating wildly against her stays; sweat beading beneath her chemise.