Page 138 of The English Wife

“You forget. I met your mother,” said Burke drily. He looked into Janie’s eyes, his voice softening. “She didn’t give you much reason to love her, did she?”

Janie gave a laugh that turned into a hiccup. She put a hand to her mouth. “My mother was charming,” she said in a muffled voice. “That’s what everyone says. But I never saw it. She never wasted her charm on me.”

Silently, Burke put an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close.

Janie leaned into the comfort of that arm, the words spilling out. “She didn’t bother to charm my father either, not after she had caught him. The only one she cared about was Bay. I think she saw him as the man she might have been. Or perhaps as the man she wanted my father to be. Does that sound mad?”

“No,” said Burke. “No, it doesn’t.”

But Janie hardly heard him. She was lost in the tangled web of her own thoughts, thoughts that had always been there, but that she had never dared to voice. “With my mother … it always came back to my mother.” There had been portraits of Mrs. Van Duyvil everywhere, larger-than-life full-length portraits in the reception rooms at Newport, greeting visitors from the top of the stairs at the house on Thirty-Sixth Street. Portraits of ancestors had been relegated to dark corners, shunted off to relatives. Only Alva Van Duyvil was allowed to shine. “Her whole world was a mirror. Nothing existed except in relation to her.”

“Even her daughter?” said Burke quietly.

“Especially her daughter.” Janie’s fingers tightened on the lapels of Burke’s jacket. “Killing Bay—it must have driven her mad. As if she had taken a knife to herself. She wasn’t just killing Bay, she was killing her own legacy with it. It’s like something out of Sophocles, but the curtain doesn’t go up at the end.”

Burke’s eyes flickered towards the window, where Illyria burned still and Janie’s mother with it. “She took her punishment. For what it’s worth.”

Janie thought of her mother standing in the window, lit by the flames. Reluctantly, she shook her head. “I don’t know whether it was punishment or pride. If we hadn’t discovered the truth, would she have gone on like that? Could she?”

Burke didn’t feed her soothing lies. “I don’t know.”

Now that she had started talking, Janie couldn’t seem to stop. “Do you know, I was jealous of Bay? Everything was so easy for him. He seemed … he seemed to have a talent for always doing what was expected of him. Until Annabelle.” Janie winced. “Georgiana, I mean. Whoever she was. I’d never thought that Bay might be running away. I’d never thought that he’d had anything to run from. I’m not making much sense, am I?”

“You’ve just been through hell,” said Burke roughly. “I’d say you’re making more sense than you should.”

“Should I have hysterics like Gregson and be sent off to bed with a bellyful of laudanum?”

All those years of tisanes to calm her nerves. Her nerves had never needed calming, not like that. But it had been a convenient excuse for her mother, a way to shunt her out of sight, keep her under control.

Janie could hear her own voice, higher and higher, faster and faster, the words spilling out before she could think better of them. “I think I thought that if I could find out who killed Bay, my mother might finally look at me. She might think I … I wasn’t such a disappointment. I told myself it was for Bay—or for Bay’s children—but, really, it was for me. All those grand pronouncements about truth—how could you stand to listen to me? That wasn’t what I wanted. All I wanted was for my mother to notice me.”

“Hush.” Burke reached out to stroke her hair, and Janie jerked away, a jangle of raw nerves, jumpy in her own skin. “Do you think anyone’s motives are pure? Just because you wanted your mother’s attention doesn’t mean—”

“That I’m not St. Genevieve?” Janie swiped at her eyes. She gestured wildly at the window. “I lit a larger candle than I intended, didn’t I? So much for lighting the world. I burned it down instead.”

Burke grasped her shoulders with both hands. “Janie. Janie. Listen to me. Look at me. That chimney would have exploded no matter what you did.”

“But would my mother have chosen to—” She couldn’t make her lips form around the words. “She’s dead, and I can never make it better now.”

“She killed her son.” Burke held tightly to her shoulders, holding her gaze with his own, speaking rapidly. “Can you imagine having to relive that moment, over and over? She said it herself. She took the only way out she could. Janie, it wasn’t your doing. Any of it.”

Just a little cog on the wheel of events beyond her control. Janie choked on a laugh. “I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.”

“What do you want me to tell you?” Burke’s voice broke, and Janie realized, with a shock, that he was on the verge of cracking. “You did what you had to do, and you had the guts to see it through. Do you want expiation? Talk to a priest.” He gave her a little shake. “You’re the strongest woman I know, Janie Van Duyvil. Don’t go wobbly on me now.”

“Is that what you say on all your condolence calls?” quipped Janie shakily.

Burke’s arms closed convulsively around her, squeezing her tight. “I’ve been so afraid,” he muttered into her hair. “This morning, when I learned about Lacey, I thought—”

“I know,” murmured Janie, burrowing into his shirtfront, her arms beneath his coat, locked around his waist.

Burke was still talking, his cheek against her brow, half in a dream. “I was so terrified that I was going to lose you, that I was never going to get a chance to tell you I love you.”

“Love? Me?” Janie pulled back, staring at him, and saw the look of alarm cross Burke’s face as he realized what he had said. “You love me?”

“I didn’t mean to … it’s a hell of a time to say it, isn’t it? I wasn’t going to.” He drew in a deep breath. Janie could feel it reverberating through her own lungs. His green eyes held hers, defiantly. “But it’s true. I love you. I shouldn’t and I can’t, but I do.”

The fire cast an orange light across his skin. Janie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You’re right. It is a hell of a time.” Words she never thought would come out of her mouth. But she was different now; they were all different. “Burke—”