London – That Night
The ink was darker tonight.
Each stroke firmer, as if the pen could scream what Isabelle's voice could not.
She sat by the window, hair still damp from the rain she didn't bother avoiding after the show. Her sore throat pulsed, her chest ached with the weight of every unanswered hope.
So she wrote.
My Mary,
I don't know what silence means to someone like you.
Maybe it's elegance. Maybe it's safety.
But for someone like me—it's a knife.
I haven't heard from you in almost a week, and I'm going mad tracing your name in dust and pretending your last letter still has breath left in it.
I can't live in the pages anymore.
I need to see you. Truly see you.
I don't care how.
I don't care where.
I'll wait on a bridge, in a train station, in an alley behind a church if I have to—but I need to know that you're not fading away. That I wasn't some soft rebellion before silk and pearls swallow you whole.
If you feel anything, Mary—anything at all—you'll come.
And if you don't…
Then don't write again.
Because I won't survive another week of waiting for a ghost.
Yours, truly and foolishly,
Isabelle
Whitmore Estate – Two Days Later
Mary's fingers trembled as she unfolded the letter beneath her blanket that night.
The signature. The words. The pain between every line.
She could almost hear Isabelle's voice—shaking, angry, pleading.
Her chest tightened.
If you feel anything at all, you'll come…
Mary clutched the letter close to her chest.
She wanted to scream yes.
To pack her bag and run through midnight streets until she reached the sound of Isabelle's voice and never let go.
But reality loomed like a locked door.
London was half a world away in the eyes of her parents.
She couldn't say I'm going to see the woman I love—not when the very idea was sin in their eyes.
Not when a wedding was being discussed again over tea.
Still… her mind had already begun turning.
How?
How could she get away?
What excuse would make sense?
How much money did she have saved?
Could she say she was visiting an old friend?
A church trip?
An invitation from "Lily," her so-called noble companion?
A single name formed like a spark in her mind:
Lily.
Her mother liked Lily. Trusted Lily. Had no idea Lily was the shadow name of the woman she called sin.
Mary sat at her desk and began planning—folding ideas into corners of her mind, scribbling travel times, costs, dates.
She didn't know yet how.
But she would.
Because love like this didn't knock twice.