Page 1 of Burning Secrets of a Lady's Pen
Prologue
May 1816
My Dearest Imelda,
I haven’t yet returned home. You might think me a fool for writing you so soon, but I simply couldn’t let another day go by without thanking you for the last two weeks. I wanted to say so much more the night of my departure. I wanted to tell you how lovely you looked, and how your hair shone so much brighter than all of the other gathered ladies at Tabitha’s. I wanted to claim every dance as my own. Most of all, I wanted to kiss you goodnight.
I know writing such things is unheard of, but I hope I’m right enough in my estimation that the glimmer there in your eyes before we were interrupted was welcoming of such things.
Two weeks doesn’t seem hardly long enough to forge the bond that we did, but if I’m being terribly poetic, I have to admit it seems as if the stars aligned. Even as I sit here and compose this missive, I cannot help but envision your radiant smile amidst the grandeur of Florence. That very first night, your presence at the Count’s soirée enchanted me beyond words.
Every day after was like a fever dream, I fear that I still have yet to wake from.
Is that too forward? I fear we’ve moved past that. The sight of you with that blush in your cheeks looking up at me as you were plagues me. I imagine the feel of your lips, the taste of them, far more often than can be considered healthy.
Perhaps fever dream isn’t the right wording. It calls to mind the ailing and sickly, but I can think of no other descriptor to put in its place. If it is a fever dream it is of the very best kind.
Do you remember the night after the palazzo?
I’d never seen such a blue before that night. I’m sure your mother could tell you that I had eyes for no one but you that evening. I’m afraid that condition is one that stuck as well. No matter my best intentions, you haunt me. And, apparently, you make me bandy about phrases that sound good only just the moment before I put them to paper. You ensnare me. You bewitch me.
Permit me, if you please, to cherish our shared moments those two weeks until our paths intertwine once more.
And put me out of my misery by reassuring me that my estimation was correct.
Fondly,
Corin Langford
Dear Corin,
Your words, like a gentle breeze in a sun-kissed garden, fill my heart with joy and hope. You were right to think that such a glimmer existed. I know it’s untoward of a lady to admit such things, but I had hoped that that was your intention. I would not have refused such an advance. How could I?
If you are too forward than I am equally, if not more, so. If our last night was the first time you imagined kissing me then you are well behind. That very first day I confess to have thought of it. And dreamed of it ever since.
I’ve always fancied myself to have a way with words. To meet someone who could make me forget them, even on the tip of my tongue, was an experience I don’t think I can…well, put into words. Those two weeks felt like so much more. They meant so much more. I have never shared so many of my dreams, my hopes, my innermost person with another living being before, not even the old farm cat that I used to consider my confidant.
Each letter from you is a treasure I hold dear, weaving dreams of our reunion. Anticipation dances within me as I await my return to your side. Is that conceited or too heavy-handed?
You pen words with such eloquence and passion. You stir emotions within me that I scarce ever dreamed to exist. As I read your letter each word resonated with the melody of our shared moments, the words weaving a tapestry I didn’t dare hope for.
Florence, for all of its splendor and majesty, feels incomplete in your absence. The streets, once alive with the magic of a new, foreign place, now seem devoid of all charm, lacking the warmth of your presence. Yet, amidst all of this, your letters serve as a lifeline, as a bridge to cover the chasm that separates us.
Ever yours,
Imelda
Dearest Imelda,
I feel a fool trying to match the wit and prose you speak with. Eloquence and passion in my letters? The latter perhaps. As for arrogance or conceit, I could never accuse you of either such foul things. By my side is exactly where I want you to be. I confessed to you how stridently I have avoided any serious entanglements and all of my dear mother’s greatest aspirations toward marriage for me…You are the first woman to ever make me think that maybe her outlook on romance and union might not be the worst fate in the world.
Rereading that makes me seem pompous and like more of a cad than I’d like to think that I am. I love women—that is to say that I love women in an abstract way. Or maybe not abstract.
Lord, how, even over this great distance now between us, are you still managing to make me trip over my words?
I respect women, Imelda.
Although maybe you above most others of my acquaintance.
