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Dear Thomas,

How many times can I re-read that sentence?

Charles came to me after the mail had arrived yesterday afternoon, and along with the usual notes about business and about the ball there was the envelope from you.

I have to give him credit, honestly, as he was more perceptive about how your absence was affecting me than I thought he would be.

He opened it in the library with me and we read it together, and that last sentence…

it struck me in the heart as true as any arrow.

You did not mean what? To accuse me of thinking you a rat?

That is already forgiven. I know the sort of man I am, and I know that despite thinking I was doing well, I had not shown you even a glimpse of my true feelings.

I believed that day at the pond sufficient, that perhaps you had looked at me and seen the truth then, but I see now that my subtlety was too great.

Or did you mean that you should not have bristled when I asked you if you would return in time for the ball?

I saw your face in that moment and knew that you had taken it not as I meant it but instead as a slight, as though I expected you to attend only as a show pony and not as a guest I deeply desired to be there.

Let me say now that I wanted you there out of an abundance of hunger.

I wanted to see you dressed in clothes that I chose for you, wanted to watch you mingle with my guests and astound them with your mere presence.

I wanted to take you to the rose garden, slip my hand in yours, admit to you that I was consumed by the idea of kissing you the moment you gazed up at me from the grass in the noon sun.

It has been four days since you left and despite my resolve to erase my feelings for you from my heart, it seems that I am unable to be so pragmatic.

There, too, is the worry that Charles knows more than he’s letting on.

Once or twice he has made offhand remarks regarding romantic relationships between men, as though gauging my reaction, and I am afraid of what he would say if he knew that I had coveted you from the first moment.

All I can hope is that this madness passes. I keep these letters in my desk drawer to re-read them in the hopes they will prove an effective balm against the sting of this attraction, but so far they have done nothing except make me miss you more. I have never thought myself so weak as I do now.