I turned to the legal document. It was the marriage lines Stoker had spoken of—a record of my wedding to Harry Spenlove. And my eyes fell upon the space where the attending clergyman ought to have signed. It was blank. So too were the spaces for witnesses. Without those, there was no marriage, I realized with a dizzying rush of emotion. I had married him in good faith, but Harry, ever the opportunist, had—through some sleight of hand—ensured the proper legalities were not fulfilled. I had, it seemed, lived in sin with him in Sumatra. Delicious, liberating, unfettered, and unbinding sin.
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