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They would return to the Continent, far from the prying eyes of New York society. Ruby could see herself in Paris, perhaps writing as Mrs. Wharton did. She could see herself establishing a salon, like Miss Stein’s on the rue de Fleurus, and continuing to send her missives about life abroad to be published back in the States, as she’d been doing all summer. She could see Theo there in Paris as well, spending his mornings studying endless art in the many museums and his afternoons discussing his findings in the many salons. Theirs did not have to be a life of misery. It did not even have to be a life of regret.

And if Ruby often thought of a pair of violet eyes and the way her entire world had come into focus at the press of a single pair of soft lips? It did not matter. It could not matter. Viola had made that point quite clear. If Viola was not an option, Ruby would fill her life—and her heart—with other things.

Or at least, that was what she was telling herself as she pasted on a bright smile and prepared to follow Clara and Henry down the gangplank.

As she disembarked, she found Theo waiting in the crowd of the docks. It had been weeks since she’d seen him—almost as long since she’d had a letter from him—and she felt her whole self brighten at the sight of him there. She began to wave before she noticed his expression. He looked so very lost standing there in the midst of the smiling crowd that her stomach had turned itself into knots by the time she finally reached him.

“Hello,” she said, feeling suddenly and unbearably awkward as she looked up at his familiar handsome face.

He leaned down and placed a chaste kiss on her cheek, as he’d done a hundred times before. “I’ve missed you,” he said, and Ruby felt the truth of his words. But she knew implicitly that something was wrong.

“I’ve missed you too,” she told him, meaning it. “I haven’t heard from you in so long, I almost feared you’d forgotten me.”

He frowned at her. “I wrote to you,” he said. “Every week.”

“I haven’t received any letters.” She turned to Clara with a silent question and saw immediately the brazen satisfaction in her sister’s expression. “You took his letters?”

Clara raised her nose, imperious as ever. “We thought it best.”

“Then you don’t know?” Theo said before turning to Clara and Henry. “Tell me you’ve at least told her?”

“Told me what?” Ruby asked as her confusion grew.

“Everything’s been prepared,” Clara said. “What was there for her to know?”

“What was there for her to—” Theo rubbed his hand across his mouth. He looked at Ruby. “We’re to be married.”

“I know that,” she told him, confused at the frustration in his tone.

His mouth drew itself into a flat line. “We’re to be married on Thursday.”

“Thursday?” That couldn’t be right. She was supposed to have time—to plan, to prepare. She needed time to tell Theo about the life she dreamed they might have one day.

Theo was glaring at Clara. “I can’t believe you kept this from her.” He ran a hand through his usually perfect hair, mussing it in a way that was distinctly un-Theo. “What else doesn’t she know?”

Clara lifted her chin. “It isn’t the business of a wife to question.”

“What else is there?” Ruby demanded.

Her sister’s mouth grew grim. “I’ve only done what was necessary. It’s for your own good.”

“Her own good,” Theo mocked. He was well and truly angry now. “If you were stopping my letters, you should have prepared her.”

“Prepared me for what?”

Theo let out a ragged breath as he turned his attention back to Ruby. “We leave for my new post with the bank the day after our wedding. There won’t even be time for a wedding trip.”

Ruby looked at her sister, who was still tight-lipped and unrepentant, but she barely cared about Clara’s betrayal or secrecy. Even as she tried to understand what Theo was telling her, she knew. They were being sent away, exiled again. This was the Order’s doing. She was sure of it.

“Where are they sending us?” Ruby asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

He grimaced. “I can’t believe Clara took my letters. I’d already explained all of this.…”

“Where, Theo?”

His shoulders sank. “Kansas City.”

“Kansas City?” It might as well have been on another planet entirely. From the look of utter misery on Theo’s face, she knew he wasn’t any happier about the situation than she was.