1 January 1889

Dear future husband,

Happy New Year! I pray the new year finds you well. How was your Christmas holiday? Was your family gathered round the hearth to celebrate with presents and eggnog and mulled cider?

That reminds me... have you any brothers or sisters? Have you a whole gaggle of younger ones to trail you around and irritate you with bothersome questions and embarrass you in front of your friends? Or perhaps you have a younger brother who imitates everything you do and declares that when he is bigger, he wants to be exactly like you? Or perhaps a kindly older brother or sister who sneaks you sweets when your parents aren't looking and brings you presents from far-off places? I wish I could have a sibling. But Father says it will never happen--

"Whom are you writing to?" Anna Carver, who was two years Rosalie's senior, asked, snatching the paper away from Rosalie before the younger girl could protect it from her. "Ooh, your future husband?"

"Give that to me!" Though three inches shorter, Rosalie determined not to appear weak nor to be trifled with. Especially not by the newcomer to Grenledge. Though she had been in the countryside two months now, apparently the niece of a Miss Patterson in town, and had been the cause of quite some ruckus in church. Rosalie's father had invited her over after Rosalie had asked for a sister and instead attained a very irritating companion whom she refused to call her friend. "I shan't be mocked."

"Oh, how very lonely you must be," Anna mocked, holding the parchment above her head of red curls. "Walled up in Grenledge Manor with your silver tea service and fancy ball gowns. Please, do not pretend you have tasted suffering."

"The contents of my correspondence are private, and thus none of your affair!" Rosalie was about to be most unladylike--as she had already done by raising her voice--and climb up onto a chair to snatch the letter back. "And you have no right to speak to me so when you are a guest in my home."

"Girls." Miss Wilson's voice had never been so welcome until this moment. Anna dropped the pages to the ground, where they fluttered before landing in a heap on the library's Oriental carpet. Rosalie hurried to snatch them up before they were trampled. "How are your French lessons coming along?"

Behind Miss Wilson's back, Anna made a face at Rosalie, who pretended she was too dignified to return the expression but beneath the table, aimed a kick at Anna's ankle. Anna ignored it and carefully copied out the conjugations of venir, poussoir, and other irregular verbs. Rosalie watched her handwriting for a moment as she wrote with her right hand; it was a very bad hand indeed.

"What have you to say now?" Anna demanded in a hissed whisper as she felt Rosalie's gaze on her.

"Nothing," Rosalie murmured, her cheeks flushing red with the chastisement.

Anna made a noise of distaste before she picked up her quill and went back to writing--but it was with her left hand now, and her script was much finer.

"Why did you not use your left hand to write, earlier?" Rosalie asked when Miss Wilson went in search of a book.

Anna finished her conjugations before she answered Rosalie nonchalantly. "My parents and the schoolteacher would beat me when I used my left hand for anything," she explained. "They tied my left hand behind my back and made me learn to write with the other one."

Rosalie frowned. "That doesn't seem fair at all. It isn't as if you can help being left-handed!"

Anna shrugged. "Don't go taking pity on me now, Rosie."

She gasped in mild horror but it was playful now, not in earnest. "Only my father is permitted to call me that, Annie!"

"Whom are you writing to?" Anna asked, gesturing to the letter that Rosalie had tucked under a French grammar book.

Rosalie blushed, not wanting to say. "Well..."

"Well can hardly be the name of a person. Who is your future husband?" Anna asked. "Has your father already mapped out your entire future for you, including the man you shall spend the rest of your life with?"

"It's not that..." Rosalie sighed. "I do get lonely in Grenledge all by myself. I suppose I was writing simply for a facsimile of company. I have no siblings and no friends at all, and--"

"That's not true," Anna interrupted her with a toss of her red curls. "You have me."

Rosalie frowned. "I could have sworn you despised me a few moments ago."

Anna looked reticent now, clamping her mouth shut, but Rosalie would not be dissuaded so easily. "What is it?"

"It is quite difficult, you will find, not to envy or even to dislike someone who has so much more than you but is still unhappy." Anna fiddled with the fraying cuff of her gown.

"Oh." Rosalie sighed, slumping over on the desk and ignoring her governess's calls for ladylike posture. "Well, it isn't as if I chose to be born into my family."

"None of us choose anything," Anna said quietly. "Least of all matters of the heart."

Anyways, as I was saying. I have no siblings and it appears I shall remain in that state for the foreseeable future. However, I do have a friend. I made a new friend today! Fear not, however. I shall certainly not cease in my missives to you.

My new friend's name is Anna Carver. Her aunt is Miss Patterson, who lives in town and is the widow of a tradesman. Anna has red hair and brown eyes, and she is left-handed. I've never met anyone who was left-handed before, but she says that her parents and teachers make her write with her right hand instead, though I don't know why. She is fourteen, which makes her two years older than me if you remember my age from the first letter I wrote you. We are taking French lessons together under the teaching of my governess, Miss Anne Wilson.

What about you? Do you have a governess? Do you attend school? What career would you like to have one day? Perhaps you have dreams of becoming a dashing soldier, traipsing around as part of the militia in a red coat, or joining the navy or becoming a pirate. Miss Wilson says I have very romanticized ideals of sailors but I think it isn't my fault that I have never met one in real life. It would be quite dull if you were a peer and wanted to go into politics and sit in the House of Lords.

Not, of course, to say that I would hold it against you if you were a baron or an earl or a marquess. We cannot help the circumstances of our births. I, for one, would also like to have an older sister or brother, but I cannot help that circumstance of my birth either. Yet, I fear I have complained enough of my solitariness to make you pity me or worse become exasperated with me. Please do try to put up with me. One does become quite lonely, but never mistake my loneliness for misfortune.

I am grateful. I thank God every night for my Papa and for my governess and even for Anna Carver, and I thank Him that I need to fear for very little. I have a roof over my head and food on the table and a father who loves me. What more, really, could a girl ask for?

And I thank God for you. Though we have never met and I can claim no kinship, nor any friendly connection with you, I thank God for I know you are there somewhere in this world. I thank God for you and the marriage we shall someday have and I pray that He is taking good care of you. I pray that He is watching over you and ensuring your safety and that you live wit h a lovely, happy family and lots of siblings and parents who care for you.

On that more joyful note, I remain,

Sincerely yours,

Rosalie Winthrop

Rosalie put down her quill and wrapped an embroidered shawl around her shoulders, the flowers on it lopsided because it was one she had made herself last year, around the time of her eleventh birthday. She had a great deal of time and now found that her fingers were far more agile and more capable of maneuvering the slender needle without pricking her fingers or making crooked stitches. Miss Wilson had gone off to have her supper with the servants as she always did, not wanting to intrude on Rosalie's time with her father. Strict as Anne Wilson was, Rosalie wished she would stay just so that she might be able to talk about Rosalie's accomplishments without it sounding like bragging, as well as having something to fill the heavy silence that inevitably would fall.

Still, she forced herself to blow out all the candles in her room except one and carry it over to the dining hall. If she were late to any meal, her father would be highly disappointed. They often breakfasted and supped together, a routine that she both anticipated and dreaded. She savoured the small bits of time with him, yet she was scared to disappoint him. Not because he was particularly cruel but because deep down... She felt unworthy of his love. She felt the need to prove herself worthy of living in this manor, having such lovely things, being his daughter, because she felt that he had no obligation to her. He had no obligation to spend time with her or love her as he did when her mother had left her. When Cornelia Winthrop had decided to abandon her daughter and husband for her lover.

Thus, Rosalie always tried her hardest to make up for the empty spaces her mother had left behind.