“A rather wild agenda, isn’t it?” Sir Richard asked. “You might find you’d prefer Rome for ruins. It’s far safer.”

“I was not aware of problems at Ephesus,” Colin said, pointedly not looking at me as I raised an eyebrow.

“My son, Benjamin, is an archaeologist and spent some months with the team excavating there a year or so ago,” Sir Richard said. “There’s no longer the trouble they had there in the past, but I can’t say it’s a place I’d bring a new bride.”

This line of thought did not surprise me in the least. It was precisely what I expected from an ordinary Englishman and precisely the sort of reaction I had grown accustomed to dismissing without reply. “What has induced you to visit the Ottomans, Sir Richard?” I asked.

“Constantinople is my home. I work at the embassy.”

“Then you must tell us all the inside secrets of the city,” Colin said. “The places we shouldn’t miss.”

“You might consider hiring a guide to keep track of you unless you plan on staying in the Westernized parts of the city.”

“I’d much prefer an adventurous approach,” I said. “I want to have no doubt in my mind that I’m far from England.”

“You remind me of my wife. Not that she ever went to England—that she preferred adventure. An explorer like no other, my Assia.”

“Will she be dining with us tonight?” I asked.

“I’m afraid I lost her many years ago.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, a shard of grief piercing my stomach, bringing with it memories of Philip, whom I’d come to love only after he was gone. I owed my happiness with Colin in no small part to him. We would never have come to know each other were it not first for their friendship and second for Philip’s murder. And this was a realization that carried with it a large dose of complicated and bittersweet emotion.