Deceiving the Viscount

Prologue

20 August 1815

Dear Miss Blackmore,

I trust you are well, and that you have reached your destination safely. My sister was unable to tell me where you had departed for, and so I write this letter to be mailed to your uncle's estate, in hopes that when you return, you will see it and deign to grace me with a reply.

We might not have parted on the best of terms, but I sincerely hope that you might give me another chance to prove myself worthy of being your suitor. I ardently wish to further our acquaintance, and have the opportunity to change your mind about me not being being the one for you.

If I sound like a lovesick swain, then call me one, for I cannot deny that you have captured my attention and my heart in that short week.

I wait with impatience for your reply.

Your servant,

Garrett Kendall

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1 September 1815

Dear Miss Blackmore,

Despite not having yet received a reply from you, I find that I'm too filled with longing to wait to hear from you. I feel as if my whole being is made of yearning for your reply. To satiate some of that impatience, I have decided once again to write to you, for it seems that is the only cure. I've tried going on long walks, taking Nero out never-ending gallops, even swimming in the small lake near Bakewell Manor that was the setting of the boyhood story that Wyndham recounted to you, which I swore never to step foot in again after. However, to my utter displeasure, they have done nothing to make the time past faster, only to tire my body out.

But not my mind.

In my dreams, you take centre stage. Is it the height of impropriety to tell you that my dreams of you are lurid? It probably is, but as you do not care for propriety, neither shall I. Write me back and I shall regale you with salacious details of what happens between the two of us in my dreams.

And while I wait with eagerness and anticipation for your reply, I will yet conjure more unseemly, inappropriate dreams of you, so that I might yet have many tales to entertain you with so that you shall never tire of me. As I shall never tire of you.

Your servant,

Garrett Kendall

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15 September 1815

Dear Miss Blackmore,

My sincerest apologies if I have somehow managed to displease you in my previous letter. I did not wish for that, only that my words might titillate and intrigue you enough to entice you to reply. If that is what has led you to not think it suitable to send a reply, I humbly beg for your forgiveness. It is the only reason I can think of that would cause you to not reply to my letters yet send one to my sister.

And because I wish for there to be no doubt that you would see my apology, I'm enclosing it with her letter to you. Should you be curious as to why we should be sharing the post to you, it is because I've accompanied my parents to visit them. My mother wishes to see how she is contending with running her own household. And likely to badger them to give her grandchildren already.

I so dearly wish you were here as well. As does Adelaide. If I could speak to you but for a moment, I would surely be the happiest man alive for I would be able to deliver the full extent of my regret for my actions to you.