Cold Spring, 1899
January 5
“May I have a word?”
Georgie caught up with Bay near the rose garden—or rather what would be the rose garden at some point in the spring. Right now, it was a twig-and-thorn garden, spiky and joyless. He was conferring with David about the placement of the Chinese lanterns for tomorrow night, rather a ridiculous exercise, thought Georgie, given that it was too cold for any sane person to voluntarily seek the outdoors.
But then this was the cream of New York society they were inviting. Sanity wasn’t always a prerequisite.
“Certainly,” said Bay, and waited.
Georgie darted a glance at David, who was tactfully inspecting a twig. Frustration seized her at having to beg for even this small crumb, the right to speak to her own bloody husband without a bloody audience. “In private?”
“I’ll just be in the music room,” said David, and disappeared around an elaborate bit of topiary, leaving Georgie feeling as though she’d kicked a puppy. It would be easier if David weren’t so likable, if she could indulge in the treat of thoroughly resenting her husband’s lover without having to feel guilty about it every time she asserted her rights. Whatever those were.
“What is it?” asked Bay, but Georgie couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes flicked over her shoulder as he said it, marking David’s progress back to the house.
“Not here,” said Georgie. There were too many people about, gardeners and caterers and goodness only knew who. Through the bare branches of the trees, she could see the eaves of the old house, sturdy and plain. “Let’s go to the old house. We can be private there.”
“Let’s hope there’s still some coal in the grate,” joked Bay, offering an arm.
He hadn’t minded the cold when he was with David.
Georgie pushed the thought aside, threading her arm through her husband’s. There was something about the nearness of him, his size, his touch, his smell, that made her feel safe, even now, even with Giles roaming the grounds, even knowing that David was in the music room waiting and hordes of guests were coming to disturb their peace tomorrow. There was something so very solid about Bay, so very safe.
They’d weathered so much already. Surely, together, they could find a way to deal with Giles. Bay would understand. Georgie could feel the tight knot in her stomach beginning to relax at the thought of unburdening herself, being able, finally, to tell Bay the whole truth. He’d told her his truth; now it was her turn.
Imperfect lovers, that was what they were. And hardly lovers anymore. But at least their imperfections matched, two imposters showing false faces to the world. But not to each other, not anymore.
Surely, that was a bond stronger than sharing a bed?
“It does feel small after the new house, doesn’t it?” said Bay as they took the back stairs up to the nursery.
Georgie looked with affection at the narrow doorframe, the way the house closed around her like an embrace. “It feels like home.”
Bay looked down at her, the skin around his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “But Lacey Abbey is your home. Your real home.”
In the nursery, Old King Cole led his musicians in a merry measure and Little Bo Peep looked forlornly for her sheep.
“About that—” Georgie began.
“Do you not like the house?” Bay looked at her with concern, that look that always seemed to say that she was the most important thing in the world and her wish was his command. Even when it quite frequently wasn’t.
“It’s not about the house. Not really.” Stalling, Georgie walked through to the empty nurse’s room. She knelt by the grate. “There’s enough coal for a fire.”
“I’ll do it,” said her husband, who had never lit his own fire in his life and stood looking helplessly from the kindling basket to the coal scuttle.
“Here.” Striking a lucifer, Georgie lit a piece of kindling, setting it down on the grate. She placed sticks from the wood basket over it, waiting until they caught before reaching for the coal.
“At least let me dirty my own hands,” said Bay, and set down the chunks of coal for her, gingerly, on top of the kindling wood. There was something about the way he looked at the smuts on his hands, trying to think of a place to wipe them clean, that made her heart twist, the way it did when Sebastian tried to feed himself and got porridge all around his mouth instead of in it.
“Now,” said Bay, putting both hands on her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
His sympathy almost undid her. For a moment, it was five years ago and she was alone and scared and Bay was a broad-shouldered stranger, Sir Galahad and Lancelot rolled into one.
“Do you remember,” Georgie began and then had to stop and clear her throat. “Do you remember, when we first met and I told you that I was raised as Annabelle’s companion?”
“Of course,” said Bay fondly. “But it wasn’t hard to guess the truth.”
“That was the truth.” Bay blinked at her, and Georgie hurried on, trying to get it over with as quickly as possible. “You were so sure that I … it didn’t seem worth arguing. And it seemed fair in a way to get to be Annabelle, after all the trouble I had gone through for her sake…” Georgie’s voice faltered to a stop. She wished Bay would say something. Anything. She took a deep breath and laid herself bare. “The real truth of it is that I didn’t want to risk losing you. You were … you were everything I had ever dreamed of, and I couldn’t bear to let you go.”
She blinked away the tears stinging the back of her eyes. She’d got her deserts, hadn’t she? She’d lied and seen her fairy tale turned on its head. If she’d been honest … no. It didn’t work that way. And she had more than most. She had a friend.
She hoped.
“I don’t understand,” said Bay hoarsely.
Which meant that he did. Georgie’s hands were shaking, so she wrapped them together, trying to steady herself. She knew him so well, her Bay. Her Bay who liked to avoid bother, who preferred to pretend not to see what he didn’t want to see.
“What I told you then was true, Bay. Annabelle was my half sister. My real name is Georgiana. Georgiana Smith. You would think they could have come up with a more inventive surname, couldn’t you?” Georgie tried to smile, but it didn’t come out quite right. It hurt, that smile.
“You’re not Annabelle Lacey,” said Bay. He said it as though he hoped he were wrong.
“Annabelle is married to a sheep farmer in New South Wales. We had an arrangement. I would help her escape, and in return—” You can have Giles if you want him. “In return, I would take her place. It just didn’t work out as well as we had planned.”
“You told me you were Annabelle.”
“No.” She couldn’t let him think that. She might have lied by omission, but never on purpose, not to Bay. “You decided I must be Annabelle and … it was too much trouble to disabuse you.”
Even as she said it, she realized how weak it sounded. She could see it in Bay’s face in the way he looked at her, as though she were something unpleasant that had come out from under the carpet.
“Bay. Everything else was true. Everything else I told you. I did grow up at Lacey Abbey. I did have a brother named George who died. Annabelle and I were sisters, Bay. Blood sisters.”
Georgie reached for her husband, and he stepped back, away from her. She felt something in her chest turn to ash, like the coals on the hearth.
Why was it always like this? Why, why, why? Always apologizing for not being Annabelle, for being the lesser one, for wanting anything of her own.
Georgie’s voice rose. “I might have been Annabelle, if circumstances had been different. We had the same father and the same upbringing. My mother just lacked the marriage lines.”
Bay’s Adam’s apple moved up and down. He pressed his eyes closed and then said hoarsely, “Who else knows?”
Georgie swallowed a wave of hurt. That wasn’t what she’d wanted; she’d wanted Bay to fold her in his arms and press her head to his chest and tell her not to worry, that a name was just a name, that she was the one he cared for, that he would make it all better. That he loved her, whoever she might be.
Georgie forced her lips to move. “Giles Lacey. He came because of David.”
And wasn’t that something? She wasn’t the only one who had omitted the truth. But Bay didn’t seem to realize the parallels. “Will he expose you?”
“He says he will.” There was only a yard between them, but Bay felt a very long way away. “But, Bay, I don’t see how. It’s just his word against ours. Who would believe him?”
“Unless he can find proof.”
“What sort of proof? Our nurse used to say she could only tell us apart when she saw us side by side. Even if someone were to see me—someone who knew us both—it’s been seven years, Bay! I’ve changed. Annabelle will have changed, too. Why couldn’t I be Annabelle now? Even if someone had pictures of us both … who’s to say which is which now?”
“Pictures,” Bay muttered, a strange expression crossing his face. He turned on his heel without another word, moving rapidly from the room.
Georgie hurried after him. “Bay, wait—”
But it wasn’t the stairs he was heading for, it was their old bedroom. Georgie felt her chest constrict at the onslaught of memories, the way Bay had rubbed her feet when she was heavy with the twins; the way he had cradled her and read her poetry by the light of a single candle when their stirring and kicking had meant that she couldn’t sleep, and Bay had said if she wasn’t sleeping, then he couldn’t either. Until he had fallen asleep, that was.
“Bay,” began Georgie, thinking of everything they had shared, of the children. “We can make this right—I’m sure we can.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” said Bay tersely, dropping to his knees and pulling out a box from underneath the bed. It was an old hatbox filled with a miscellany of papers and photographs. He brushed past her, the hatbox round in his arms. “Making this right.”
He was making back for the nursery, for the warmth of the nurse’s room, where the coals cracked and popped on the grate.
“What are those?” Georgie asked breathlessly, half tripping on her skirt as she stumbled after him, trying to close the distance.
“Proof,” said Bay in a clipped voice, and before she could stop him, he dropped a handful of papers on the grate.
Georgie coughed at the acrid smell as the photograph paper caught fire. She could see her own face begin to blacken and curl.
“Bay!” She lunged for the grate, but her husband caught her by the wrist. Papers scattered.
“Don’t you see?” Bay’s strong arm was between her and the grate, and Georgie could hear the desperation in his voice, the fear. “It’s the only way to make it go away. If he doesn’t have any pictures, he can’t compare them.”
Georgie smacked hard against his chest. That had been a picture of them both with the twins, her babies when they were still small enough to be held one in each arm, gone, gone up in smoke as though it never was.
“And what about me, Bay?” She smacked him again, her eyes blurred with tears. “How do you make me go away?”
“I’m not trying to make you go away.” Releasing her, Bay sat down heavily on the bed, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“Then what’s all—” Georgie gestured wordlessly at the floor. The debris of their life together lay scattered around her feet. A playbill from the Ali Baba, a photograph of her archery triumph that first summer at Newport. “You can’t make the past five years go away by throwing them on the fire. It doesn’t work that way.”
“I wasn’t trying to get rid of the past five years. I just wanted—”
“What?”
“What else am I supposed to do, Georgie? How else am I supposed to fix this?” Bay lifted his head and looked at her helplessly. “I don’t know what to do, Georgie. I don’t know what else to do.”
Georgie looked at his bewildered face, feeling as though she’d rowed out from shore a long ways only to find that the boat was leaking, probably had been leaking all along. Where was the Bay she had thought she knew, the one who solved problems, who made everything better?
He had never existed, she realized. She had invented him out of a quiet manner and a pair of broad shoulders.
“We’ll do what we always do,” she said. “Go on. Pretend it’s not there. We’re very good at pretending.”
Just as they had pretended Charlie never happened, just as they pretended that David was merely a good friend. Just as she had pretended to herself that once the house was finished and the ball was over, their lives would be different.
But they wouldn’t, would they? This was what it was, what they were.
“Georgie, this is serious,” Bay said, and Georgie felt her hackles rise, because what did that mean? Did it mean that nothing else was, had been? “I’m not even sure if our marriage is valid. I think it is—but it’s not something that’s ever arisen in my practice.”
“Our marriage is valid as long as we say it is.” Georgie stared at her husband, willing him to understand. “Who’s to say I’m not Annabelle if we both say I am?”
Bay shook his head. “The law doesn’t work like that.”
“Why not?” demanded Georgie. “I’ve spent years lying for you, Bay. I’ve let people accuse me of goodness only knows what so that your reputation can remain unsullied. I’ve let you keep your lover under the same roof as our children, for the love of God. And this is all you can tell me? That the law doesn’t work that way?”
Bay scraped a hand through his hair, the same color as Bast’s. “What do you want me to do, Georgie? I can’t change your birth.”
The words left a nasty taste in Georgie’s mouth. “Is that you speaking or your mother? Forgive me. I had forgotten about the great legacy of the Van Duyvils. I’m so sorry I tainted your sacred bloodline. You’ll have to change the quarterings on your coat of arms now, won’t you? Add a bar sinister and maybe some theater masks.”
Bay let her rant herself out, speaking with a patience that made Georgie want to throw something straight at his head. “I didn’t mean it that way. I certainly don’t think of you that way, but the world—”
“Bugger the world.” There was something strangely satisfying about the shock on Bay’s face, about knowing that she’d triggered some emotion. “Bugger them all. What do I care about the world or the world about me? I cared about you, Bay. And I thought you cared for me.”
Bay half rose from the bed. “I do. I do care for you.”
Georgie blinked back tears. “But not enough to fight for me. Not enough to say to hell with the world, to hell with Giles Lacey, to hell with everyone who isn’t us.” She wasn’t aware of what she was going to say until the words came out, crackling in the air between them. “I want a divorce.”
“Georgie…” Bay looked like he didn’t know whether to reach for her or back away. “You don’t mean that. Do you?”
“I—” It was mad. There were the children to think of. But Anne had been right. Divorce wasn’t the bar it had once been. And the children were Van Duyvils. The Van Duyvil name covered a multitude of sins. And what would it be to be free? Not alone and scared as she had been all those years ago, but an independent woman of means? “I don’t know.”
Bay sank back down on the bed, looking up at her with a combination of concern and skepticism. “Is this about David?”
“No. It’s not about David, Bay.” Except insomuch as she wanted someone who looked at her the way David looked at Bay, as though she’d hung the moon in the sky. “I want someone who loves me enough to stand by me.”
Bay’s brow furrowed. “Haven’t I stood by you?”
“No. You whisked me away. It’s not the same thing.” Bay’s face was a mask of incomprehension. Georgie took a deep breath. “Let’s put it this way. Would you have married me if you had known who I was?”
The moment of hesitation told her all she needed to know. “I married you knowing you were an actress,” Bay offered.
“It’s not the same, is it?” Georgie smiled crookedly, because it was either that or crying. “I want someone who will tell the world to go to blazes for me. Maybe that person doesn’t exist—but I’m sick of being second best, Bay.”
“But … divorce?”
The way he said it made Georgie think of his mother. “Are you afraid you won’t be received?”
Bay showed a spark of life. “I don’t give a … I don’t care what Mrs. Astor thinks of us. But what about the children, Georgie? They’ll be damaged goods. You know that.”
“They’re Van Duyvils. As you’ve pointed out, that counts for something in your world.” His world. Never really hers. Georgie wasn’t sure what her world was. But she knew she wanted the chance to find out. “Alva Vanderbilt’s children don’t seem to have suffered.”
“It’s not just the … the social repercussions.” Georgie watched Bay struggled for the words and felt her heart ache for him. He looked up at her with that honesty she had never been able to resist. “I do love you, Georgie.”
“I know.” Georgie sat down on the bed beside him and felt Bay’s arm come around her shoulders. He smelled of bay rum and Mrs. Gerritt’s own secret soap. So familiar. So safe. She wanted to bury her head in his chest and stay there forever. Georgie let her head drop into the familiar place on his shoulder. She didn’t want a divorce. Not really. Not entirely. “We don’t need to do anything hasty. Bast gets that horrible cough every winter. No one would think it odd if I were to take the twins away for a season. To Italy, perhaps. Or Switzerland. Just to see.”
She could feel Bay’s cheek against the top of her head, his breath ruffling her hair. How many times had they sat like this?
“Why not Florida?” Bay asked, his voice muffled.
Georgie rubbed her cheek against his jacket, feeling the rub of the wool. “Your mother’s rule extends to Sarasota Springs.”
Bay coughed in a way that sounded suspiciously like a sob. “Don’t take them away from me, Georgie.”
“Only for a season, Bay.” Georgie straightened in his arms, looking him in the face, seeing the familiar tracery of lines around his eyes, the faint gold around his chin. “You’re their father. They adore you. I would never try to take them away from you.”
“What if I gave up David?” Bay sounded like a little boy, promising to give up his pudding if it meant he could have his old dog back. “What then?”
Part of Georgie wanted to leap at the offer. But what did that mean, really? That Bay loved her, she knew. But not enough. Never enough. “And make you miserable for nothing?” she said with an attempt at humor that failed utterly. “I want something for me, Bay. Something that’s mine.”
Not Annabelle’s leavings, not the crumbs of her husband’s attention.
“I would offer you jewels,” said Bay with a touch of the wry humor that had won her heart, “but I don’t think that will answer, will it?”
“No. I’ve never longed for jewels.” Pushing herself up from the bed, Georgie began shuffling up the papers Bay had dropped on the floor, the ones that hadn’t gone into the fire. Back into the hatbox they went. “We should go back.”
Bay didn’t move. “We can resolve all this, Georgie. I know we can. There’s no need for divorce.”
Georgie looked down at her husband. “Even if Giles Lacey tells the world I’m not Annabelle? Your mother will be clamoring for the papers to be drawn.”
“You said it yourself. If we stand together, it’s our word against his.” Georgie admired the attempt at resolution, even if it wasn’t entirely convincing. “Or we could pay him off.”
“No,” said Georgie firmly. “If we give him money, he’ll only present that as proof that we had something to hide. We’ll never be free of him. And neither will Viola or Sebastian.”
Bay flexed his neck, wincing. “Then what are we going to do about him?”
This was the response she had wanted: working together as a pair. But something about the way Bay said it made her feel more alone than before.
One thing she did know, she wasn’t going to let Giles Lacey get the better of her. Not again.
Georgie held out a hand to help her husband up. “Leave him to me, Bay. I’ll think of something.”
Bay took the offered hand, rising stiffly to his feet. “I could have Mr. Tilden speak to him.”
“What is he going to do, bore him to death? Mr. Tilden would run straight to your mother, you know.”
Bay grimaced. “Maybe that’s what we need. There’s no one more fearsome than my mother in a snit.”
“A snit doesn’t sound very fearsome,” said Georgie, plunking the hatbox into her husband’s arms.
“It does,” said Bay, “when it’s my mother.”