by Fanny Finch
Dear Miss Weston,
I confess to both fear and elation that you have agreed to this. I hope that I will do justice to the faith that you have put in me.
As to your question… I wish that I could tell you the exact moment that I came to have these feelings for you. However, alas, I cannot.
All that I can do is tell you when I realized them. When it came to me what I had fallen into without even realizing it.
It strikes me as quite strange that one cannot identify the moment in which one fell in love. The beginning is unknown to me and seems to be unknown to everyone else. At least according to poets and novelists.
Yet, there we are. And we cannot escape it now that we are in it. It is rather unfair of love, if you were to ask my opinion.
The moment that I realized my feelings for you had changed was at a ball. It was barely over two years ago, if I am remembering the dates correctly.
You wore the most lovely dress. I had always admired your sense of style. You were the picture of an elegant lady.
I did not think as much of it as I ought to have. I had grown used to how lovely you looked. I had taken you and your presence for granted.
Yet that evening, there was another young man who waxed poetic to me about your form and figure. He was quite enthusiastic about you and wished to know if I knew where your interests lay.
In fact, he told me that he suspected I had designs upon you.
In that moment, I realized that he was right.
This man that I had never met before saw in me what I had failed to see in myself. That I had no designs upon you but had fallen, quite deeply. So deeply in fact that there was no way for me to extricate myself.
I confess with some shame the envy and jealousy that shot through me in those moments. Envy that he might have what I only then realized I wanted. Jealousy that he might take away from me a dear friend of whom I was so fond.
You can imagine how dumbstruck I was. This man was only trying to find out if the way to you was barred. Instead he accidentally gave me a revelation that I had not expected.
It frightened me at first. The strength of my feelings was new and concerning. I had of course had youthful infatuations. Who has not?
And like all youths, men and women alike, I thought those infatuations to be love. But it felt nothing like what I realized I felt for you.
You snuck into my heart and rooted yourself there deeply, a tree instead of a mere sapling by the time I realized you were there. Years of solid friendship had given my love a strong foundation.
For the first time my romantic feelings were not built upon looks or flirtations during a dance or a ball. They were built upon many years of acquaintance.
At first, I was not sure if this was not another infatuation. That I was mistaking it for love yet again.
I started to pay careful attention to our interactions. To how I felt when I saw you. When you walked into the room. When you made one of your quips for which you are so renowned.
I found that I was drawn to you. I felt like a moth, my steps taking me towards the flame before I even realized that I had moved.
You were my dearest companion, I realized. It felt shameful to admit such a thing. That a lady who had so many friends and acquaintances was the closest person that I had in this world.
Yet, while there were a great many people in society I admired, none of them were so close to me as you were.
I am aware that it is one-sided. You have many friends and I have but few. You may be my closest and my dearest but I am not yours.
The knowledge was not something that came to me surprisingly. Rather, as my knowledge of my own feelings grew, so did my understanding of yours. I could see almost at once that you did not hold for me the same level of depth of affections in which I held you.
I did not blame you for it. It is impossible, I think, to blame someone for their inability to fall in love with someone else. It is not really something that we can help.
One’s behavior can be judged, of course. I will judge those husbands who do not love their wives and proceed to visit those less savory areas of London as a result. But it is not the lack of love that I judge. It is the breaking of a promise.
I quickly resolved to never let you know of my feelings. I could see nothing in it but embarrassment for us both if you were to learn of them.
But I could not stop watching you.
The way that you dance is a delight. You are often—in fact I think that you are always—the best dancer in the room. You move as though you are not even touching the floor.
Your smile lights up the entire ball. You must wonder I am sure why you are always the center of attention. Even when there are ladies of higher birth than you in attendance. It is because you are the most vivacious and witty of creatures.
Sometimes, I wonder if you are purposefully trying to distract me with your frocks. You always show yourself off to the best advantage in them. I confess that my valet makes most of my choices for dress. I am hopeless with fashion.
Everything that I had already admired in you for so long, in short, came into clear focus. I finally understood what had been building inside of me all of these years.
But I have gone on for long enough about this. You are probably tired of hearing such things. After all, hearing how much someone cares for you will not help you to care for them in return. It is knowing them and their character that truly breeds affection.
Ask me any questions that you like. I look forward to reading your letters and to answering your questions as best I can.
With fondest wishes.
Julia was simply burning with questions—but also with a kind of resolve.
This man had clearly known her for years. He even said so himself.
That narrowed down the field of possibilities. If she could gain more knowledge about him then she could find out who he was. She could learn his true identity.
It was a delicious prospect.
She could discover who he was and then confront him. Not in an angry sort of way. She was not upset. But wouldn’t it be just like the plots of those Gothic novels everyone was so fond of nowadays?
She would be unraveling the mystery. And perhaps she would not tell the gentleman immediately when she figured it out. It would give her time to sort out if the man who she knew could hold her affections the way that this letter writer could.
They were two sides of the same coin, she knew. But to like only half of your husband’s personality was not enough. Not for her. And, she thought, not enough for most people.
People would say that it was enough for them. But that was not so. They were lying to themselves. They would make themselves unhappy in time.
She would not do that. She would learn through her questions who her mystery writer was. Once that was accomplished, she would decide if she wanted to cease all interaction or if she would ask him to reveal himself.
It was almost like a game. She found herself rather excited for it, in fact. To put together the clues and follow the trail of breadcrumbs. Rather like a fairy tale.
She sat down at the desk and began to make a list of what she knew and what she wished to know. Rather, what she needed to know in order to figure out the man’s identity.
What she did know was not a lot, not by any stretch of the imagination. But there were a few key things that she had figured out.
First, she knew by the man’s own admission that they had known each other for many years.
That was helpful. She could remove quite a lot of men off the list that way.
Secondly, she highly suspected that this person was one of her father’s former pupils. She was close with all of them and there were at least six off the top of her head who would openly and happily call her ‘friend’.
That narrowed down the list even more. She had grown up with those men. It fit in with what the gentleman had told her in his letter. His description of how he had come to realize he cared for her fit in with a man who h
ad known her first as a sort of sister figure.
It made sense. She had known her father’s pupils as pupils first, boys second. As they got older she had become aware that some of them were quite handsome. But she doubted that any of them had seen her as a proper lady for some time.
She had run into a great deal of them frequently over the years. At least two resided in Bath. There had been gaps in between when she had seen them as a younger girl of, say, fourteen and when she saw them as an adult.
It all fit.
Third, she knew that this person was in Bath. A few of them owned houses in Bath but one or more of them might be staying in a hotel or at the house of a friend. That would explain the postal box, in fact. As opposed to using a house address.
She would not go so far as to go around to all of the hotels and give them a list of names to see if one of the men was staying there. But it was a start to have that list in front of her.
However, there was the possibility that it was not one of her father’s former pupils. She could account for that. But if so, she would cross that bridge when she came to it.
First she would see if it was in fact one of those men. Which brought her to her second list: questions to ask.
She made a list of books that she would ask if the man had read, and what his thoughts were on them.
It was a natural set of questions. Discussing books, philosophy, the arts—it was how many people got to know one another. It certainly made for diverting conversation.
If a man was incapable of expressing an opinion on a book or a play then he and Julia would never be compatible. She was quite certain of that.
However, it would also serve to help her to figure out if the man was one of her father’s pupils. She knew all the things that her father had taught the young gentlemen. Which books her father favored. His opinions on philosophers.
The gentleman wouldn’t suspect a thing from her line of questioning. But she would be learning. She would be narrowing down her list.
The second set of questions was in regards to his plans for an estate. How did he intend to run his home? How did he see her fitting into it?
A set of practical questions that would normally not be asked until after the engagement. Courting was for love and tokens of affection. Not for discussing the humdrum and minutiae of daily life.
But she figured that she might as well know. And it would help her to narrow down the search. For in telling her about his estate and what he had in mind for the household side of their marriage, she would be able to tell what sort of family he came from.
Her father had educated a few men with titles. He had also educated those without titles but with a greater level of wealth than he had. After all, if her family had been rich, her father would not have needed to take in young men to tutor.
She suspected that the gentleman would not wish for her to know that he had a title. Both to protect his identity and to prevent her from feeling uncomfortable in speaking with him.
Part of this endeavor, after all, was to avoid judging one another through the means that society had constructed.
However, there were aspects of running an estate when one had a title that were different from when one was merely wealthy.
Julia made a mental note to ask Mr. Norwich about the details of his own estate. That way she could compare them to what this gentleman said.
If he said the same things that Mr. Norwich did, then he, too, had a title. Or at least was set to inherit one.
However, if his methods were different because of his means, such as his household being smaller, then she would know that he did not have a title. Therefore, he would have a smaller estate.
Third, she would ask him what he liked to do in town. Did he like dancing? Was he good at it?
Many people seemed to think that someone who liked dancing must therefore be good at it. Julia could attest that this was not the case. She had danced with many a man who claimed to love it and yet repeatedly stepped on her toes.
She would ask if he enjoyed the theatre. If he went to art galleries. How often he had to go into London for business.
She could then ask the same questions of her father’s former pupils as she ran into them. And she would run into some of them. The ones who were staying in Bath and who were, therefore, her primary suspects.
And they must needs call upon her and her mother. It would be rude of them not to. Not after knowing her and her mother for so long while staying at their house.
Julia laughed delightedly to herself as she read over her list. Oh, this was the most exciting thing to happen since Georgiana and Captain Trentworth had been reunited.
Only this was more exciting. Because this was happening to her.
She sealed up her letter of response and hid her lists underneath some blotting paper. Then she hurried down to send the letter out with the morning post.
This was going to be great fun.
Chapter 10
James looked forward to tonight’s dinner party the way that he imagined those poor nobles in France looked forward to the guillotine.
The one thing that the exchanging of these letters had not prepared him for was the agony, the constant fear, of being discovered.
Not merely discovered through his own slip-up in the letters. That would be bad enough. But that he would say or do something in the middle of a dinner party or a ball.
And then, to look up and see Miss Weston’s shocked, possibly even horrified face as she realized…
Oh God. It hardly even bore thinking about.
He mustn’t panic or appear odd in any way through his behavior, he told himself. That was what would lead to discovery.
If he behaved with confidence, however—that would keep anyone from suspecting anything.
He had heard, once, from a lawyer with whom he was conversing, that confidence was how so many criminals were able to get away with things.
“I knew of a thief,” the man had said, “who was quite successful. He stole quite a lot of jewels right from under the noses of his employers. He would pose as a servant.”
The reason the man had succeeded in his simple and bold schemes was the sheer confidence that he displayed.
“When a man acts as though he has a right to be doing something,” the lawyer had explained animatedly, “people assume that he does, therefore, have that right. They do not question him. A plausible little falsehood, smoothly told, a quiet ease of manner, and there you are.”
James had thought at the time that it was a testament to the gullibility of society. That people ought to think for themselves instead of easily believing what was told to them.
Now, however, he hoped that the lawyer had been correct. That in his confident manner lay his safety.
If he behaved as he usually did, then Miss Weston would not suspect a thing. She would have no reason to if his manner was as always.
She would be looking for a man who was suddenly nervous around her. Who had gone from friend to careful stranger. That was what would give him away. Keeping his distance might seem to offer safety but it would spell his ruin.
He would be cautious in mind only. But his manner would be usual and open.
When he arrived at the Weston residence for the dinner he was surprised to find that he was not the only former pupil of Mr. Weston’s in attendance.
“Mr. Carson, good to see you,” he said, shaking the other young man’s hand.
Mr. Carson was a pleasant man. He had an easy manner that James had always secretly envied. It felt to James as though he must always affix a mask to himself, to his personality. That he had to force himself to be jovial.
The only time it did not feel false was when he was around Miss Weston.
Mr. Carson, however, seemed naturally to be that way. It could be a mask just as James’s joviality was but if so it was an exceedingly good one.
The gentleman was only a year or so younger than James. He had a title coming to him as well once his father pass
ed, for he was to be a marquess.
“Mr. Norwich, a pleasure as always.” Mr. Carson smiled. He had one of those faces that was not handsome but quietly pleasant nonetheless. The sort of face that one could look at for the rest of one’s life.
“What brings you into Bath?”
“Mother comes down here every year and has enlisted me to come along. My younger sister was in need of an escape from London but she insists upon continuing to go to balls here.”