“I did, and I didn’t,” Anna said, chuckling. It was that tell-tale sign of a heart in love. “He is my secret admirer.”
The moment her sister told her this, something inside of Lydia froze. It made her paralyzed, unable to think or say anything for several seconds, during which her sister kept talking about the mysterious man in question, how wonderful he was, how eloquent, how outspoken, how understanding, sympathetic, and kind.
Lydia turned pale. When she finally got her speech back, she could ask only one question. “Has he been sending you letters”
“How did you know!?” Anna sounded surprised that her sister managed to guess that part. Lydia, on the other hand, wasn’t as surprised as Anna. She was shocked. Frightened. Petrified.
“I… guessed,” Lydia managed to muster, not wanting to alarm her sister. That would only make things worse. “But do tell me more about him.”
“I have the letters in my chamber. Would you like to see them?” Anna offered.
Lydia could not believe what she was hearing. It all resembled a horrible nightmare. She expected to wake up from it at any moment, but dawn would not grace her with its presence. She seemed to be stuck inside this nightmare, with no way out.
“Yes.” That was all she could say. She had utterly lost the power of speech in her shock.
Anna rushed out of the door, and Lydia followed her. The two girls entered Anna’s chamber where Anna proceeded to go to her bookshelf and pull out a book with a red hardcover. She opened it, revealing it not to be a book at all but rather a box where the letters were hidden.
“Here,” Anna said, giving her the letters. “You may read them. He has told me that I shouldn’t tell anyone, but I can’t keep quiet about this. I am so happy!”
Lydia listened to her sister gush about her mysterious secret admirer with her fear growing with each passing moment. She opened the first letter with a trembling hand and started to read silently. She could recognize the same words, the same tone, the same manner of address, but most frighteningly, she could recognize the handwriting. It was the same handwriting from Geraldine’s letter which could only mean one thing. This was the same man who wrote to Geraldine. This was the same man who wrote to Rachel. This same man was now writing to Selina. The thought was frightful.
It took Lydia all of her conscious effort not to tell Anna everything right then and there. But she couldn’t. She needed to keep this a secret, first so she would not frighten her sister, and secondly, so she could tell Edwin and together, they could come up with a plan to catch this man in the act.
“… so romantic and wonderful.” The sound of Anna’s voice brough Lydia back to the present moment. She was still gushing about her secret admirer while Lydia kept reading the each letter until the very last one.
There was no doubt about it. This was the same man.
“You told me that he is out there, waiting for me,” Anna beamed. “That was exactly what he wrote in one of the letters. He had been waiting for me patiently, and now that he’s found me, he won’t let me go.”
That was exactly what Lydia had been afraid of, but she did not have the heart to tell this to Anna.
“Here,” she returned the letters. The words were on the tip of her tongue. The truth. Although she knew that would break Anna’s heart. She managed to swallow the words and keep silent, at least for the time being. “Keep these letters safe,” she advised.
“I will,” Anna promised, pressing them against her chest and closing her eyes as she did so. Lydia could tell that her sister was already smitten with this man which was probably what he had already anticipated would happen. Anna was without suitors. She was a wallflower although she did know how to express herself well when the occasion required it. Still, she was slightly awkward and that made her almost an undesirable candidate for marriage. Lydia did not see it like that, but Anna had almost been convinced that she would probably remain a spinster her entire life. Now, this secret admirer was proving otherwise, and Anna was holding onto this with her dear life.
Lydia knew what she had to do. Edwin had to know about this.
* * *
Edwin didn’t mind that Lydia had come to see him unchaperoned, not after she told him the news that she had. It was so unexpected that he barely believed it to be true.
“That man… is writing to your sister Anna?” he asked, just to clarify that he understood it correctly. It was unbelievable. He could not wrap his head around it. “We should tell her all about this man, and then, we should go to the constables and –”
“No,” she cut him off. “The constables won’t do anything. We both know this.”
“What do you suggest then?” he asked, sounding skeptical.
“Anna keeps replying to him,” Lydia explained. “We play the part. We lull him into a false sense of security, so he thinks that no one knows the game he is playing. Then, we make a plan to find out who he is.”
“Absolutely not!” Edwin stood up and started pacing his study like a caged tiger. “I will not put you in danger, Lydia.”
“Can’t you see, Edwin?” Lydia stood up as well and walked over to him. He felt as if he were ready to jump out of his own skin, nervous. His entire body was itching. Then, she continued, “This might be our only chance to catch this man.”
“He is dangerous,” he reminded her.
“I won’t be alone,” she told him, smiling softly. “You will be by my side every single step of the way.”
He hesitated. He wasn’t certain whether they should do this or not. He wanted to find Rachel. He was desperate to find her, and he knew that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. But he didn’t want to risk Lydia getting hurt. If something happened to her, he would never be able to forgive himself.