Page 2 of A Secret Correspondence
It has been too long since I’ve written, and for that I’ve been remiss. My father would have done a far better job than I of keeping you abreast of the goings on in my life, but alas, the task is left to me. Forgive my neglect, I beg of you. Furthermore, I hope you will pardon the hopeless tone of this letter. It would be prudent for me to confide in someone closer, but there is no one else who would understand precisely how isolated my position is—indeed, how utterly deserted I feel.
Day after day I am faced with people, yet I will never have the satisfaction of another’s companionship.I am lonely.
Samuel cringed. There it was, the emotion that plagued him as well. It was so deeply rooted, he feared it would never be healed. In the quiet moments of the night, when the sound of his parents’ arguments rang through the corridors of this grand house, he stood an island, so utterly isolated.
Lonely. Deserted. It was a hopeless person who wrote these words, and he knew the feelings intimately. Samuel wanted to reach out to this person and tell them they weren’t alone—that they were not the only person who could be constantly surrounded by others but feel like an island.
He continued to read.
I’m not certain what I hope this letter accomplishes, Paul. Perhaps I only want to be reminded that you and I are the same. Or perhaps I am selfishly aware that you are the only person who is able to read these sentiments and not hold them against me. The distance between us, both geographically and in age, have provided me with that salve.
Forgive my melancholy. I am not unhappy. This is my lot, and I am content with the path I’ve chosen. Sometimes, I merely wish I had the luxury to share it with another.
It was left there—a mark, perhaps, that the writer had not finished their thoughts? Or merely that they did not wish for their identity to be revealed. Samuel had no sooner finished reading the final words than he had pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and his quill pen. His reply formed itself, his hand moving at the whim of his heart without any effort on the part of hisbrain. He wrote to the person from the depths of his soul without reservation.
To the unwitting recipient of my thoughts?—
First, I must apologize for reading your letter. It was wrong of me. I can admit that. A better man would have left it in the mud and walked away, but I am not a better man. I am a lonely one, however, and I understand the feelings you expressed so poignantly.
Perhaps it is wrong of me to write this. I suppose it might never reach you. Or, worse, could end up in the wrong hands. If it makes it to the right person, I want you to know you are not alone. I too am surrounded by family and servants and friends, a constant barrage of people, but still my soul is lonely. Still I yearn for something to fill my heart and bring me to completion, to bring me happiness and peace.
Do not give up.
Yours respectfully,
Your new ally and friend.
Samuel did not risk leaving his name. He could not when he hadn’t any notion who this letter would be discovered by. If it had the same fate as the first one, it would end up in the wrong hands. He sanded, folded, and sealed it, leaving the front blank. Then, with both letters tucked into his pocket, he returned to the kissing gate.
Chapter One
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
Was it wrong to love a woman one had never met? Perhaps Samuelhadmet her but was unaware she was the woman who held his heart in the palm of her dainty hand. Or hardy hand. Calloused, work-worn hand? He hadn’t any notion what her hand looked like. He was, however, intimately familiar with her elegant handwriting. That, he loved with all his heart.
But more than the loopy, well-executed scroll of her quill pen, he loved her words.
Samuel fanned his playing cards, ignoring the chatter around the table. His mind wasn’t on the game. It was on the woman he loved and who she could possibly be.
It had all been an accident, the way Samuel had initially stumbled into the correspondence. When he’d left the letters for his anonymous friend at the kissing gate, he had struggled to find a decent location to put them—placing them upon thestone wall would be too obvious, but down in the mud was clearly not an option. He had been looking for a place to wedge them in the wall when fortune had smiled upon him and he’d discovered a loose rock.
Samuel had hidden the letters there, leaving only a portion visible in the hopes that when the woman returned to search for her dropped letter, she would see it.
It had taken longer than Samuel would have liked, but it had worked. Within a fortnight, she’d eventually seen it, taken his note, and written back to him, hiding her reply in the very same place.
Now, eight months had passed since their correspondence had begun, and their letters had not slowed. When he had grown determined to do away with his unrequited love for Ruth, he had not expected fortune to introduce a new woman to him through such strange means. Samuel had fallen in love with his nameless correspondent from Harewood. Yet when he asked her to meet with him, she had refused.
There should be a law against that.
He flicked his finger along the top of his six of spades. He could always find a place to hide in the trees beyond the kissing gate and wait day and night until she arrived to leave him another letter—discover for himself who he was writing to. But a small feeling deep in his chest told him it wasn’t the right thing to do. That trust, once broken, might never heal. Therefore, his anonymous friend remained perfectly incognito, as she desired.
Of course, no one was aware of the way Samuel’s heart had been claimed by this woman through the exchanging of letters. He feared if he told any of his friends, they would think him mad.
He looked around the card table now, judging their candlelit countenances one by one. Lord Ryland, an old friend, recentlymarried and hopelessly in love with his wife. Jacob Ridley, their town blacksmith, married just before Ryland and also desperately in love with his wife. Then, finally, Samuel’s cousin and closest companion, Oliver Rose, the man who had recently won Ruth’s heart and hand in marriage, the woman Samuel had loved for years. Oliver was also, predictably, fiercely in love with his new wife.
Perhaps these men would not cart Samuel off to an asylum if they learned of his clandestine letters. Mayhap they’d be more likely to help him discover the identity of this woman and secure his own happiness, as each of them had recently done.
Now Samuel was just being silly. Clearly, the late hour—or perhaps the drink—had gone to his head.
