I very much wish to tell you that I was most grateful for your help when I was so very sick, for loaning your servants to care for me, and the many kindnesses you showed me. I also wanted to thank you for taking care of me when I was injured, for paying the surgeon, and for having my trunks sent here for me.
Forgive my impertinence, but allow me to tell you that I have long admired you as the best and most honorable man of my acquaintance. I tried to avoid you and even, for a while, tried to think badly of you, all because my cousin Phoebe fancied herself in love with you. I tried many times to check her from recklessly setting her heart on marrying you but without success. But that is no excuse for thinking ill of you or for hiding my own admiration for you. For, Mr. Langdon, I confess that I love you.
Julia chuckled a bit hysterically at what she was writing. She could never give such a letter to Mr. Langdon! It was impossible, ridiculous. But it felt oddly refreshing to put her true thoughts and feelings on paper. Therefore, she continued:
I love you, and my intense feelings for you first began, I believe, when you asked Sarah Peck to dance, rescuing her from sitting all alone that night so many months ago when no one else gave her the least notice. You were all grace and style and handsome vitality, but I didn’t want to believe you were anything but a flirtatious dandy. As I learned more about you, I found I couldn’t disdain you. Truly, you were kind and good and everything a Christian gentleman should be. You cared about the poor, and you helped orphans and those in dire circumstances. You showed courage, wisdom, and restraint, and you were not afraid to act on behalf of others. Even though I was helplessly in love with you, I continued to tell myself I wasn’t, that you and I were nothing more than friends. Phoebe begged me to help her make you love her, because otherwise she could never be happy, and I was foolish enough to say yes to what she asked. I couldn’t believe then that you could ever love me or want to marry someone in my situation.
As I am now a penniless governess, without family or connections, I know my love for you is even more hopeless. And so, I will be gone in the morning and must bid you adieu forever. I love you too well to wish you anything but happiness and the best that God can possibly afford you. May God be with you always.
Julia’s tears fell on the paper, as she signed, Your faithful friend and fellow spy, Julia Grey, at the bottom.
Foolish, silly letter. A sensible, proper young lady would never give a man such a letter. No, Julia must write him a practical letter, something that she could actually give to him when she left in the morning.
Julia took out another sheet of paper and began to write again:
Mr. Langdon,
Forgive me my impropriety in writing this personal letter to you, but I wanted to say how sorry I am that I was not able to speak with you, as you expressed a wish to, in the garden. I must leave at dawn, as Mrs. Atherton orders me to do, to go to my new position as a teacher at the Cumberland School for Girls in Kent. I hope you will excuse me.
I also wish to thank you for your service to me when I was sick, as well as your kind attention when I was injured a few weeks ago on Bishopsgate Street. You have been a charitable friend, and I am grateful. You are a most worthy gentleman, deserving of every good thing God might provide for your happiness. Therefore I wish you all of God’s blessings, including health, joy, and long life.
There. That was not too forward. It conveyed a proper regard and thanked him for all he had done for her, while apologizing for not being able to speak with him in private as he had wished. But it did more to hide, rather than reveal, the extent of her feelings.
Her first letter conveyed the truth, and if she were brave like Leorah, she would give him the first letter. Part of her wanted to. Part of her wanted to open her heart to him and be completely honest.
No, it was too bold. He would think her improper. She would give him the safe letter and save herself the embarrassment of having said too much.
She signed the second letter and folded it, writing Mr. Nicholas Langdon on the outside, just as a piece of paper slid under her door and scooted across the floor at her. She walked over and picked it up, unfolding it and reading:
Miss Grey,
Please do me the honor of meeting me in the garden in the morning at nine o’clock. I must speak with you. I greatly regret not being able to speak with you this afternoon, but I was inexorably detained for half an hour by two different people, and when I knocked on your door, there was no answer. Forgive me for my boldness, but I beg you not to leave for your new position without giving me the opportunity to speak with you.
Your humble and obedient servant,
Nicholas Langdon
Her heart skipped a few beats at the urgent tone of his letter. But she would be gone well before nine o’clock in the morning. She could not possibly meet him. Mrs. Atherton had ordered the carriage to take her away at dawn.
Perhaps she could find a way to speak with him tonight at the ball. Mrs. Atherton might be furious, but it might be worth it to dance with Nicholas Langdon one last time.