“12th March 1832.
My Dearest Hamilton,
I would hope that this letter if ever I did send it, would find you in the very best of health and happiness.
It has been more than a year since last I wrote to you and almost two since I set eyes upon you. How long it has seemed to me, my dear brother, and how extraordinarily painful.
Time and time again I had meant to write, even after Aunt Cynthia told me how my first letter to you ended up. I realize now that you are truly disappointed in me, and I shall not send you any further letters for fear that they shall also end by being thrown upon the fire as my first one was. But please know that I do not blame you for it, nor do I hold any injury in that regard. Rather, I understand entirely and simply wish that things could have been different for us.
It really is terribly difficult for me to accept my own part in things and to realize quite how much I must have hurt you. But please understand that I did not have a choice; otherwise, I should not have run as I did. I could never have imagined in all my life running from you. You were always the dearest person in my world, and I am only sorry that you might never know it.
And yet, one day, you might. You might stumble upon these letters by chance, although I cannot begin to imagine what chance that might be. Or I might find the courage to send them to you, and you might find an opening in your heart which would allow you to read them.
Either way, all I have at this moment is to commit my feelings to paper without the knowledge that you will ever know them yourself.
In my first letter, I had wanted greatly to explain to you why I ran. Not to excuse myself, you understand, for true love does not need any excuse. But I should like to have explained nonetheless. I should have liked you to have read my words to you and perhaps given them a little of the understanding that I have always had of you.
And yes, I do understand. I knew exactly why it was you did not wish me to marry Carwyn Thomas and I know, in your own way, it was out of the purest love for me. You felt that I would suffer greatly by not having all the material things that had made up so much of my life. The great advantages that you and I both enjoyed simply as a consequence of our birth. And it is true, brother, that there are things that I miss. And yet, none of them detract from my happiness now. And that, in the end, is why I left. I knew at the time that you did not believe it to be anything other than simple fancy, but I loved Carwyn Thomas as I knew I would never love another. And, these two years later, nothing has changed. Rather, it has grown into a love I could never have imagined. It is a love that I can only hope and pray that you yourself will find one day, wherever you might find it. You see, love does not always arise just as one might hope it would. It does not always have a title, or a background that is acceptable to all around. But it comes nonetheless, brother, and if it ever comes to you, then I think you will understand entirely what it is I am trying to say.
In the end, I could only ever have gone with Carwyn. He was and is my life and always shall be. But I should like so very much for you to still be my brother.
I should like so very much for us to laugh again as we did when we were younger, and I should like to run to you with my every little problem, my every little malady, and have you listen to me and console me as you always did.
Of course, I might wait the rest of my life and have that never happen. In truth, it breaks my heart, but I do not know how I can change it.
And yet it changes nothing. It does not change my great love for you, my dear Hamilton. I shall always be grateful for the guidance and the love that you gave me daily, never once missing a moment. You never, ever let me down in any way, even when you and I were at our very worst.
Even when you and I could no longer stay together as a family, I loved you. And still, I love you now and always shall. And in my heart, I am certain that you still love me too. At least that is what I choose to believe and, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I shall not be swayed in that.
And so it is that I shall simply continue to write to you; I shall write to you the letters that you might never, ever see. And yet I shall write them if only to let you know in some way of every happy incident of my life.
And it is with great happiness that I tell you that I am soon to expect a child. In truth, the doctor says that I am so large that there might well be more than one. I could not be happier than to have two babies at once. Just as our mother and Aunt Cynthia were twins, does it not follow that they might run in our family on our mother’s side? I do hope so, Hamilton. If only they could know you. If only one day there would be some way in which my little children would know their Uncle Hamilton. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to know that they had you out there in the world acting as their silent guardian, just as you were mine all those years.