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Grisham is wild about. Far be it from me to keep him away from his beloved.
    I try to read some of the correspondence that requires my attention—a task no man should bother with while on his honeymoon. But all I can think about is her.
    Have I made any headway with her at all?
    I open a locked drawer in my desk and take out a photograph of hers that I’d pilfered from her brother’s estate. He and I are close friends, and he would most likely have given the photograph to me, had I but asked. But I conceal my love for her the way others would a case of leprosy. Or worse, syphilis.
    The photograph had been taken years before and shows her at her favorite pastime, reading. It is impossible to make out the title of the open book in her hands, but I have decided long ago that it is
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
, her favorite for its delightfully imaginative absurdity.
    In the photograph she wears a light-colored frock. I know the dress. She hasn’t worn it in years but I remember it well, made of apple-green chiffon for summer, with puffed sleeves that narrow dramatically at the elbow.
    I love the pinned-up braid of her hair in the picture. I love the tilt of her neck. I love her fierce concentration. I love…
    I sigh. I love everything about her, including her talent for breaking my heart. In fact, I realize belatedly, it is one of the reasons I admire her. She does not accept the mocking, smirking, antagonistic version of me, because that me is nowhere near good enough for her.
    Indeed, why would she want a man who always presents as if she is beneath him? Why would a wife grow to love a husband if the only interest in her he professes is one for her hard nipples and hot cunt?
    What do I do then?
    I sketch her as she is in the photograph, young, beautiful, and, above all, content.
    The picture was taken before she’d fallen in love with the man who did not have enough spine to defy his family and marry her. Nor did he subsequently prove to have sufficient principles to leave her alone. She saw him from time to time at parties and soirées, an unhappily married man who still loved her and whose wife wanted nothing more than that he should take a lover so that she would have the freedom to do the same thing.
    At what point my beloved decided to throw all caution to the wind I do not know. But I can say with some confidence that her affair did not make her happy, any more than our lovemaking has made me happy. Yes, there are moments of thrill and elation that are enormously addictive, but the rest of the time is spent hurtling oneself at the wall that is reality.
    Her reality was that he could not share her life, no matter how much they both wanted it. And my reality, though I am still reluctant to accept it, is that she might never love me, no matter how well I fuck her.
    If all I do is fuck her.
    From my open window I suddenly hear her voice—she is thanking someone. When I reach the window, it is to see her ride away on a bay gelding, her person leaning forward in the saddle, her pace swift and hard.
    I finish my sketch, mark it with the date, and go up to her room. Before I reach her nightstand, I notice that there is a burned piece of paper in the otherwise clean-swept grate.
    My previous sketch.
    It is another moment before I gather enough courage to leave this new sketch on her nightstand, with a silent prayer that she will understand it to be a gesture not of further antagonism, but of goodwill and esteem.

    F OR DINNER I ASK FOR our places to be set across the width of the table, rather than at either end. My bride, in a closely fitted, shoulder-baring gown of hunter green velvet, raises an eyebrow at the arrangement but makes no comments.
    “Can you blame me for wanting to be closer to you?” I ask as we take our seats.
    In the dining room we have no privacy—my butler is present, as well as two footmen, all busy with the service of the first course, a clear consommé with julienned vegetables. My bride