"Where could it possibly have ended up?" Frederick huffed as he finished digging through his wardrobe and trunks for the third time that night. He was to dine at Uppercross that night with Sophie and the Admiral, but for the life of him he could not find his boot. One had been sitting beside his bed but it's mate seemed to have grown legs and walked away. He chuckled to himself, remembering his mother's words when Sophie discovered yet another possession missing due to some prank of his or Edward's. That gave him an idea of exactly what might have happened.
Sophie could very well have hidden his boot but, he smirked to himself, she would never have put it somewhere truly difficult to find. He scanned the room once more. "Aha!" he flung himself forward and popped his head beneath the bed, finally spying the rogue boot and grasping it firmly. Upon drawing it out however, he discovered what seemed to be a portable writing chest stashed behind it. Given Sophie's recently rediscovered penchant for mischief, Frederick decided that it might be wisest to employ the chest in order to stay firmly ensconced in his room and guard his possessions. He pulled it out and placed it on his desk before pulling on his boots and heading down to join his sister for tonight's dinner party.
…..
Upon returning from Uppercross, Frederick glanced once more at the chest before retiring for the night and determining to investigate its contents in the morning.
When he awoke the next day, Frederick dressed and went down to breakfast where he received a letter from Harville. Well, he thought, pushing himself away from his now-empty plate, now was as good a time as any to open the writing chest and get to work.
…
While Captain Wentworth broke his fast at Kellynch Hall, Anne did the same at Uppercross Cottage, intending to finally finish unpacking and be able to answer her godmother's latest letter. She had yet to come across her writing chest in her unpacking and it pained her to be tardy in her response.
Ascending to her room after breakfast with Mary, she unpacked the last of her belongings and discovered that the staff had somehow failed to send on her writing chest with the rest of her things. She froze...if it had been left at Kellynch and one of the residents discovered it. Her heart cried out at even the thought of such a possibility.
…...
Frederick opened the top of the small chest eagerly and looked down to discover something that made him pause and then froze his blood.
Inside the chest were two stacks of letters, tied carefully together with ribbon, one of which was heartbreaking in its familiarity. Gingerly he lifted out the first stack, waves of pain washing over him as he recognized his own handwriting on the yellowed envelopes bound by the olive green ribbon he had given her because it reminded him of her eyes. Bitterness and anger flooded him at the sight and feel of those letters in his shaking fingers. After all these years, she still kept his letters, kept them when she wouldn't keep him or her promise to him.
Before he could do something rash (like throw them in the fire, rip them into tiny pieces, or weep once again over the woman who hadn't loved him enough) he gently placed the stack on his desk beside the chest and reached in for the other letters. This ribbon was not one he recognized, though he could see that it was cornflower blue and somewhat newer than the olive, but the name on these envelopes was his own. Captain Frederick Wentworth was scrawled in the handwriting of Anne Elliot across the front of the first.
Should he open them? Certainly not! It would be a violation of her privacy. Then again...the letters were addressed to him and therefore his by right. With a firm tug, he undid the ribbon banding together the stack of letters.