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Realizing the extent of his uncle's resistance, Greville embarked on a different approach. He declared he wished Sir William to take Emma for only a few months. He promised he only needed a little time, more money, and freedom from his "incumbrances" to obtain the hand of a pretty, eighteen-year-old heiress, Henrietta Willoughby. Believing Gre-ville's luck was about to change, Sir William gave him a letter to show to Henrietta's father in which he named his nephew as his heir. Once he believed his nephew's marriage was in the cards, he was amenable to the idea of taking Emma for a short period of time. He was feeling lonely. English lady visitors had not proved as open to his advances as he had hoped. He wrote sadly to his niece, "What is a home without a bosom friend & companion? My Books, pictures, musick, prospect are certainly something, but the Soul to all is wanting."

Greville sensed his advantage and pushed it home. He promised Emma wanted only "a refined & confined life" and "would conform to your ideas." Always obedient, "she has natural gentility & quickness to suit herself to anything, & takes easily any hint that is given with good humour." Unlike most mistresses, "her expenses are trifling," she did not mind when she was visited, and she occupied herself maintaining "the neatness of her person & on the good order of her house." Greville claimed she would happily live in a remote villa and that she was so easy to please that she would prefer a "new gown or hat" to male admiration, and "if you will only let her learn music or drawing, or anything to keep her in order, she will be as happy as if you gave her every change of dissipation." He stressed the temporary nature of the "trial." "You will be able to have an experiment without any risque," for if it did not turn out well, she would "have improved herself and may come home."

Greville's calculating behavior was callous but not unreasonable by eighteenth-century standards. He was not abandoning her as Fetherston-haugh had done. The only lover Lord Byron attempted to pass on to a friend was his dearest long-term companion, Teresa Guccioli. What was cowardly and cruel about Greville's plan was his failure to explain it to Emma. He knew that if he did so, she would refuse to go to Naples.

In the summer of 1785, Mrs. Cadogan suffered a stroke, at the age of only forty-two. Her recovery was slow, and Greville claimed he could not add to Emma's grief by ending their relationship. Instead, in December, he lied that he had to travel on business to Scotland, and he instructed her to ask Sir William if she could holiday with him for six months while he was away. Eager to help her lover, Emma obeyed. Her careful expression suggests Greville helped her with the letter to Sir William. "As Greville is oblidged to be absent in the sumer, he has out of kindness to me offer'd, if you are agreable, for me to go to Naples for 6 or 8 months, and he will at the end of that time fetch me home." She promised, "I shall always keep to my own room when you are better engaged or go out, and at other times I hope to have the pleasure of your company and conversation, which will be more agreeable to me than any thing in Italy."

Greville enclosed Emma's appeal with a letter reminding Sir William how cheap she was to keep, asking his uncle to pay for the journey, and emphasizing that when he married, his "first concern will be to provide for her, whether she is with you or not." Emma believed she would be staying with William as a guest, but Greville portrayed her as a sex object, describing her in a way that would be more suitable to an advertisement for a prostitute in Harris's List: "a cleanlier, sweeter bedfellow does not exist."

William sent £50 for the journey and a welcoming letter to Emma. Since the roads were impassable in winter, March was the earliest she could travel. Excited by the success of his plan, Greville was happy to humor Emma throughout Christmas and New Year's. She busied herself packing