“Master Charles!” Molly shuffled into the study, her face stricken and her mop cap askew.
Charles was already on edge from the tone in her voice. He snapped his book shut, glancing over the span of his uncle’s desk.
“He’s asking for you,” she said, tears in her eyes. “You better come.”
He scrambled out of the chair. “Doctor Rivers—”
“Jackson already went to fetch him,” she replied, leading the way.
Charles all but stumbled up the stairs after Molly. It had been two days since the impromptu Christmas party, and Uncle Selby’s health had taken a sudden turn for the worse. Doctor Rivers said his kidneys were failing and that there was no stopping them. They were nearing the end. All he would supply was laudanum to keep Uncle Selby comfortable.
Charles hurried into his uncle’s room to see the man stretched out on the bed, his pallor pale and sickly against the white of his sheets. He could hardly lift his head off the pillow. Charles sat in the chair by the bedside, quickly taking his uncle’s hand and pressing a kiss to it.
“I’m here, uncle,” he said, raising one hand to stroke the older man’s hair. “Uncle, it’s Charles. I’m here.”
Uncle Selby stirred. “Charles…”
“Yes, uncle.”
“I’m so tired.”
Charles felt his chest opening like a great yawning pit, his heart teetering on the edge, ready to plummet. He nodded, giving his uncle’s hand a squeeze. “You rest as long as you like, sir,” he murmured, tears stinging his eyes.
“So much left unfinished, left unsaid—”
“Would you like me to pray with you, sir?” He reached with his free hand for his uncle’s favorite Bible.
“No,” Uncle Selby groaned. “No more praying. I am finished with prayer. I meet my maker today, Charles. I can feel it.”
Charles let out a shaky breath. “If that is your wish, sir. You may stay or go.”
“I need you, Charles.”
“I’m right here.” He leaned forward to kiss his uncle’s brow. “I’ll not leave you now.”
“You must,” Uncle Selby sighed. “You promised…you promised me. Two weeks, you said. He is a poison. He is your temptation…”
Charles closed his eyes tight, shaking his head as he tried to shield his heart and his mind from the sting of his uncle’s words.
“He will hold you back, Charles. Turn away from him. Do not waste your life as I have wasted mine.”
Charles opened his eyes, glancing down at their joined hands. “You have not wasted your life, sir. You’ve lived a beautiful life of purpose—to your family, to your community, to God—”
“Wasted.” He turned his face into the pillows. “I wasted all my best years. Never married. Never fathered a child.”
“You were a father, sir. To me and to David…even Warren,” he added. “You were kind to him when few others could be bothered. You vouched for him to the late duke.”
“And he repays me by stealing all your light,” Uncle Selby replied with a groan. “You were supposed to have more than me, Charles. A wife, a family, a full life lived out in the open.”
Charles sucked in a breath. He could tell him this, surely. Here at the end of things, he could bring the man some peace. He leaned forward, elbow on his knee. “Sir…your fears are unfounded. I am to marry Lady Madeline.”
Uncle Selby blinked up at him. “What?”
“Lady Madeline Blaire. I am to marry her,” he repeated. “She asked for my hand, and I intend to say yes. I will be married, sir. I will live the life you always dreamed for me.”
Tears welled in the man’s tired eyes as he tried to sit up. “Oh, Charles…oh, can you mean it? But—how? When?”
“That doesn’t matter now,” he soothed, trying to help the man back into a restful position. “I wanted you to know, sir. I will marry her.”
“She is so lovely,” he murmured, his head resting on the pillow. “Don’t let her beat you at chess. She plays to her corners. Watch her rooks.”
Charles nodded with a soft smile, adjusting Uncle Selby’s blankets. “Noted, sir.”
“And you will leave Warren behind? You will leave him in the past where he belongs? Do not sully this chance, Charles. Look to the future. Only the future.”
“Yes, sir. I will look to the future,” he replied, leaning away, his heart in turmoil. He wanted a future with both of them. Did that make him selfish? It certainly made him a liar to a dying man.
“Charles, you must do something for me.”
“Anything, sir,” he replied, desperate to have something to distract himself. “Name it.”
Uncle Selby sighed, as if he carried the weight of the world. “I need you go to my office.”
Charles leaned forward. “Your office, sir?”
“Yes. Up on the shelf near the Martin Luther biography, the pretty one with the foiled edges, you’ll find a stack of letters. Please, Charles. Molly can’t find them. No one can.”
Charles stilled, his gaze leveled on his uncle. “Of course, sir. What would you have me do with them?”
A tear slipped down his uncle’s pale cheek as he considered. “Burn them.”
A quiet moment passed between them.
“Can I know—”
“No,” Uncle Selby breathed. “Do not read them. Promise me, Charles. Don’t let anyone read them. Just burn them. Go, my boy.” He tugged feebly at Charles’s hand, trying to loosen his grip.
“What, now?”
“No better time.”
“Surely, I can go later, sir,” Charles pressed. “The letters will keep. I’d rather be here with you.”
“No,” his uncle groaned again. “No, I cannot rest until it is done. I should have done it myself. I thought I had more time. Why do we always think we will have more time?” He huffed a weak little laugh.
Charles sighed, leaning down to kiss his brow again. “I’ll be right back, sir. Wait for me.”
Uncle Selby nodded. “I will wait here.”
Charles excused himself from the room, taking a moment in the hallway to catch his breath before he continued down the stairs. He took them two at a time, turning the corner and letting himself into the back room that served as his uncle’s office.
He paced down the longest wall of shelves, eyes set on his prize—a large, leather-bound tome of reddish-brown leather with gold foil edging. It was a very pretty biography of Martin Luther that the late duke presented to Uncle Selby several Christmases ago.
The shelves were a cluttered mess of Selby’s making—a reflection of his mental state as his health began to suffer. Bits of paper and journals were stuffed in amongst ledgers. It was going to take ages to organize it all once—
He groaned, stopping that thought in its tracks.
Spying the biography, he scanned the rest of the shelf. Perched next to the thick book was a nondescript, hinged wooden box. Charles pulled it down, flipping open the lid. Inside the box was a neat stack of letters. There had to be over two dozen.
Charles slipped the letters out of the box, setting the box on one of the lower shelves. The fire in the hearth was all but embers. He’d have to stoke it a bit to get a good flame. He set the letters aside, adding a few fresh pieces of wood to the stack and shifting it with the fire poker.
He rocked back on his heels, setting the fire poker aside and reaching once more for the letters. He flipped them over, noting the name of the writer:
Reverend M. Fields
All Saints Church
Devonshire
His senses tingled as he held onto the stack of letters. Before him, the fire crackled, growing stronger. The blaze was more than high enough to catch this stack alight.
But why was Uncle Selby adamant that Charles burn a bunch of letters from a reverend? Why was he afraid to risk Molly seeing them? He glanced down again, noting the age of some of them, the ink fading. The parchment was thin and fading at the creases, as if Uncle Selby had returned to the messages again and again, wearing out the folds.
Unable to help himself, Charles glanced at the door before slipping the topmost letter off the stack. He carefully unfolded it, reading the first few lines:
My Dear Thomas,
Dearest Thomas. For dear you have always been to me. It is June fifth today. The bees are buzzing in my orchard as I sit under the shade of my favorite apple tree. Another June come and gone, and you are not here with me. How I long for you, my dear, sweet Thomas—
Charles sucked in a breath, dropping his eyes away from the letter. Not just any letter. A love letter. Charles flipped the inner paper over, reading the closing:
Yours,
Martin
Reverend M. Fields. Martin Fields. Charles couldn’t believe it. He was holding a love letter written to his uncle by a fellow man of the cloth. This letter was dated 1812. He set it aside, unfolding the next letter in the stack dated 1811.
My Dearest Thomas,
How sweet the singing birds of summer. Oh, that I could share this symphony with you, my beloved—
Charles stopped reading, rushing to open the next letter. In minutes, he’d poured over a dozen. One letter per year, almost always written and posted in June. One letter, each full of the most lyrical and romantic poetry and prose. Martin talked to Uncle Selby as if they were married, as if they had just spoken the previous morning. He mentioned jokes they had in common. He responded to questions Uncle Selby must have asked in his previous letter. But only one a year.
Part of Charles considered the idea that Uncle Selby only kept one letter for each year of correspondence. But something warned him away from that theory. This felt too deliberate. Thomas Selby had a lover, a fellow curate, and they only permitted themselves to write each other a letter once a year.
He hardly even realized he was crying—tears of grief, of frustration, and so much anger. Was this it then? The great secret? Did Thomas Selby never marry because he was in love with a man? Did he warn Charles away from Warren because he could never make his own relationship work, too afraid to give into the fantasy of a love requited more than once a year?
He snatched up the stack of letters, determined to ask his uncle of their meaning. Marching from the office, he took the stairs two at a time, rounded the corner into Uncle Selby’s bedroom.
Doctor Rivers was there, sitting in the chair Charles had vacated not minutes before. Molly stood in the corner, her arm around a sobbing Jackson. The poor lad was all of twelve, and deeply attached to the curate.
“Oh, Charles,” Molly murmured, her face stricken. “It happened that quick.”
Charles took in the scene, his pulse thundering in his ears. Doctor Rivers was bent over Uncle Selby’s still form, his fingers pinching the pulse in his wrist, eyes closed. Charles’s heart dropped from his chest as he watched the doctor set his hand down, folding it across his chest.
Doctor Rivers glanced over his shoulder, his own eyes glistening with tears. The men had been friends for nearly twenty years, after all. “He’s gone,” he said solemnly. “Charles, I’m so very sorry for your loss.”
“No…” His response was all but drowned out by the heart-wrenching sobs of Molly and young Jackson. “No…no!” He pushed forward, dropping to his knees at his uncle’s bedside, the letters fluttering in a pile like so many feathers to the floor. “No—sir! Don’t go. Not yet…please, god. Not yet.”
He snatched up his uncle’s limp hand, kissing the knuckles.
Doctor River’s gentle hand rested on his shoulder. “He went peacefully, Charles. We can take comfort in that.”
Peacefully.
Yes, Uncle Selby was at peace. But he left Charles behind. No mother. No father. And now the Lord saw fit to take his surrogate father too. All that remained was a deep, aching sense of loneliness, confusion, and so many questions.
Questions that would never get an answer.
