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Tokyo, 1876
Everyone in Tokyo’s foreign quarter expects proper spinster Emmy Thurlow to fall at Roderick Battersby’s feet. He’s a fellow citizen of the British Empire, her brother’s longtime associate, and an aristocrat who shares her irrational hatred of beets.
What more could she want?
Sachio Miyoshi, the Japanese diplomat whose imminent departure has left her numb with grief.
Sachio rues the night he abandoned Emmy after she confessed her love. He ought to have told her she wasn’t alone in suffering the impossible. But doing so would’ve risked offending Emmy’s brother, and being in her brother’s good graces is imperative to Sachio’s England mission.
Before leaving Tokyo, he presents Emmy with a Yuletide gift to remember him by. This token of their forbidden love incites a brutal confrontation that gives them a chance to face down society’s dictates and choose their fates.
Excerpt from Forbidden
Chapter One
December 23, 1876
Tokyo, the foreign quarter of Tsukiji
Emmy Thurlow was numb. Surrounding her in the Grand Oriental Hotel’s dining room, guests offered toasts, conversed merrily, and sang snippets of holiday songs in French, English, Italian, Russian, and German. They sucked down oysters topped with sea-salty salmon roe and chewed on roasted wild boar with apple and juniper chutney. Unattached men filled every seat around the oval bar, their uproarious conversation raising the din to unbearable heights.
It was a grand bacchanal of Yuletide joy, and Emmy felt none of it.
Winnie leaned forward. Golden curls bobbed and brushed her peachy cheeks. The daughter of an American missionary and Emmy’s brother Clarence’s betrothed, she was always leaning, swaying, and jiggling. “Emmy? Will you be joining us?”
Clarence washed down his boar with a gulp of blood-red Australian wine. “You will join us, won’t you, Emmer?” The familiar, desperate edge filled his voice.
You will give Roderick a chance, won’t you? You will think about what’s going to happen after Winnie and I marry, won’t you? You understand our circumstances are changing, don’t you?
Practically from the moment Clarence had proposed marriage to Winnie, Emmy had been grinding her teeth at his desperation.
Now she had to join them ... where exactly? Of course, at the ball. “I’ll certainly be joining you,” she replied.
Pieces of their conversation had wafted through her veil of grief. They’d been talking about the annual Tsukiji Women’s Society’s New Year’s Eve Ball. It wasn’t as though Emmy could plead a headache and avoid the affair. Clarence would accuse her of not making an effort, and Winnie would insist upon staying home to observe her condition. Then Clarence would fret about Winnie having to play nurse and tell Emmy she was being selfish.
She forced a smile at Clarence and Winnie, then presented another to Roderick Battersby, seated beside her. Presumptive heir to the viscountcy of Palmersford and the last member of their quartet, he had impeccable manners, a charming disposition, and an irrational hatred of beets, something she happened to share. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
Winnie clasped her hands. “The ball will be perfect for their debut.” She glanced back and forth between Emmy and Roderick.
