“Yes, I’m coming,” Lady Emily said, her voice a little shaky. She was busy glancing at Aaron, with those same eyes widened in surprise. As the two of them turned to walk back with Lord Bolton, either side of him, Aaron could not stop looking at Lady Emily, the same way she appeared unable to stop staring at him. He knew what she was thinking, it was the same question she had asked, that hovered unanswered in the air between them since Lord Bolton had interrupted them.
Why did I do that? Why did I kiss her hand with so much intimacy?
They engaged in conversation with Lord Bolton all the way back to the lodgings when Aaron paused on the doorstep. It was with pain he said goodbye to Lady Emily, dispirited not to be able to explain himself to her as he watched her retreat inside, ready to change for dinner.
“All well, my friend?” Lord Bolton asked, coming to clap him on the shoulder.
“Yes, very well,” Aaron said, finding the truth falling from him. There was something in that moment with Lady Emily, something so honest that he had loved. Yes, maybe she couldn’t see the beauty that she had, but he had been unashamed and unafraid of telling her what he truly thought of her. “Good lord… I think I have just realized something.”
“Realized what?” Lord Bolton asked.
“I’ll tell you another time. There is another I must tell first.” Aaron hurried into the lodgings, aware that Lord Bolton was calling after him, trying to get him to stop, but Aaron could not.
He went straight to his chamber and pulled down the flap of the small writing bureau placed in the corner of his room. With a harried manner, he prepared a fresh quill, with ink and paper, before he wrote his mother’s name at the top and began his letter.
‘Dear Mother,
Today, I think something in me has changed. I have thought much of what you said that day when we took tea in the garden, where you told me it was possible to fall in love more than once in your life. To be perfectly honest, I thought such an idea impossible, yet here I am prepared to rethink everything I have ever thought.
Something happened today with Lady Emily Bolton.
In many ways, I think I am a fool for not seeing it sooner. Since the moment I met her, I was struck by her. She is so different to any other lady I know, and her company is something I long for more than anyone else’s. Her ability to make me smile when it is the last thing that I feel like doing is powerful indeed. Who knew someone could have such magic in them?
Here in Brighton, we took a walk on the promenade with her family, and there together, I felt as if I had been hit by one of those waves off the shore, for it struck me that suddenly. Lady Emily is not just a lady I cannot stay away from, but someone I never wish to be apart from again. She matters to me, more than any other.
You were right, Mother. It is possible to fall in love again, and I find myself in the midst of it, so busy falling in love that I cannot even tell you when it began, only that it is happening at this very moment.
One broken heart is enough for me. I do not wish to have another, but perhaps with Lady Emily I have the chance of winning her heart in a way I never had a chance in the past.
I long to hear your own tale, Mother. What you said in the past hinted that there must be something. Have you fallen in love more than once in your life? Perhaps love is not something that is spent and then used up. Maybe we are all capable of much more than we realize, like a natural spring where the water keeps flowing, maybe this feeling is never ending. Maybe we can always find it again.
I must go now. I am to have dinner with the Dowdings tonight. Now I have realized what it is I feel, I know I must speak of it. I am terrified of doing so, but I will not spend months, years even, hoping for something that might never be as I have done before. This time, I will know the truth from the beginning. I must ask Lady Emily if I ever have the chance of winning her heart.
Write back to me soon.
Your loving son,
Aaron.’
Aaron signed the letter with a flourish before he stood up, ringing for his valet, and choosing the finest suit he could muster. Everything he had written in the letter was true, and now was the time to find out if his heart had foolishly risked itself again.
As he changed, he thought of the way Lady Emily had blushed as he had kissed her hand that day on the promenade, despite the wind chill coming off the ocean. Perhaps his hope was not so foolish. Perhaps, Lady Emily could be falling for him too.
* * *
“Well, it has to be your turn, Lord Tattershall,” Lord Dowding said as their dessert was tidied away.
Aaron was still busy trying to control his laughter from the last riddle. Over dessert in the private dining room where the Dowdings and Aaron were sat, they had begun their usual game of riddles and it had quickly descended into such teasing and laughter that Aaron was having to wipe streaming tears from his eyes. At his side, Lady Emily was the same, pressing a handkerchief to her own eyes.
“My turn?” Aaron asked, trying to control his mirth.
“Pray, make it friendlier than my brother’s,” Lady Emily said beside him, turning in her seat to face him fully. Aaron found himself turning to face her completely too, such a smile on his face that he thought by now her entire family had to see the way he was responding to her. Yet none of them had commented on it. “Otherwise, we will be here all night!”
“Very well, in which case, I have one for you all.” Aaron sat backed and folded his arms, pretending to be serious for a moment.
“Oh, he is playing the game properly, look how hard he is concentrating,” Lord Bolton teased, pointing at him from the other side of the table.
“You will put the poor man off his game, Arthur,” Lady Bolton said at his side, elbowing him for good measure. “Go on, Lord Tattershall. We are all on tenterhooks.”
