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Dearest Tom,

Something strange has happened, and I wonder if you knew. It seems a recent development, and one that I could not have seen coming, as I would have thought them ill-suited had I not seen it for myself.

On Sunday evening, I was out for a walk with Rudolph.

I hope you know that nothing happened between us, and he was, in fact, utterly annoying.

I’m not even sure what he was speaking of, except that it was nonsensical and hard to follow, and I was getting ready to tell him that I was done with walking and ready to head back to the estate when we heard voices from deeper in the roses.

I recognized one immediately as Charles’s, but we could not make out who he was talking to until we got a little closer and Ida’s became clear as well, albeit much softer than his.

My brother was speaking loudly, which is not unusual, but there was a note of passion in his words that caught both Rudolph and myself off guard.

Before we could reach the alcove where they were speaking, I pulled Rudolph aside and we stopped for a while and merely listened.

The conversation was clearly one that had happened before, but that itself was genuinely startling.

A hasty, whispered conversation between myself and Rudolph confirmed what I had already suspected: that neither of us were aware how our siblings felt.

Charles was asking Ida to marry him, and while it was obvious that neither of them were truly opposed to the idea, Ida had refused.

As we listened, though, her reasoning became clear.

She had once been promised to me, as you well know, and with that marriage would come an elevation of her position.

Charles could not promise a lordship, and while I believe both of them knew I would provide for them in any way I could, her father had made it clear that she must make up for the loss of me by finding someone of similar status.

Rudolph and I slipped away unnoticed, but I am consumed with worry for my brother.

Charles is a good man but he has never, to my knowledge, been in love to the point of considering marriage, and from the way he spoke in the garden it seems like he has been pursuing Ida since she called our engagement off.

I wonder if he has told you. As a man unconcerned with these silly affairs of class, would you advise him to pursue Ida?

Or would you do what I would do, and tell him to forget about it because class is more important than anything else in this echelon of society?

I cannot even comfort my own brother, and all I can do is think of what you would say.

I desperately miss you and sink more and more into these feelings the longer you are away.