Page 85 of The English Wife

Janie’s hands felt like ice, but her chest burned. “I want you to leave, Mr. Burke,” she said, her voice cold and hard and steady. “Leave now.”

“Please. Let me try to explain.” Mr. Burke put out a hand to her. He wasn’t wearing his gloves, Janie noticed, and his fingers were blue from the cold. “Miss Van Duyvil. Genevieve.”

It was his use of her name that stiffened Janie’s spine and her resolve. Sharply, she said, “There are women waiting for me inside. You may have all the time in the world, but they don’t.”

Mr. Burke made a deprecating face. “Surely, ten minutes—”

Did he think that ten minutes was all it would take to wheedle her around? Janie grasped the handle of the door, tugging against the wind. “You may not value their time, but I do. These are women who took time out of earning their livings because they want to better themselves.”

Mr. Burke grasped the door above her hand, holding it for her. “By learning which fork to use?”

“Don’t you dare mock them.” Janie swirled through the door in a tangle of worsted and indignation. “Knowing how to set a table could make the difference between getting a position in a big house and no work at all.”

“So you’re training your own servants,” retorted Burke. “How noble.”

“I never claimed to be noble,” snapped Janie. “I learn far more from them than they do from me. But what little I can share, I do. Can you say you do the same?”

Burke took a step back, holding up a hand defensively. “I inform the public.”

“And charge them for it, too,” riposted Janie. “Three pennies a paper.”

“We can’t all live on Fifth Avenue,” Burke shot back. “Some of us have to earn a wage.”

Janie felt a magnificent rage swell through her. “I won’t deny that my family wronged you, Mr. Burke, but I refuse to be part of your revenge. And I refuse to be made to feel guilty for what I am. I couldn’t help it any more than you. You, at least, have the power to go out into the world and earn your own wage. While I—”

“Yes?” said Burke.

The memory of all the empty years came flooding back. The hours of hiding in her room, hiding from her mother, hiding from herself. But she’d had enough. She wasn’t hiding anymore. “I teach table manners. And I won’t keep my students waiting. There’s a gate in the garden. I suggest you use it.”

And she left Mr. Burke standing alone in the winter-bare garden, feeling, at the same time, both very powerful and very bereft.

Cold Spring, 1896

May

“Duck, Mama! Duck!”

Georgie raised a hand in response to her daughter, who was already toddling past, Polly the duck bobbing up and down on her string, Bast stumbling along behind, making grabs for the duck’s wooden tail. The weather had finally turned, and the day was just warm enough to play outdoors, the children reveling in the bright new grass, in the freedom of the wide lawn that stretched away along the back of the house, as their nurse darted behind them, ready to catch them if they should tumble.

It felt like heaven to be outdoors again, to feel the sun through the brim of her hat, to watch her children—her children!—play. The old white house seemed to smile behind them, brighter for a new coat of paint, but otherwise unchanged from the day Bay had brought her there over a year before.

Georgie had fallen in love with the place at once, although whether it had been the house itself, with its quaint simplicity, or the simple fact that it was an hour from Bay’s mother, she couldn’t say.

It had been expected that they would return to town eventually, but the birth hadn’t been an easy one. Society had agreed that it was admirable, if a bit baffling, that Bay would stay with his wife as she recovered. It had become less admirable and a great deal more baffling as they had stayed and stayed and stayed, even as Georgie regained her health. Illyria, Bay had jokingly called the house when they had first arrived, but that was what it felt like to Georgie, an enchanted kingdom where they might do as they pleased.

And if she felt a bit restless from time to time as her health and spirits returned to her, well, that was surely a product of the dark, cold, winter months, when the house felt less welcoming and more confining. But the sun was out again and the children were beginning to cease being mere ciphers and become people, a transformation that Bay, in particular, watched with no little fascination.

“Duck, Mama!” Viola called again.

Viola was just over a year old, and already saying words, or at least a handful of them. Bay thought her quite brilliant. Sebastian was quieter, but easier on his feet, building up the blocks Viola knocked down, picking up the toys she dropped.

Was that what it had been like with her and George? Georgie couldn’t remember, and there was no one now to tell her. But she could remember the feel of her brother’s hand in hers, even now.

There were times when she couldn’t believe her luck, that through all the ups and downs, the uneasy times, she had come to this, this peaceful place where she was undisputed mistress, where she could watch her children play and know that they would never have to wonder who their mother was, or face the scorn of society. There were other times when a cloud would pass over the sun, and she would shiver, sure that a reckoning would come.

The air above her darkened, and a pair of hands settled on her shoulders, making her jump. “Hello,” said her husband, leaning around her hat to press a kiss to her cheek.

“You startled me.” Georgie tilted her head back, feeling the sun on her face. “You’re back early.”