Ford swallowed again, but it didn't help anything. He shifted again so that his hand was covering the bottom half of his face, shielding his expressions from view, at least partially. He felt exposed, and wanted to regain any meager shelter from observation that he could. Noble had been in his room and had read his letters, and that was bad enough. The fact that they had been so deeply personal was even worse. The fact that it was a man may have been at the forefront of Noble's mind, but it had barely registered to Ford. Noble having looked in on something intimate would have mortified him even if it hadn't been a man.

"Yeah," he managed, though his voice was hollow. There was no point in denying it, if Noble had paid any attention to the name at the top of the letters. Ford was staring at one of the embers in the fireplace and did not intend to look anywhere else for the foreseeable future. "Did you... read all of them?"

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