Emily, who has fallen in love with her husband after reading his journal (sections of it introduce each chapter), prepares to go on safari to search for him. Then word comes through that Philip may actually be alive.
Emily learns from this unsavory acquaintance that Philip’s British Museum gifts are actually copies and the originals are stockpiled at his country estate. However, he will not identify his well-heeled patrons. At the Louvre, she befriends Attewater, an expert forger who specializes in copying classical artifacts on commission. Andrew, who at first charms Emily with his debonair cynicism about society, and his acceptance of her rebellions (drinking port instead of sherry, studying ancient Greek), turns hostile when she rejects his proposal. Colin, to whom she is attracted, is frustratingly unforthcoming about Philip’s business dealings-and his own. Philip’s desk and her Paris hotel room are ransacked.
A man with a scarred face stalks her while she is inspecting the antiquities her husband donated to the British Museum. But she soon sees signs that Philip had had things to hide. Widowed after only six months of marriage to a man she hardly knew, Emily is relieved and secretly exhilarated by her inherited fortune and the independence it offers. His fellow hunters, impoverished aristocrats Andrew and Arthur Palmer and best friend Colin Hargreaves, report that he died of a mysterious fever at camp. Shortly after their marriage, Philip leaves Emily in their London townhouse and embarks on an extended African safari. Her new husband has two passions: acquiring ancient Greek vases and statuary, and big-game hunting. A young widow immerses herself in antiquity and uncovers a scandal in Alexander’s Victorian-era suspense debut.Įmily married Philip, a wealthy viscount, mainly to escape her overbearing mother’s constant hectoring.
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