“No. Is there anything else?”

“Could we not—”

“There will be no further discussion on this topic.” He nodded sharply towards a dark corner of the room, and a tall eunuch appeared from the shadows. “He will escort you out. I did, Lady Emily, very much enjoy components of our conversation.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but the eunuch’s firm grip on my arm stopped the words. He all but dragged me, not easing the pressure of his fingers until he’d deposited me outside the palace gates, leaving me standing, dumbfounded, already feeling the beginnings of bruises.

6 April 1892

Emily, Emily, Emily:

I am writing this letter without giving you a single clue as to where I am. This is due entirely to the fact that I’m a dreadful and unredeemable human being who likes to torment her friends. You’ll forgive me, though, in the end. I’ve embarked on a magnificent trip—one funded by my parents in exchange for letting them plan for me a wedding of the sort you so wisely avoided. Can you imagine what it would take to persuade me to accept such a thing? I need hardly tell you that I insist you and Colin come to New York for the hideous extravaganza.

My poor Mr. Michaels has no idea what he’s in for. He’s agreeable—as a fiancé ought to be—to anything so long as it doesn’t interfere with his responsibilities at Oxford. The nuptials will be between terms, so we’ll have only a brief honeymoon before he has to return to his academic duties. I confess to rather obscene excitement at the thought of watching him lecture and knowing that afterwards we’ll return home together. Every nerve is full of the greatest anticipation. Can you imagine the breadth of our conversation? The perfect joining of mind and body? But of course I need not explain this to you—for at the moment you’ve a greater volume of experience than I and know well the pleasures of an intellectual marriage. How lucky we both are!