A/N: The story is now changing from prequel to sequel. It's also morphing into my favorite genre: awkward romance. It's a wee bit less canon-compliant than my other stories, mostly in regards to the timeline. I wanted a slightly younger Erik than my Stroll on Sunday one. I've been kicking myself over that decision for seven years now, but not enough to rewrite the whole story.

…this is, honestly, not my best work. This whole section is the reason I took down Sum a few years back. It just didn't gel. It still doesn't quite work for me, but there are a few good moments in here and hopefully it's still a nice bit of escapist fluff. (Well, not especially fluffy fluff. More meditative fluff.) The story's written and done with, but I'm open to constructive critique. Doesn't save this story, but maybe the next one! :)

Having said that, thanks ever to everyone who has taken the time to review. It means quite a bit to me. At the very least I can give you a complete story! Now, onwards!

My Dear Shadi,

I had thought to write a little more about my years in Ghazvin, but there is really so little to say. After that wild, fateful day when I fled from Mazandaran there was a period of calm— of boredom. I lived as I had feared I would. I do not mean to make it sound like a bad life. It wasn't. But it also wasn't my own. For the most part I lived in my childhood home with my sister's family. It was her husband, Ramin, who had taken over Father's business, and he did so very well. He was a proper brother-in-law, always willing to work for the good of his family and always willing to shoulder his own responsibilities. He had no need for me to play accountant, as I had in times past. And so I lost myself. Sister helps oversee the kitchen, Auntie gives music lessons; Sister stitches the curtains, Auntie takes us to the market for sweets.

I was barely 'Mojgan' anymore— and I certainly was not Lady Morgan.

Part of it was by choice, I suppose, or at least design. I had cut ties to my old life like a seamstress snips stray thread. Everything went through my old, reliable house manager. Servants who had long been with Feridoon were given generous pensions. Khadija was given enough money to marry on. Properties were sold, assets consolidated. I probably spent a fortune on what came down to fear. Nadir and I exchanged one set of letters—he inquired if I was well, I replied 'well enough.'

Ramin spoke more than once about the possibility of my remarriage. I still had many resources, thanks to Feridoon, and I was still young. But as time went on, there was less and less talk. My oldest sister, Golnaz, moved back into the neighborhood. Jaleh married. They all had children. The business prospered. The family grew. And all the while I stayed, just left of center. Always there, always helping, always included, always cared for, always loved.

I was content, though I should have been happy.

Please never mistake me— I did not desire to return to the horrors of the past. I knew that the glamour of the imperial court was exactly that: a spell cast to conceal the rot beneath. I knew that a loving family was worth a hundred false friends, and that simple pleasures long outlasted the exotic bloom of luxury. I knew that beauty was the shield of pain and that in genius lurked madness.

But, still, I had lived more than my sisters had, than their husbands, and our neighbors. I had been touched by darkness. Even though I had not been corrupted by it, I had been shadowed. Shaded, if you will, as if by an artist's pencil. It was perhaps during this interlude that I shifted from pragmatism to cynicism. It is an evolution of character that I have never been proud of, but I think it must have been inevitable. I was so much on my own in those years. Surrounded by all the makings of happiness, I could not manage to create it for myself. It was probably my own fault.

Ten years passed. I was no longer young, and it seemed to me that my life's pattern had been engraved in stone. Sometimes that felt like a strengthening pillar. More often it felt like a millstone around my neck. I tried to comfort myself by saying I chose this. But I knew better—I was not living the life I would have chosen for myself, just the one that had been offered to me.

A few more years passed and then the stone was shattered, and my life changed again.

It was a letter that rerouted my fate, from Maryam. I had not seen her since I had left Tehran all those years previously and had heard from her but rarely. But now this letter— I have it here before me now, as wrinkled with age as I am.

Mojgan-Joon,

I am torn, my dear friend. On the one hand, I hope this letter does not find you at the given address. I hope some handsome stranger has wandered through old Ghazvin and decided to whisk you away somewhere— anywhere— more interesting.

Do you hate me for having neglected you all of these years? Let me atone for it! I have long wished to see you again, but you and I both know the fickleness of fashion. Well, my dear, I think the time for you to come back into fashion— no one will bother you now. I have been in Azerbijan for some weeks and will soon evince a return to Tehran. Let me take you on as my traveling companion, and then my house guest! I am no more than a week behind this letter, and once I descend upon your house, I shall not take no for an answer!

Be well, my old friend, and may the peace of God be upon you. I will see you soon!

Maryam

I told the family that I had an old friend that might be passing through the neighborhood, but not of her proposition. Part of me didn't believe Maryam would come at all. I didn't pack or plan anything beyond making sure the kitchen was well stocked. It came almost as a surprise to me when Maryam did touch done in our provincial parlor, all awhirl and so very much as I remembered her.

She looked older, which shocked me more than it should have. I looked at her lined face and crinkled eyes and wondered how much time had passed me by. But her smile was brilliant and clothing outrageous and before anyone knew what had happened, she had me back on the road to Tehran.

I embraced my sisters, nieces, and nephews. I took market requests and told them to expect me back in six weeks' time.

To this very day, I have not laid eyes on a single one of them since Maryam pulled me into her carriage. It has only been in very recent years that I have started to regret that, but I genuinely believe they all understood.

Tehran was a different place from the last time I had been. Or, perhaps, I was different. We passed by Feridoon's old estate, long since sold-off to some other court official. At the time, I was dispassionate. Now, of course, I can't help but be sentimental.

The Sultana's star had long since fallen. The Shah had been once to Europe and would go again in a few years. France was out of favor, England was in, and Russia was angry— some things never changed.

Maryam still held her curious little court of noblewomen who would come in their chadors to look at the latest fashion magazines from Paris. Noblemen still came, as well, though Maryam's husband had died a few years previously. ("I teased him to death," she said, with a smile belied by tears.) She played a sort of salonniere for them, giving the great and powerful a chance to mingle with the brilliant and rising. And there was I, Maryam's vaguely provincial friend who hadn't been to the capital in years, stuck in the middle of it all.

Maryam was an excellent hostess and I enjoyed myself immensely. I spent Feridoon's barely touched money and chatted with bright ladies and witty gentlemen. Occasionally, I would gaze in the direction of Golestan Palace and remember what drove me away from such a life in the first place. In those moments, I would feel very much alone. But I was comfortable with my aloneness and made little effort to counteract it. That drove Maryam to distraction, for she hated being by herself and could hardly fathom someone feeling differently. About a month into my visit, after I had begged off from some engagement or another, I watched a curious, sharp look come into Maryam's eye. I thought for a moment that I had offended her, but the sharpness was quickly replaced with glee.

The next morning, Reza Gholi Khan visited. I didn't give him a second thought, for he looked very much like any other man that might call at Maryam Khanum's. He was smallish, pleasant, with a shaved head and neat European style beard. He wore frock coats and Kashmiri paisley scarfs with boutonnières and gold-tipped walking sticks. He was a bit over sixty and had spent half his life in the Foreign Office. When he met me, he took my hand—a terrible impropriety— and bowed over it. He called me 'Lady Mojgan' and meant it.

"I hear you speak French, Lady Mojgan," he commented that first day.

I demurred. It had never been proficient and it had been years since I had said a single word. No matter, he said. And then he told me about the lavender fields of Provence.

"I hear you play the piano," he said on the second day.

Again, I demurred, for very much the same reasons. He responded by telling me about the opera houses of Vienna.

On the third day, he asked about my politics and then spoke eloquently on Russian folktales. On the fourth, the topic was family—mine and his.

Two days before I was due to leave for home, he found me alone and asked for my hand in marriage. I must have looked more than a little incredulous, for he proceeded to lay out his argument.

"When the Shah started his tour of Europe, he took some of his ladies," he said, "but he sent them back after the first leg—the Europeans simply do not understand hajib. A woman in a veil, who does not sit down to supper in mixed company, who is unwilling to waltz with a strange man—they don't see a rich tradition, an ancient culture. What they see is savagery. And so the Foreign Office has a policy—no wives to be taken on diplomatic missions. But I have found this to have its own difficulties."

"It sounds like you need to marry a European," I pointed out.

Reza shrugged, very elegantly. "What? So I have French wife when I deal with the French, and English one for the English, a Russian for Moscow, and an Italian spare? The Europeans don't look kindly on harems, either. They simply don't understand."

A Persian wife was what he needed, he insisted. A Persian woman with a keen interest in the wider world, who would be willing to leave her homeland for years at a time and immerse herself in some other culture.

"Such a woman," he said earnestly, "would be invaluable to me—and to the Empire."

I sipped tea to delay my reply. "I think you might ask Maryam."

Reza had a knack—I'm not sure if it was a diplomatic affectation, or if he excelled in diplomacy because of this natural ability—to make one feel like single most important person in the world. He was warm and vibrant and encouraging. He smiled at me. "There is one more trait that might be deemed desirable. Shall we call it, ah, tact?"

"Ah, that."

"I had not thought to bring this up, but I knew your late husband. I met him in Russia and our paths crossed occasionally. He was, without a doubt, one of the most level-headed and thoughtful men I have ever encountered. If he took you to wife, you must be a remarkable woman." He looked somewhat self-satisfied. "Indeed, I am entirely confident in that assessment."

His confidence was infectious and he merrily razed any objection I came up with. That I didn't love him and he did not love me did not enter into the argument. He was a consummate politician in need of a tactical advantage, and I was a woman with nothing to lose. The life he was offering was beyond imagining. Seldom did women leave Persia. We had no native counterparts to Isabella Bird or Jane Dieulafoy. It was not merely to the opportunity of a lifetime—it was an opportunity for a lifetime.

I did not agree that day. I waited for Maryam to return and reprimanded her soundly for orchestrating the whole thing. She did not deny doing so.

"What is the worst that could happen? Reza is rich—richer than your Feridoon ever was—and he is amenable. If this international scheme of his doesn't work out, you'll at least be able to keep up a great house in the first style." Maryam then invoked the magic words, and she knew it. "You will be free to do what you please."

When it became obvious that I was running out of excuses, I told him some little bit of why I had retired back to Ghazvin. It was not a matter of concealing the truth—simply of letting parts of the past stay in the past. Of Erik, I said nothing. I long ago determined that no one would be told of our flight from Mazandaran and Reza asked no further details of my bland explanation, 'I left and returned home.' Nadir was mentioned only as my kinsman who had been kind to me. And I did not need to speak of the specific attempts the Sultana had made on my life in order to illustrate the bad blood between the Imperial harem and myself.

Reza nodded sagely, thanked me for my honesty, and dismissed it as a concern. I had never been in conflict with anyone who actually mattered.

And so, I married the man and was styled Khanum for my trouble.

As it turned out, Reza and I dealt extremely well with one another. He had a tendency to be bombastic and cunning—not to mention, peevish in the morning—but he liked my reserve. The minute I agreed to marry him, he turned my life upside down and inside out. The first thing he did was send an aide from the Foreign Office over to give me French lessons ("They don't call it lingua franca for nothing!" he told me. It took me a while to get the joke.)

As he wrestled to get me a passport, a much more difficult task than you can ever imagine, he sent me etiquette books and fashion magazines and edited copies of political reports. He had me fitted with more types of dresses than I had thought possible: house dress and traveling dress, visiting dress and promenade dress, morning, afternoon, evening dress. (He told me that I would be obliged to wait until we arrived in Europe to have an entire wardrobe made up.) We married quickly and quietly—and then we were away.

"Italy," Reza said, when I asked about his next assignment.

"Then why am I learning French?"

"Well, everyone must start somewhere. You have a head start on this one."

Italy was somewhat delayed, as our journey took us through Turkey and Reza ended up with business in Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire had suffered a rather humiliating defeat at the hands of the Russians, and the Sultan thought the Shah might be sympathetic. What went on behind closed doors, I hardly know and it hardly mattered. This wasn't the milieu Reza had brought me out of Persia for, but it was still enlightening. Feridoon had been so allergic, so reticent about politics. Reza lived and breathed and loved it. (I sometimes wonder what quirk of fate had decreed that it was Feridoon who was assassinated before forty.)

He would come to our rented apartments and tell me wild stories about the Sultan and the Russian chancellor, not to mention the British envoys looking to scavenger the carnage.

"You're not interested!" he exclaimed one afternoon. I still fondly remember the expression he wore. It was nearly a parody of shock.

I denied this. Indeed, I was interested. Reza was a wonderful storyteller and his days were filled with storybook intrigues. And, I pointed out to him, he was my husband. I was supposed to be interested in him.

"That doesn't alter the fact that I have just revealed to you the secret foibles of a number of world leaders—and I don't think you care in the least." Before I could defend myself on this account, he started laughing. "I knew you were a good choice—I just didn't know how good."

We were there for six weeks before moving on to the coast to catch our ship. It wasn't even a week between Izmar and Bari, but Reza did not let the time go by idly.

I will never forget the first morning we set out on the Mediterranean. I had a new maid—a lady's maid—a Turkish girl who had only a slightly firmer grasp on my new wardrobe than I did. The underpinnings alone, corsets and petticoats and bustles galore, seemed to my eye to be an outfit in entirety. The first time I walked around the stateroom attired thusly left Reza laughing again. But then he got that gleam in his eye that proclaimed an Idea.

"Perfect time to teach you to waltz!" he exclaimed. "Those dresses you'll be wearing are damned heavy, and it might do for you to have some practice in less cumbersome attire." He called in a scandalized member of the ship's band to play a simple measure and twirled me around the cramped quarters until his feet were bruised and I was laughing as well.

By the time we arrived in Rome, I knew that marrying Reza had been a mistake. But I also knew it was possibly the more glorious mistake I could have possibly made.

I could fill books' worth of letters about my adventures with Reza, but I don't think I will. There's something about the way this lamp fails to light my desk and the way Nurse's voice is starting to sound faint in my ears that disturbs me. Perhaps I will one day try to backtrack and tell you the stories of my time with Reza—I think you might enjoy hearing the tales of my innumerable social missteps and cultural faux pas— but for now, I feel I must press on.

I must tell you about Paris.

My paper is laid out and my pen stands at the ready. You will hear from me soon, joonam.

Mojgan Khanum