Page 95 of The English Wife

“Taking mistresses and losing too much at cards?” retorted Georgie. She felt the puff of breath against her hair as Bay gave a choked laugh. “We’ve never done anything in the ordinary way, have we?” she said hoarsely. Bay shook his head in response.

She wasn’t sure how long they stood like that, their arms wrapped around one another. Her hair felt suspiciously damp, but she wouldn’t for the world have said anything about it. She only held Bay tighter, wishing Anne to perdition, wishing the world to perdition, wishing she could dig a moat around the house and set them all adrift on the sea, away from all harm, floating like Noah above the waters.

But even Noah had come to land eventually, hadn’t he?

Georgie drew in an uneven breath. “A house wouldn’t be such a terrible thing, would it?” she said. “I always wanted to be mistress of Lacey Abbey.”

The words tasted like ashes on her tongue.

“We can find another architect.” Bay’s voice sounded rusty. His hands gripped her like Sebastian’s after a nightmare, holding tight to her dress in the middle of the night.

“No.” Georgie drew back, looking at her husband’s red eyes, the crease in his cheek where her hair had made a line. She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Weren’t you the one who told me that running away never solves anything? I … I liked your Mr. Pruyn.”

As much as one could like a rival for one’s husband’s affections.

There was a queen of England, Georgie remembered vaguely, who had chosen her husband’s mistress for him, groomed her, presented her. Because if she hadn’t, someone else would. She had kept her husband and his mistress under her eye, made them her own. Just one happy family.

“It’s better this way,” said Georgie, as much for herself as Bay.

In the country, no one need know. In the country, there would be no rumors of intimate tête-à-têtes in Anne’s parlor. Other women’s husbands had vices, too. Some consorted with loose women; others lost fortunes over cards. Surely, this wasn’t such a dreadful form of vice. Just another weakness to be managed, like a taste for betting on horses.

She was being sensible, that was it. Sensible. This was the sensible thing to do. But why did she feel like the word was about to choke her?

She took a step away, a step away from Bay, not looking at him. “How many women have husbands who build them a house for their very own? It’s a romantic gesture, isn’t it? It will be the talk of the town.”

“Georgie—” Bay’s voice was very low.

“We’ll have Mr. Pruyn here to stay with us. It’s a big project; surely his other clients can spare him.” Georgie kept on talking, faster and faster, knowing that if she didn’t say this now, she never would, that she would stick her head back in the sand and try to pretend everything was as it should be.

Until the next Mr. Pruyn, the next Charlie Ogden. Better to come to terms with this Mr. Pruyn, to keep it all under her own roof, under her control. She wouldn’t let Anne outmaneuver her.

“If Mr. Pruyn should … if he should chance to wander into the wrong room…” Georgie couldn’t bring herself to be more explicit. “I will make no objection to it. Provided the children and the servants don’t know.”

Bay said nothing.

“Am I mistaken?” Georgie’s voice had a desperate edge. “Tell me if I’m mistaken.”

Slowly, Bay moved his head. Just the slightest fraction, but it was enough.

“I would have told you if I knew how,” he said, and Georgie felt his helplessness right down to her bones. He had tried to tell her, hadn’t he? About Charlie. And she hadn’t let him, any more than he had let her tell him about Annabelle.

They had both wanted to hold on to their illusions.

She could tell him now. She could even the scales. But the words were frozen on her tongue even as Bay dropped down to his knees in front of her, saying, “I should have told you. But I … I didn’t know what to tell.” In a softer voice, he said, “I couldn’t bear for you to despise me.”

In England, they jailed men for relations with other men. It was something nice women weren’t supposed to know about, but she wasn’t a nice woman; she was an actress.

“I don’t despise you.” She didn’t, not really. She despised herself more than him. Georgie reached for his hands and gripped them as tightly as she could. “I don’t want to expose you, Bay. Why would I? It would be horrible for all of us. I just want you … I want you to have what you want.”

Bay looked up at her with something like hope. Raggedly, he said, “And what about you? What do you want?”

“What I’ve always wanted,” she lied. “Lacey Abbey. I get a house out of this, don’t I?”

She tried her best to sound cocky, but it was a desperate failure.

“Georgie.” Bay rose to his knees, her hands in his, like a scene from an old painting, like a suitor in a garden, only this wasn’t what it seemed, was it? It had never been what it seemed. “I never meant to hurt you. I thought I could … I thought it would go away.”

Georgie blinked back the tears stinging her eyes. It wouldn’t do to blubber. Hoarsely, she said, “It might be worse. You might keep mistresses like Teddy. Or have intrigues with my friends.”