Version Three: Prologue

London, 1838

First, she wished her efforts to contact her dear friend Angela would have come to fruition.

He seemed to always be in motion—stirring tea, spreading butter, leaning to one side to glance at the back garden out the window. Even at breakfast, in a room he’d entered almost fifty times in Kate’s presence, he looked everywhere about him, at anything that might have been of interest.

At this moment, he was perusing the freshly-ironed pages of the paper. He canted forward, as if leaning closer would bring the words to his eyes faster. And he shook his head as he read.

Everything, that is, except one thing.

He set the paper down now and for the first time that morning, his gaze fixed on her. His eyes were a dark, liquid brown, three shades beyond chocolate, uncannily dark next to the sandy brown of his hair. There was an essential sweetness to him, one that he couldn’t hide with any amount of fidgeting. She’d been stealing glances at him all morning, but this was the first time he’d looked at her.

Because there was only one thing that Mr. Edward Carhart did properly and politely, and it was his newly-acquired wife. From his morning greeting, to their separate bedrooms, to up and including the delicate propriety of marital intimacy. Towards her, he was every bit the gentleman—as if he were afraid that if he touched her too roughly, he’d smear the ink on their wedding license.

“Well,” Ned said, “So I was talking to Blakely a few days ago.” His tone was overly casual, the sort he would use to set up a joke. And if he was talking about his elder cousin, the marquess, a joke was likely coming. Ned was Blakely’s heir—for now—and Ned enjoyed tweaking the man.

“You know that some of our holdings are in the East India Company?”

If he’d known what she was thinking of when she said the word silk, he’d not sit there so sanguine. Because that was the essence of her plan—and the previously-executed shopping list. She’d purchased a filmy night rail made from imported silk on Bond Street. It fastened together in front by means of lavender ribbons, and those scraps of opaque fabric were the garment’s only concession to modesty.

“Opium was not on my shopping list.”

“In any case, Blakely and I were talking about the recent events in China,”—Ned shook his paper at her—”and we decided it would behoove someone to inquire more closely into what is going on over there.”

“By someone,” Ned said distinctly, “I mean me, and by over there, I meant China.”

“No. The Peerless is leaving St. Catharine’s at noon, and I intend to be on it.”

He shook his head. “Kate, we’ve been married three months. We both know that the only reason we’re here is because people found us alone together and imagined more than what happened. We married to stave off the scandal.”

He stood, not quite looking at her. He set his serviette down atop his plate and turned around. The world swirled around Kate, as flimsy and insubstantial as the night dress upstairs.

“Ned!”

She didn’t have the words to capture the cold tremor that ran through her. She settled on: “I wish you wouldn’t. I wish you would stay.”

“I wish,” he said hoarsely, “I wish I could.” And then he turned and left.

And so she stared at the empty doorframe where he’d disappeared.

At first glance, she felt a welcome sense of relief. Everything would be perfect again. She’d finally heard from Angela. At least one of her two plans had been successful. She’d found out why one of her oldest friends had stopped responding to her letters. Finally, she could do something to fix the situation.

This was no breezy communication, no light and gossipy letter. She’d finally heard about Angela. While Kate read, her hands grew cold. When she had finished, she shut her eyes. A little thing like her husband’s imminent departure paled beside this news.

She’d casted about, making only desultory inquiries into Angela’s situation. She’d wasted three months before she purchased her night rail. She’d imagined that any difficulties she’d encountered would be of the sort she could solve with a new, longer list of items, which hopefully could be obtained at the haberdashery.

She’d shut her eyes on a world that she’d assumed would be good to her. She opened them on a world of uncertainty. Only one thing was clear: She was going to need a better plan.

This is an uncorrected excerpt, although I've done my best to render it error-free.