Dear Future Husband

19. Please, Believe Me

1 October 1889

Dear future husband,

I am being sent to a boarding school first thing tomorrow morning. As I write this letter to you, my maids are packing my muslins and linens into several valises and chests. We have only just returned from London, yet I must leave my home again. And not only my home, but my dearest Papa! How shall I cope? When she was here, Mama told me that my first time packing a trunk should be my trousseau for when I went to reside with my husband in his house. Well, she was quite wrong, as she may have been about many things. I am weeping at my desk as I pen this epistle to you. I can scarcely see the page and I pray this might be legible to you. But first, before I continue with my missive, I must inform you of the dreadful, most horrid, and simply horrendous incident that has led to this exile from my beloved Grenledge!

Yet even before I inform you of that event, I must first set the record straight and state for you the truth, plainly and clearly. Sterling Bennett is no gentleman, neither in the conventional, land-owning sense, nor in the unconventional, modern, and chivalrous sense. He is a completely dastardly rascal, a spineless coward, a blackguard if there ever was one, and a complete monster! Please, let not my heavy emotion lead you to believe that I am biased, even if you do see the tear stains on this parchment. I must have you know that he is a man entirely unworthy of a lady's affection, time, love, or even one whit of her attention. Sterling Bennett simply cannot be trusted.

A knock sounded at the door, causing Rosalie to jump about a foot in the air. She dried her tears as best as she could with her handkerchief, then turned to face the intruder. She stood from her nearly-empty desk and tucked the letter into a drawer of her desk. "Who is it?"

"Anna," came her friend's-former friend's?-voice. "Or rather, Miss Carver, to you."

As a maid went to open the door, Anna's red curls, tucked beneath a pale yellow scarf, bobbed into view. Rosalie gripped a handful of her blue skirts. "Anna, please... Do not behave so coldly toward me."

"Why should I treat as a friend a girl who has made it clear that she is my enemy? You have betrayed me in the worst way, Miss Winthrop," Anna said, her brown eyes red-rimmed, her face splotchy. They had both shed tears that wrenched their souls over the same scoundrel's actions. Yet it was those actions that caused Rosalie's agony now as well as her loss of a friend

"Please believe me, Anna... Miss Carver... You must know that I never intended to hurt you." Every piercing glare that Anna launched in Rosalie's direction felt like another dagger of ice finding its way between her ribs and into her heart. She had never wanted to harm Anna, her dearest friend. "It was not my fault..."

"How dare you play the innocent, Rosalie! How dare you pretend and behave as though you are the victim in this little tableau, when you seduced my fiance! You were the only one whom I entrusted with my secret and you betrayed me," Anna spat, her expression a venomous mask contorted with fury. Her brown eyes blazed with an intensity that made Rosalie wonder if the fires of Hell could be any hotter. It called to mind the Shakespearean maxim: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. But Rosalie was not the one responsible for any scorning, and she would not allow herself to be accused in such a brutal and unforgiving manner.

"Sterling Bennett is the one who kissed me and locked the door! He is the one who wished to trap himself in a room alone with me so that he could have my father declare that the scandal and loss of virtue would be too much for society to bear. He did all of that, so he could worm his way into my dowry," Rosalie shouted, more tears springing to her eyes. By now, at least the maids had had the decency to vacate the room, though Rosalie had no doubt that they were all listening with their ears pressed against the door. "Do not for a moment attempt to say that I am the one who wished for anything romantic to happen between us."