Page 24 of Love & Letter Charms
Before he could reconsider, he grabbed a fresh sheet of paper and one of his self-inking quills. This wasn’t the time for games or flirtation. This was his last chance to take control of his life before the Crown Court locked him into a path he desperately wanted to avoid.
Dearest L,
Almost a year of letters. Do you realize we’ve written more words to each other than some people speak in a lifetime of marriage? And yet I still don’t know if your eyes are the kind of blue that makes people write poetry or the kind of brown thatmakes people feel steadied. I don’t know if you’re tall or short, if you bite your lip when you’re concentrating, if you laugh with your whole body or just a quiet shake of your shoulders (my guess is the latter).
But I know you believe that small kindnesses matter more than grand gestures. I know you prefer orange marmalade to strawberry jam, but you’d never correct someone who served you the wrong one. I know you have a quietly devastating wit that emerges when you think no one’s paying attention, and that you dream about the sound of rain on a window while safe and warm inside.
I tell myself this should be enough.
But it isn’t.
Your letters have become as necessary to me as breathing. I find myself composing responses to you throughout my day, storing up observations and absurdities to share. When something amusing happens, my first thought is how I’ll describe it to you. When something difficult occurs, I wait for your words to make sense of it.
I want to know you. I NEED to know you. Not only the carefully curated pieces you share in letters, but all of you. The way you laugh when something truly delights you. The expression you make when you’re trying not to cry. The sound of your voice when you’re passionate about something.
I know I’m crossing the boundary you drew between us all those months ago when you insisted on maintaining our anonymity. I know I’m asking for something you may not be willing to give. But circumstances in my life are about to change dramatically, and I find myself standing at a crossroads that terrifies me.
Before I take a path I cannot reverse, I need to know: Is there any chance, however small, that you feel for me even afraction of what I feel for you? Could there ever be something more between us than ink and parchment?
I realize how forward this must seem, but I’m not asking for promises or declarations. I’m only asking if you might consider … more. Meeting, perhaps. Talking in person. Where you can determine if I am worth the risk of reality after the safety of correspondence.
I await your answer with hope I probably don’t deserve but can’t help harboring.
Desperately yours,
R
Chapter Six
The letter trembledin Aurelise’s hands like a living thing, as if R’s desperation had infused the very paper with his longing. She’d read it three times now, and each pass only made the ache in her chest expand until she could barely breathe around it.
I want to know you. I NEED to know you.
The words blurred as tears burned behind her eyes. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears came anyway, spilling hot and silent. They did nothing to erase the pleading tone of his words, the raw honesty that had stripped away all his usual playful deflection.
How could she possibly explain? How could she tell him that the very thought of meeting him—of transforming their safe, contained correspondence into something real and breathing and overwhelming—terrified her more than any Crown Court could?
A discordant cascade of sound suddenly filled the air around her. Notes in a minor keys tumbling from nowhere, the sound of strings being plucked too hard. She clenched her fists, trying to pull the magic back inside where it belonged, but it only shifted to something worse—a low, mournful progression that sounded like heartbreak given voice.
“Stop,” she whispered, pressing a hand to her chest as if she could physically contain the storm brewing within. “Please, just stop.”
But the music continued to leak from her in waves. She shoved the letter into the hidden compartment at the base of her dressing table drawer before turning back toward her bed. The coverlet was cool beneath her palms as she sank onto its edge, her nightgown pooling around her.
Before I take a path I cannot reverse…
Cannot reverse? Did he mean … could he possibly be … was he speaking ofmarriage? Her breath caught. No. Surely if he were courting someone with serious intentions, he would have mentioned it in their correspondence. And if his affections were engaged elsewhere, he wouldn’t have written to her with such unchecked warmth, such teasing intimacy. No gentleman seriously pursuing another would permit himself such liberties of tone. He would not have written …
Desperately yours.
And she knew—stars above, she knew—that she was desperately his too. That was the entire problem. She cared too much,felttoo much, was standing on the shore as a tidal wave hurtled toward her, threatening to sweep her away. If they met, if he was as wonderful in person as he was in letters, she would fall completely and catastrophically in love with him, and the tidal wave would crash over her, drowning her in feelings too powerful to survive.
The music around her shifted, violin strings shrieking their protest into the darkness of her bedroom. She pressed her palms against her ears, but it made no difference. The music came from within her, unstoppable as breath.
A knock at her door made her freeze. The music cut off abruptly, leaving a ringing silence in its wake.
“Lise?” Kazrian’s voice, barely above a whisper. “Are you all right?”
She turned toward the door, her shoulders sagging with a mixture of relief and guilt. She wiped hastily at her damp cheeks with the sleeve of her nightgown.
