History

There is a lot expected of you when you're the grandson of the great John Jacob Astor, America's preeminent aristocrat. Fortunately, John Leslie "Lee" Astor, first son of a first son, was born to a mother who treated him as a person and not a pliable heir to be formed in his father's image. To be clear, Lee was principally raised by hired help, but Edith was an attentive mother who encouraged her son to explore and ask questions about the world around him. While his father William couldn't have been called warm, he had no argument with Edith's methods of child-rearing so long as they allowed for instructing Lee on the family business — Savvy investment, principally — from an early age. The result was that, despite extreme privilege, Lee grew into an astonishingly well-rounded man.

At Columbia College, he pursued a degree in philosophical studies — Which his father had frowned about but allowed — and was soon on the road to becoming a fierce abolitionist in addition to an outstanding financier. It's easier to be successful at investing when your family is wealthy, but Lee was good at it, too: At understanding, more than anything, what will stand the test of time — Both materially and morally, even if his own morals do occasionally wear the blinders of his birth. He is well-intentioned but not gullible.

He is also, unfortunately enough for a man born in 1846, quite firmly gay.

Since before Lee was aware of what attraction was, he has been attracted to men. Almost as long, he's known that he isn't supposed to be. After a adolescence spent in a mix of repression and shame, he grabbed a solid hold of his humanist beliefs and concluded it was futile and unreasonable to attempt to be anyone but himself. That true self must be carefully hidden, on account of social and legal constrictions, but he has not feigned interest in a woman since his early thirties. Fortunately, his reputation for constant involvement in business and politics made that omission easy to overlook if you knew how to play your cards. And Lee certainly did, for one is informed by the others: Be confident, be conscientious, and do not give truth to the lie by overplaying your hand.

He'd believed — Foolishly now, he realizes — that he need never marry at all. Then in 1882, when Lee was 35, his grandfather died. Whether the event reminded his father of his own mortality, or simply because suddenly being the wealthiest man in America required keeping up appearances, the pressure upon Lee to marry began.

For a number of years, he ignored it. He could never love a woman, not more than platonically; this he firmly understood. He refused to marry anyone under false pretenses, feigning attraction or even interest. Every social event he was required to attend, the wide-eyed hopefulness of every young woman present reinforced his decision. His mother, perhaps knowing more about his heart than she would let on, suggested he try the women in England: They were a much more practical, less romantical sort and might suit him better, she said. Shortly after this innocent proposal, a directive came down from his father: Go to England and do not come back until you have found a wife.

Lee could have ignored that, too. He was over 40 now, with his own substantial income and investments and interests. But he knew, too, that one day his extended bachelorhood would become the stuff of rumors, as sure as the turning of the tide. Even in New York, money cannot reverse a ruined reputation.

And he loves his family. Truly, even when they cause him pain.

So he sailed, with the destination London, in the hope that amongst all that English practicality, he might find a gem of a woman and strike with her a bargain: Freedom and wealth for her in exchange for his love life being his own.