Freddie was sitting in his father's study sorting his mail when Eva burst into the room.
"Anything?" she asked in a rushed and breathless voice. Had she actually run the whole way here when she'd heard that the post had been delivered?
Freddie turned and stared at her a moment before he returned back to his parcel of letters. He set the ribbon aside as his long, thin fingers sorted through the stack.
"Sit down before you faint," he ordered her in a bored voice as he flipped through the letters and read the return addresses on the backs of each of them.
Evangeline sighed dramatically and slumped onto the sofa in a huff.
"Here it is," he said finally as he read the return address that he had been looking for. He slid his letter opener underneath the wax seal and popped it free.
"What does it say?" she badgered him as she turned in her seat.
Freddie cast her a stern glance as he unfolded the papers. "If you would allow me a moment of peace and quiet I would read it and tell you," he grumbled.
Evangeline frowned at him and let air out through her nose as she crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently at him as she waited on the couch. He made a grand show of smoothing out every single wrinkle and fold as he first skimmed the letter, and then read through it again more slowly.
"It's postmarked two days after my letter was mailed to him. It is unlikely that he received my inquiry before he sent this one. We will have to wait for the next letter, I suppose," he explained as his eyes went back to skim a particular line again.
"I don't understand… if he had not received your letter yet then why has he written you?" she mused aloud.
Freddie folded the letter back up and set it aside nonchalantly as he moved to the next correspondence in his stack. "I do have friends, you know," he muttered.
Evangeline's mumbled non-verbal reply sounded from the general area behind him as he set the dull edge of the letter opener to the wax seal on his next letter. He'd just popped the red blob of wax free when Evangeline grabbed for the folded letter from his teacher.
"That letter is private!" he chided her as he reached to grab it from her hands.
Evangeline frowned at him as she jerked out of reach and unfolded the letter.
"We've never had secrets from one another before," she accused him with narrowed eyes.
Freddie felt the color drain from his face as her eyes skimmed the lines of text within.
"Each passing day waxes more solemn than the next since you are not here next to me, my beloved," she read aloud in a breathy voice as her eyes skimmed the rest of the page.
Evangeline's eyes widened as she read the letter over twice.
"Freddie, this is a love letter," she summarized.
Freddie winced and took the proffered, crinkled pages back. He folded it up and let it hang limply in his hand. "Yes… it is," he concurred.
Evangeline leaned against the desk and stared at him for a moment. "From your professor?" she clarified.
He nodded, his tongue thick and useless in his mouth as he blinked up at her. What was there to say? She'd read it all. And truthfully he was relieved. He had hated to keep this from her.
"This is more than just a… passing fancy, then," she surmised.
He nodded mutely and felt the pin pricking of tears at his eyes. It was all just so impossible. Why did everything have to be so difficult?
"Not that it matters," he said gloomily as his fingernail ran over the creases in the love letter and sharpened the folds. He knew that Evangeline was staring at him, but if he looked up at her and saw pity in her eyes then he knew that he'd be undone.
"And you return his affections?" she probed gently.
He scoffed, but there was no malice in it. "Isn't that obvious?"
She leaned her hip against the desk and took his hand in hers. Her thumb brushed the back of his hand softly.
"I always thought that falling in love would be the easy part," she murmured sadly.
"Whatever gave you that idea?" he scoffed.
But Evangeline side stepped his rhetorical question. "Why did you feel that you must hide this from me?" she asked him. "I know the nature of your tastes better than anyone. Did you think that I would judge you for loving him?"
Freddie creased and uncreased a corner of the letter with his free hand. "I needed distance from it… to think. I… wanted to make some sort of decision about it before I told you," he reasoned.
Evangeline licked her lips and squeezed his other hand. "What decision?" she inquired softly.
Freddie cleared his throat as he considered how to phrase it. But there really was no way around it. "Jonathan has a younger sister," he began.
Evangeline nodded but her face was confused as she listened to him.
"Jonathan has broached the idea of my asking for his sister's hand as a way to masquerade our… being together," he admitted finally.
She bit her lower lip as she appeared to be considering what he'd said. "And what does this sister think? Would she agree to such an… arrangement?" she asked.
"She… ah… she doesn't know," Freddie confessed.
Evangeline let go of his hand and struck him painfully in his arm. "Freddie!" she yelled at him between gritted teeth. "How could you even consider such a terrible deception?"
Freddie winced and rubbed his smarting arm. "I know!" he whined. "Believe me... I know. I'm greedy, and terrible, and an absolutely rotten cur. But Evangeline, I love him, and I'm not good enough to be selfless and give him up," he moaned despondently.
It was all just so bloody impossible. Why did their lives have to be so tragic? He'd wished for years that he could be a normal boy like all the others. But he wasn't. When other boys his age had started to speak about sneaking peeks at girl's ankles when they were younger, or tupping whores in alleys when they were older, he'd thought that there must be something terribly wrong with him. Because he'd never once felt that way about a woman.
And now Evangeline wasn't even looking at him. She was staring off into space as his life was falling apart all around him. Why would God have made him this way if it was wrong? How could his desires be so unnatural when he knew that he and Jonathan loved each other? And if it was so wrong, then why did it feel so perfect when they were together?
"Freddie, this could work," she said suddenly.
"What?" he replied, surprised.
She smiled at him and it was the first time since that day at the waterfall that she looked completely happy and content. The sparkle was back in her eye. "Don't you see? The idea is solid, just backwards," she added vaguely.
"Let me get this straight," he deadpanned. "You just socked me on the arm, rather fiercely I might add, and now Jonathan's idea has merit? Make up your mind, Evangeline," he grumbled irritably.
"No, you lackwit dolt. You have it all backwards. It's incorrigible of you two to cuckold his poor sister. But perhaps we can all solve each other's dilemmas," she added in an excited voice as she clapped her hands together.
Freddie stared up at her as the pieces fell into place. How had he not seen it before? But then again, she'd always been the clever one.
"Now, write him back," she demanded as she pulled a fresh piece of parchment from a stack and set the ink pen in his hand.