Isobel my love,
I cannot breathe. I think I might burn up, right here, right now, flaming into ashes sparked from the letter I hold in my hand. And yet, what a waste of that letter it would be!
I cannot breathe. I can see your eyes, glowing, teasing – never taunting, my love, but always teasing – and taunting or teasing the torment is still the same. Do I dare? Do I really dare to write my dreams of you, the spiralling fantasies of my mind that are my only escape from horror and death?
Dare I tell you of the dreams I have, where you are bent over one bed or another? Where I walk up behind you, let my hand find your hip, press myself to the curve of your bottom? Dare I tell you how I dream of you pushing back against me even as your voice ripples on, changing only just enough that I who know you so well can hear the lust shimmering there? To anyone else you would sound cool, even clinical – but I can hear it, Isobel. No matter how innocent the words your voice will ever give you away. You press back against me and I am lost, answering your pressure with my own, through my breeches and your skirts in a shallow mimicry of what I know we both burn for.
I dream of waking to find your hair spilling over my chest and hips, to find your hand in places that make me gasp. To find your mouth on mine, to have you pull my hand to skin unbound by chemise or corset. To see you smile the smile that haunts my dreams, even in crowded hallways and hospital wards, silent communication unnoticed save by us alone. Eyes twinkling with promise, a smile that speaks of intimacies that leave me aching more with every breath, with every glimpse of you.
Dare I tell you of how I have wanted you? Of where I have imagined tumbling you, careless of anyone who walks by? Dare I, Isobel? Oh, my love, dare I?
I could write pages, darling. I could write sonnets, though I was never much for poetry. I want you so much some days I want to scream. And then I remember where you are and why you are there and I know in my bones that you would sacrifice time with me to help one more of the wounded and sick and dying and as much as I want to hate you for it, I know it is the reason I love you – and the knowing makes me want you all the more.
I am yours, Isobel. Ever and ever yours. I am burning for you. And I would swear, in the dark when I burn alone, that even across the endless miles I can feel you burning for me, too.
"I call her Rose of Heaven, I've longed to love her so…"
You are, as you ever shall be, the fairest flower of no-man's land. And I am,
As I have ever been,
Your Richard