Dear Future Husband

41. Didn't You Miss Me, Rosalie?

22 April 1894

Dear future husband,

I woke up this morning and found myself aboard a ship to Paris. Next to me is a woman whom I have not seen for over a decade. She claims to be my mother.

You will forgive, I am sure, the hasty scrawl, tear stains, and splotches of ink that mar this missive. For I am doing my very best not to give in to my emotions and keep a stiff upper lip, but it is quite difficult when one is in the state that I am in.

Last night was truly the best of my life. And now? I am afraid I might have lost my one true chance at love... forever. For last night, you see, I saw Maximilian Walker for the first time since we parted ways on that Oriental dock. Or, who is to say? He was a guest at the masquerade that Lily and I attended! He confessed to being Marcus Wakefield... and we have been slipping in and out of each other's lives over the past five years.

Yet if that is so, why would God be so cruel to pull us apart again, right when we have finally been able to meet?

I do not even know how he managed to attend my debutante ball, for surely he would not have been invited? Yet perhaps my father invited him. It seems like the sort of thing that Papa would do. Oh, I do miss him! I pray that God would lead him to me soon and that justice would be served for this vile act that my own mother has perpetrated against me.

Truly, I do not understand her. If she had simply wished to be in my company, we might have had tea or gone to Gunter's for an ice. I may not have been completely civil to her, as I am still quite put out with how she abandoned me and my father for the past decade or so, but... still. I would listen.

But she has left me no choice. No reason have I to be kind or polite, and every reason to resist and be stubborn.

My mother is waking up now, so I must put this letter away. Please, God, send my father to Paris, and let him know where I am.

Yours forever,

Rosalie Winthrop

Rosalie quickly tucked the letter into a hidden pocket of her overskirt, smoothing out the gown. Her mother stirred. Cornelia Winthrop looked perfect even in the faint rays of dawn light, and Rosalie resented it. Even with curlers in her golden hair and clad in a simple muslin dressing gown, she looked lovely.

It was a shame that her character was so hideous in comparison.

Not sure that her words would be polite or even civil, Rosalie kept her mouth shut.

"Good morning, Rosalie," Cornelia Winthrop said. "Did you sleep well?"

Abiding by the same policy, Rosalie nodded, though she had wept bitter tears, clutching her pillow, and wished that she were back at the ball with Maximilian and her father.

"Did your father not teach you to speak when spoken to?" she asked sharply, picking up a hand mirror from the vanity and examining her appearance.

Rosalie cleared her throat. "He did, ma'am."

"Then please abide by that rule, my dear." Her mother set down the mirror, taking out her curlers and fluffing her hair. She had brought no ladies' maid, as far as Rosalie could see, and so Rosalie had slept most uncomfortably in her gown from the ball. "I assure you, I am not such an awful conversationalist."

"Where in Paris will we be staying, ma'am?" She had always wanted to go to the Continent. But the thought of going with her mother, not with her father or hus–not with anyone she loved, seemed it would unbearably taint the experience.