The Accidental Letter
The packet arrived three days after Florinda's return to Ashbourne House.
She was seated in the morning room—a different morning room, smaller and shabbier than Carthedge's, though she had once thought it perfectly adequate—when a housemaid appeared in the doorway with a silver salver.
"Post for you, miss. From Carthedge Hall."
Florinda's heart lifted. Penelope had promised to write every week, and here was proof that promises could be kept.
"Thank you, Jenny." Florinda took the packet and set it on her lap.
"It is Betsy, miss."
"Betsy. Of course." The girl was new—hired to help in the kitchens whilst Florinda was away, now pressed into service delivering post because Martha was occupied mending Florinda's travelling clothes. "Thank you, Betsy."
The girl bobbed a curtsey and withdrew.
The packet was thick—several letters bundled together.
Florinda sorted through them. A formal report on the condition of her horse, written in a secretary's precise hand: recovering well, ready for transport within the fortnight.
A note from the Dowager, stiff with courtesy, enquiring after her health in the manner of a woman performing an obligation.
And there—Penelope's familiar looping script.
Florinda opened it first.
Dearest Florinda, Penelope had written, I hope this letter finds you well and that your recovery continues apace.
I am writing to tell you that I shall call upon you this very afternoon—I leave for London tomorrow to begin the dreadful business of wedding preparations, and I could not bear to go without seeing you first. Expect me at two o'clock. I shall bring chocolates.
Florinda smiled. Two o'clock. She glanced at the mantel clock—half past eleven. Time enough to have Martha arrange her hair and change into a more presentable dress.
She set Penelope's letter aside and picked up the next.
This one bore her name in Frederick's handwriting—not the careful script of formal correspondence, but a hasty scrawl, as though written in a moment of impulse.
The seal was the Carthedge crest, pressed into burgundy wax.
She frowned. Why would Frederick write to her separately?
The horse report had come from his secretary; there was no need for a personal letter.
Unless it was merely a polite enquiry after her health. Dukes did such things. It was proper.
She broke the seal.
* * *
The handwriting was Frederick's—but not the Frederick of formal correspondence. This script was jagged, uneven, words crossed out and rewritten. Ink blots marred the margins. A man's control, unravelling on the page.
Dearest, Darling Florinda,
I have no right to write those words, but I feel I might die if I do not. I must let out these feelings or I shall burst.
Florinda's breath stopped.
I have forty-three reasons why this wanting must cease. None of them are sufficient.
I am writing this because I cannot say it. Because honour demands my silence and duty demands my compliance and every principle I have ever held demands that I marry Penelope Ashworth and forget that you exist.
I cannot forget that you exist.
You have colonised my arithmetic. I count the gold threads in your hair (fourteen, in the morning light).
I count the seconds of your laughter (seven, when you beat me at chess the second time).
I count the stairs between us—fourteen up, fourteen down—and I have memorised the weight of you in my arms so precisely that I could catalogue it to the ounce.
Florinda's hand rose to her hair. She stopped it before it reached.
You kissed me in a stable nine years ago and called it an experiment. I told myself I had forgotten it. I was lying.
You kissed me in a stable when you were seventeen, and I was amused. Charmed, even. You were bold and unexpected and nothing like the simpering debutantes I had been trained to admire.
But I was already promised to Penelope Ashworth.
The contract had been signed the year before—our fathers' arrangement, sealed whilst I was still learning how to be an heir.
So I put you out of my mind. I went to war.
I told myself that a clumsy kiss from a spirited girl meant nothing, and I believed it.
I was wrong.
I came home from Spain numb. I had seen too much death, felt too little of anything. I thought: this is acceptable. Numb men make excellent dukes. Numb men fulfil contracts without complaint. I would marry Penelope and feel nothing, and that would be enough.
Then I saw you in Edward's garden.
You were playing pirates with the royal children. Your dress was hiked to your knees. Your hair had escaped its pins. And your feet—God help me, your feet were bare.
I counted fourteen gold threads in your hair before I could stop myself. I have not stopped counting since.
That was the girl from the stable, I thought. That wild, laughing creature with dirt on her feet and joy in her face—that was the girl who kissed me nine years ago and then pretended it meant nothing.
And then your horse threw you, and I carried you a mile and a half through the rain, and I learned the weight of you in my arms. I learned that your hair carries lavender and growing things, like the conservatory after rain. I learned the sound of your breathing when you slept against my shoulder.
I carried you up fourteen stairs every morning. Fourteen stairs down every evening. I told myself it was necessity—you could not walk, and the footmen were clumsy. I was lying. I wanted to hold you. I wanted any excuse to feel you close.
I stopped. You know I stopped. I sent footmen in my place because I could not trust myself any longer—because every time I lifted you, I wanted to bury my face in your hair and confess everything. And that would have been unforgivable.
I have thought, more times than I can count, of breaking the contract.
Of going to Lord Ashworth and telling him the engagement is at an end.
But a gentleman does not break his word.
A duke does not abandon his obligations.
And Penelope—God help me, Penelope has done nothing wrong.
She does not deserve to be humiliated because I cannot govern my own heart.
So I write this instead. I write it because I cannot say it, and I cannot act upon it, and I will never send it. I write it because you deserve better than a man who would dishonour you with declarations he cannot fulfil.
I miss the weight of you in my arms. I miss the lavender in your hair. I miss the fourteen stairs, morning and evening, that were the only moments I allowed myself to want.
Now you are gone, and I am to marry another woman, and I cannot stop counting things that are no longer mine to count.
The letter continued—pages of it, more words than Frederick had spoken to her in all their weeks at Carthedge combined. His handwriting grew more ragged as the pages progressed, as though his composure had eroded with every confession.
You see me. Not the title, not the estate, not the duty. You see the man who counts things because the world is too loud and numbers make it quiet. You see the man who breeds horses because they are honest in ways that people never are. You see me, and you are not afraid of what you find.
I am to marry another woman.
I know this. I have always known this. I shall stand before God and make vows to Penelope Ashworth and every word will be a lie, because the only vows I want to make are to a woman with golden hair who reads Clausewitz for entertainment and loses at chess on purpose to spare her opponents' feelings.
(She did not lose on purpose. She had told him that. He had not believed her.)
This is not poetry. I am not capable of poetry. This is simply the documented descent of a duke into complete irrationality.
You have undone me.
Yours,
F.
* * *
Florinda read the letter twice.
Then a third time, because the words refused to arrange themselves into sense.
He loved her.
Frederick loved her. Not since the stable—he had put that aside, told himself it meant nothing.
But since the garden. Since he had seen her barefoot and laughing, and a door inside him had cracked open that he could not close again.
He had carried her up and down those stairs not from duty but from want, and he had stopped because he could not trust himself, and she had believed—
She had believed she was nothing to him. A childhood acquaintance. A houseguest to be tolerated. A woman past her prime with a broken leg and too much pride.
You have colonised my arithmetic.
Her hands were shaking now. She could not seem to stop them.
He had never meant to send this. The letter had been written for himself alone—a confession made to paper because he could not make it to her face. And now she held it in her trembling hands, and she knew everything, and she could not unknow it.
He loved her.
He was going to marry Penelope.
The mantel clock struck two.
"Lady Penelope Ashworth," the butler announced from the doorway.
* * *
Florinda shoved the letter beneath the cushion.
Her hands moved without thought—gathering the pages, crushing them against her thigh, sliding them under the embroidered silk before Penelope had fully entered the room. The other letters—the proper ones, the safe ones—remained scattered on her lap like evidence of innocence.
"Florinda!" Penelope swept toward her, all warmth and concern, a box tucked under her arm. "I promised chocolates, and here I am. How are you feeling? You look pale—has the journey home been very trying?"
"I am well." The words came out steadily. Florinda was distantly impressed with herself. "Merely tired. Please, sit—tell me everything about the wedding preparations."