Page 66 of The English Wife

“It makes you miss the streetlamps, doesn’t it?” said Mr. Burke.

“And the noises,” said Janie. It was painfully quiet, their footsteps crackling on the hard ground, their breath misting in front of them. She could hear every rustle of her skirt, every brush of Mr. Burke’s sleeve against hers. “Isn’t it odd? I don’t hear the noises when I’m in town, but I miss them when I’m here.”

She had grown up the rattle of carriages, the shouts of vendors, the prattle of people in the street below.

“We’re odd creatures, aren’t we?” said Mr. Burke. “We city dwellers.”

Janie nodded. He might have grown up in Hell’s Kitchen while she was in the rarified air of East Thirty-Sixth Street, but they both had the city in their bones. “Not Bay, though,” she said. “He wanted nothing but to stay here.”

Or maybe it was Annabelle—Annabelle who had grown up in a great house in the middle of the country, who had hated the noise and bustle of the city. They had abandoned their plans for a home of their own in the city, declined all invitations, devoted all their energies to re-creating Annabelle’s home on the Hudson. Wasn’t that a sign of love?

The old house was in front of them. Mr. Burke stepped back to allow Janie to precede him up the stairs. She paused on the top step, looking back, frowning at him through the gloom. “Bay wouldn’t break his vows to Annabelle, whatever his feelings for Anne.”

Mr. Burke looked up at her, one brow raised. “Love makes men do strange things.”

“But does it make them someone other than themselves?” Janie yanked open the door, felt herself stagger as it gave more quickly than she had expected. She grabbed at the wall to steady herself. “Love is supposed to ennoble the soul, not degrade it.”

Mr. Burke followed her into the house, shutting the door behind them. Without the moon, it felt very dark in the hall, very dark and close. He leaned a hand on the wall beside her head. “You’ve been reading too much poetry, Miss Van Duyvil. An honorable man might steal to feed his starving child. That’s love, too. Is that out of character?”

Janie squinted at him, trying to make out his features. “But it’s not the same. That’s a question of … of survival.”

“And love, romantic love, isn’t?” Mr. Burke’s voice was very soft. Janie could smell the whisky on his breath, feel his arm flex as he leaned against the wall. “If you can say that, Miss Van Duyvil, you’ve never been in love.”

Janie wasn’t sure why, but she found that particularly infuriating. Perhaps because it was true. She shifted, bringing their bodies closer, chest to chest. “Just because I don’t believe love needs to destroy everything it touches?”

“Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide arch / Of the ranged empire fall. Here is my space.” Mr. Burke’s voice was beautiful in the darkness. Janie could feel the words like a caress.

But not for her. They were someone else’s words. Antony’s to Cleopatra. Mr. Burke had been an actor once. Janie lifted her chin. “Kingdoms are but clay? That’s not love; that’s selfishness.”

Mr. Burke laughed softly. “Mark Antony wasn’t exactly known for his public spiritedness. But then it was his enemies who wrote the histories. So what do we know?”

Here, in this dark and empty house. What did she know, indeed? Janie felt strangely deflated. Janie ducked her head. “Nothing.” What did she know of love or hate or deep emotion? “Nothing at all.”

Mr. Burke put a finger under her chin, tilting her face up. “You’re shivering.”

Janie met his eyes. “It’s cold.”

Janie couldn’t see his face in the gloom, even so close to hers, but she could hear the smile in Mr. Burke’s voice. “Ever practical.”

She knew she shouldn’t, but the compulsion was too strong. Janie put a hand up to touch his face. Her finger grazed his lip. How odd that a man’s lips should be so soft. His cheek was lightly stubbled against her palm. “You’re mocking me.”

He caught her hand in his, too tightly. “Don’t they say we mock what we most admire?”

Janie shook her head, feeling the wall behind her chignon, her hair catching on the cracks in the paper. “I’ve never heard that.”

“You have now.” Her hand was still caught in his, suspended in space. With his free hand, Mr. Burke traced the line of a stray lock of hair, tucking it back behind her ear. His knuckle brushed her cheek. “We mock what we can’t have.”

Janie’s brain didn’t quite want to work. The world had narrowed to the tiny square of hallway, to Mr. Burke’s fingers against her cheek, to the powerful grip of his fingers around hers.

This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t her. She was somewhere else entirely—in her cold bed in town, or sitting in a chair by the library, dreaming a whisky-soaked dream. But it certainly felt real: Mr. Burke’s hand around hers, his breath against her cheek, the warmth of him, the scent of him.

She meant to say something clever, but her voice wouldn’t work properly. Her hand was against Mr. Burke’s chest; she could feel every fiber of his coat beneath her fingers, every fold and wrinkle.

Mr. Burke’s fingers tangled in the thickness of her chignon, and there was no more room for anything but the feeling of his lips against hers in the chill dark of the abandoned house.

Tarrytown, 1894

October