Dear Tobias,
I’ll tell you all about the contortionist and the painter if you answer my question.
Have you ever been in love?
A fortnight now, is it?
Maggie
Maggie reread the letter. Good. To the point and forceful. He could not ignore her question by addressing every other issue mentioned in the letter at length. There were no other issues mentioned. She folded the letter, addressed it, and sent it to London.
* * *
Tobias turned thoughtful eyes to Sebastian the Bear and tapped Maggie’s folded letter against his chin. Without a word, he readied a pen, and wrote.
Maggie,
A painter.
And a contortionist?!?!?!
How you expect me to focus on anything else when that revelation is at hand, I’ve no idea. Tell me he was young and limber but horribly hard on the eyes. Not at all a handsome fellow. It’s the only way I’ll be able to recover from such a shock.
Now, it’s clear you wish an answer to your question. Forgive me for not responding in my previous correspondence. I had other revelations on my mind, such as my being your third fiancé. I thought myself a special fellow, the only artist to catch the eye and hand of the exceedingly contrary Lady Magnificent. But it seems I’m just one of a growing collection of admirers. I’ll not take it personally. We’ll give your admirers and my artists their own floor of the new townhouse. They can keep one another company. And since your former admirers are artists, they’ll fit right in.
I hear angry rumblings from up North signifying your impatience. I’ve still not answered your query. Shall I now?
I’ve often been in love. With the sunset. With a good dinner. With an excellent play or book. With Sebastian the Bear, of course. Now tell me, did you love these fellows, your first and second fiancés?
Days from now, I’ll hear an enraged gasp from up North and know you’ve received my letter. I imagine you running down the stairs and assaulting the footman, begging to know,“Has my letter arrived?”You’ll very nearly shake the life from him, but you’ll have your letter, you determined girl. You’ll run back up the stairs and lock yourself in the bedroom I occupied not a fortnight ago. You’ll wrap yourself in the covers of the bed, wishing they still smelled like me, open the letter, and immediately let out an enraged scream as you reveal its contents.
’Tis soon now, Pocket Princess,
Tobias
He should have mentioned Celia, but a question in his own heart stopped him. Had he really been in love with her? And if he hadn’t, then no answer was a true answer. What need had she to know of a woman whom she’d never meet, who held no sway over Tobias now?
He felt, too, a sense of anticipation, of urgency to return to Maggie, to take her as his wife, to hear from her own lips and not from a flat letter that the two previous engagements had not broken her heart. The possibility remained that she’d loved at least one of them, but her family’s situation had not allowed her to follow through with the engagement.
He tilted a worried gaze at Sebastian. “I’m in trouble, dear friend. Up to my purple cravat in it, I’m afraid.” He pushed away from the desk and sent the letter North.
* * *
Tobias jolted down the stairs of the new townhouse in a foul mood. He’d never heard back from Maggie, and the absence of a letter filled him with unreasonable dread. James, a footman, opened the front door and ushered him into the street.
Tobias surveyed the traveling coach before him. She’d not responded, but that would not matter in a few days. He’d be before her in person, and they would pledge themselves man and wife before God and assembled family and friends, and likely an artist or two. He’d have answers to his questions soon. He’d have her secrets.
“Has a letter come today, James?” Tobias asked.
“Yes, Mr. Blake. Here.”
Tobias blinked at the letter the footman held out to him. “Are you sure that’s a letter?”
“Certain of it, sir.”
Tobias took it gingerly, as if it would disappear. Her now familiar handwriting scrawled his name. “Appalling penmanship.” He kissed the handwriting and opened the letter.
Dear Mr. Blake,
