Clandestine Passion (The Lovelocks of London Book 2)

James sent Enfield out to buy foolscap, quills, and plenty of ink. He suspected he was going to need supplies for a long epistolary siege. Unfortunately, love letters were not his forte. If only Catherine would respond to a coded message or a cipher. That he could write.

To my dearest, to Catherine, to Kate—

We returned to London three days ago and today is the third time in the new year that I have been told by your butler that you are not at home to me.

And so I write.

This letter will be brief. Not because I have little to say, but rather because I fear inconveniencing you with my affections.

I love you, Catherine. It does not matter that my boyhood memory is faulty. You are the Viola I always longed to know.

I do not expect you to love me. I only hope that you will allow me to love you. That you will either tolerate me or teach me to be tolerable to you.

There are no insurmountable oppositions. None, except a separation that you have imposed, a circumstance which is driving me mad.

Please answer me.

Always your Jamie.

To his Right Honorable Marquess of Daventry, James Cavendish:

I write to you to make it clear that your affections and attentions are in no way abhorrent to me. You should know that. You are a man of great worth, and my superior in every way—in rank, in character, and, frankly, in beauty.

But you must give this up. Give me up. Give up this notion you have that, somehow, we will be together. We will not. It is pointless to belabor this.

As I said, your attentions are flattering to me but they are also heartbreaking.

No answer is necessary.

Mrs. Edward Lovelock.

Dearest Kate of my heart—

It is very wrong of me to tell you this, but I am over the moon that my attentions are heartbreaking to you. You must know that you continue to give me hope. Heartbreaking means you have invested some piece, no matter how small, of your heart in me.

Yes, I will concede to you that there are differences in rank between us. This is a fact, but an unimportant one.

But I cannot accept your assessment of my character and my “beauty.”

You, my goddess, my Minerva-cum-Venus, are so beautiful that I could not stop looking at you the first time I met you. Remember? Lady Huxley’s ball? I wanted to eat you with my eyes.

You are perfection in every way and I have begun cataloging all the parts of you that should be classified as meeting the highest standard of feminine beauty. Your eyes. Your skin. Your hair. Your elbows, your neck, your breasts, your blush (which is present right now, is it not? Especially after my mention of your breasts), your hands, your bottom, your navel, your ears, your shoulders, your breasts and your bottom (see what I did there?), your toes, your thighs, your waist, your back, and each of the individual golden hairs that cover your sweet womanhood.

(I have written this letter out five times now, and each time I have hesitated to write the last phrase above and then I have written it and then I have scratched it out and then I have started copying this letter all over again. I want you to know that I think that all parts of you are, without exception, beautiful, and I do not want you to think I have omitted any. Even if mention of them is not the usual thing in a love letter to a lady.)

And my character? I hesitate to detail my flaws as you already have so many reasons to reject me. If, someday, you ever let me back into your bed and promise to let me stay, I will tell you all the reasons your character is far superior to mine.

Tomorrow, please allow me to see you. I know that if I could only hold you and kiss you, you would see reason. Or lose your reason. Whichever results in allowing me to be close to you again.

Always your Jamie.

To his Right Honorable Marquess of Daventry, James Cavendish:

I am glad that you acknowledge the fact of your noble birth. And the fact that I am a farmer’s daughter.

Here is another fact for you.

When you are fifty-three, I will be seventy, if I am still alive.

Mrs. Edward Lovelock.

To Kate, who holds my heart ruthlessly in her fist and crushes it—

I am trying out new salutations with each letter, in the hope that I will find just the right one that will make you melt and you will consent to see me.

But as to the content of your last letter—oh, Kate, Kate, Kate, I shake my head.

I pray that you will reach seventy. And if you do, would it be so bad to have a fifty-three-year-old companion of the heart? It is my understanding that appetites are well matched throughout a lifetime when a decade or more separates the ages of lovers. With the male being born second, that is.

And as to how I would feel at fifty-three about having a seventy-year-old lady love? If she were you, I would hope that she still remembered me, that she still kissed me, that she still reached for my ticklish knees, and that she leaned heavily on my arm as we climbed the steps to bed each night (or alternately, that my back was still strong and she let me carry her).

Always your Jamie.

To his Right Honorable Marquess of Daventry, James Cavendish:

You are very clever at provoking me into an answer. Each letter I write to you, I intend to be the last, but then you write nonsense, and I feel I must say something in response.

Who will give you sons, Jamie?

Mrs. Edward Lovelock.

Kate—

What need have I for sons if I can have you?

I thank you for your worry, but my father has a younger brother. Who has TWO sons. One of my cousins has knock knees and the other a squint. But they will do.

Kate, I can’t help but think that your stated objections—our ranks, our ages, the expectation that I produce heirs—are not the real reasons you reject me.

But I can do better. I can be better.

You already know, to some degree, that I am not the feckless cad and inebriate I am reputed to be. But I am still so far from being the man I want to be for you. The man you should have.

I wish you would tell me why you don’t want me so that I may amend the faults you find most grievous first.

Always your Jamie.

To his Right Honorable Marquess of Daventry, James Cavendish:

If I concede that there is another reason that we have no future—one that has naught to do with you and only to do with me, will you let me be?

Mrs. Edward Lovelock.

Dearest Kate—

I have enclosed a key to my rooms. Come to me and tell me this reason.

Always your Jamie.

Dear Catherine—

The best part of every day is the time I spend in walking from my rooms to your house. Hope springs eternal, et cetera. I even have come to enjoy my intercourse with your butler. Chelsom is his name, is it not? The way he varies what he says to me. Sometimes it is “Mrs. Lovelock is not at home” and sometimes “Mrs. Lovelock is not receiving visitors.” Sometimes, he breaks all propriety and adds the phrase “at present” to either of the above sentences.

I have heard nothing from you in a week. I had hoped you would come to me and we would discuss your mysterious reason for keeping us apart. Did you receive my key? Are you well?

Always your Jamie.

Catherine—

Answer me. Please. I am very close to hopping your garden wall if only to catch a glimpse of you and see that you are well.

Always your Jamie.

Dear Mrs. Edward Lovelock:

Please acknowledge this letter in some way. I had thought that I was in agony before when my only contact with you was by letter but now that your words have stopped, I know that state was but a pitifully weak imitation of agony.

James Cavendish, Marquess of Daventry.