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From a distance, you could be excused for assuming they were sisters. Two young women of unassuming beauty and clearly in close acquaintance, such was the openness of their expressions in an exchange that exuded an intimacy of confidence. The younger of the two wore her every thought as if part of the costume she shared with the world; an indignant air on this occasion. The other whom, upon closer inspection, was dressed more simply, implying confidant rather than close relation, appeared more guarded. This woman was shrouded in an air of weariness that spoke of having experienced all ends of the spectrum of life, of both its pleasures and its sorrows. It was the younger woman who spoke.
“How can you be sure, Miss Heywood?”
Augusta looked so earnest that Charlotte was reminded a little of her pre-Sidney self. All impulse and imagination and one true love and without the encumbrances of heartbreak and reality and duty that so often made themselves known, as they had most certainly done in Charlotte’s case.
“In truth, one can never be entirely sure when it comes to matters of the heart,” Charlotte owned, still grasping Augusta’s hands reassuringly. “But I have faith, Augusta, that you hold so much potential. A young woman with drive and intelligence and independence of spirit, that you will forge a life and a path full of love and family and indeed whatever bent to which your will turns.”
She squeezed Augusta’s hands once more, as if to emphasise her conviction.
“I think I will return to the house. You will not leave without a goodbye?” Augusta replied. Charlotte nodded and bit her lip. The hurt her hasty departure brought to Heyrick Park clearly continued to linger in the shades of the estate.
She took the longer, meandering route back to join the tea party. She would be largely shielded by a copse of trees as she crossed the green and then would be under the protection of the house as she dawdled past the servants entrance and around the other side of the house. She didn’t quite feel ready to return to Lady Montrose’s constant chest puffing and Mary’s increasingly knowing expression in observing the exchange in regard between herself and Mr Colbourne. Or Ralph. Dear, sweet Ralph. Who didn’t really deserve any of this, except that he seemed also to have succumbed to her family’s affliction of seeing only one role for a woman in a household, that of childbearer and carer. She sighed, dragging her fingers through a plot of oxeye daisy that she passed, impulsively catching two or three and plucking them quickly. She could give them to Leonora.
She had reached the far side of the house, was about in line with a clutch of sheds used by the gardener to store Charlotte knew not what. Her steps slowed further, as she examined the pretty white flowers she held, their yellow-black centres and elliptical petals seeming to smile at her, and Charlotte couldn’t help but feel comfort in that. Wallowing in self pity would serve no one nor would it make her happy. She squared her shoulders. The guilt was not yet released, but she found thinking of someone else for a while, the children who could benefit from a school built in the Old Town, soothing Augusta and her adolescent woes, this gave her a sense of purpose once again. While she focused her energies on her dear friends, she would soon find her spirits wholly restored.
Charlotte recalled the way Alexander’s head had whipped towards her at Mary’s proclamation of her school idea. The flash in his eyes, the intensity. His rapid support of the idea. Admirable, he’d called it. She was sure there was no coincidence in his choice of words. Just five days ago, he’d told her how devoutly he admired her, and there was that word again. He’d looked too pained for it to be done teasingly, as if to taunt her as others might have in his place. No, it was as though he couldn’t help his choice of words, they came so naturally now, that he struggled to contain them. Where once he’d resorted to talking about the house, the girls, the institution, now he’d finally found a way to speak directly to her, and it was second nature. Every look, every speech, as if only for her.
Since her return to Sanditon, she’d seen him struggle. Both in overcoming his fear, his guilt, his reticence to address her, when approaching to set things straight with her at Georgiana’s birthday party. If she had a penny for every time her thoughts turned to question what he might have said that evening had Ralph not interrupted them, she need not marry at all!
And then his stoicism, in the wake of what she now knew without any doubt would have been extremely painful for him (if it was anything like the pain she herself had endured). Yet, he had still sought to help her by way of assisting her dearest friend. Putting himself to the trouble of mending a relationship untended for ten long years and while she’d spluttered in denial when faced with the suggestion from Samuel, that it was she who had inspired such an act in his brother, her heart did whisper that Xander had done it for her. She could think of no finer act of love than doing something for another without any hope of benefit in return.
She leant against the wall of the house, its solidity reassuring in the face of her wandering mind and heart. She closed her eyes for a brief moment of respite and thus didn’t see him coming towards her. Only once the sound of boots on solid ground appeared was she warned of an approach and as her eyes flew open to land on the subject of her thoughts, it was far too late to do anything but stand there stunned before him.
“Miss Heywood,” he said, startled. “Forgive me, I have interrupted your solitary reflection.”
“Not at all,” she replied softly, stepping forward from her place against the wall and standing with the deference that her station in life afforded him. “It is I who must seek your forbearance, having both arrived uninvited on your doorstep and then absented myself from the tea party.” She gave him a rueful smile and let Augusta bear some of the grief for her, just this once. “I found I needed a moment to collect myself after consoling your niece.”
“I wonder you might have been better placed to reprimand her for such a display in front of company.” His words were without heat, expressing a resignation that didn’t sit comfortably on him.
“I do not think you mean that,” Charlotte replied.
“Do I not?” He scuffed the ground before him with the toe of his boot. “She is not yet wise to the ways of the world. The sooner she is secure in marriage, the better she will be protected.”
“And does Augusta not get a say in this?” Charlotte returned.
Colbourne looked up at her and his fidgeting stilled. There was something about this woman that just ground him to a halt. Even in light of the events of five days ago, of the fact that she was here at his house with her fiance in tow, he still couldn’t help but be dazzled by her.
“Of course I want her to be happy, but she is not considering all of the relevant information. This man…” and he trailed off, lest his frustration spill fruitlessly over into an argument directed at her. He took a breath.
Charlotte, while wondering for how long she’d been absent and how long it would take for Ralph to come looking for her, couldn’t bring herself to leave.
“But if she truly loves him?”
“It is not love,” he said with a venom that startled even himself and certainly challenged the composure that Charlotte had to that point been channelling.
“You presume to know Augusta’s mind better than she does?”
“Whatever Augusta’s mind, she cannot and will not attach herself to that man.”
Charlotte was too riled by the notion that — after all they’d been through, he still hadn’t learned a single thing — to take the opportunity to learn from Alexander what she’d failed in acquiring from Augusta.
“Can you not see that ordering Augusta to stay away will only drive her towards him? For a learned gentleman you can be extraordinarily short sighted.”
Colbourne appeared aghast at the thought that Augusta would deem to disobey him.
“She would never…”
“Is it not Augusta of whom we speak? She is a strong, intelligent young woman who has, at a very young age, traversed some of the most difficult events one faces in life, and yet she is endeavouring, nonetheless, to make the best of it. Finding a way to be happy. Can you not see that continuing to spar with her, however well-intended it might be, will only steel her resolve to defy you? If you would but nourish her dreams instead, encourage her spirit, her desire to grow as a young woman in the world, you might find yourselves on better footing.”
He didn’t like being on the back foot and he was so tired of having to argue with this woman when all he wanted to do was hold onto her tightly until the end of his days, but that was not the sentiment that came out.
“Just as your intended encourages yours?”
It was Charlotte’s turn to be caught off guard. He couldn’t possibly know the matter of her conversation with Mary and Ralph earlier, but… Xander had struck a nerve and he knew it.
“So Mr Starling, being a suitable and credible match for you, is supportive of your aspirations? He respects your friends in Sanditon and will enable you to remain in their acquaintance once you are married?”
“Well, I…” she floundered.
“And he is supportive of your plan with Mrs Parker? You will see the school built and the children of Sanditon benefit from your vision?”
“It is not, yet… that’s to say…”
He softened his tone, lowering his voice, stepping back to reduce the apparent assault laced in his words.
“That is what you want, is it not, Miss Heywood? A sense of purpose in your life, the reward of seeing your work translate into something tangible for others? As my tenants work the land and Heyrick Park supplies the town, you would inspire the young minds of the local girls and boys and enable them to grow into whatever they wanted to be.”
Why did it sound like he was talking of them as a “them” again?
“That is not the same thing,” she replied. “Everyone knows a farmer’s wife has a duty to the home and her children first and foremost.”
“So Mr Starling is not supportive of your dreams, then?”
She finally found her voice.
“This is not even about him, he has nothing to do with it. So do not bring him into this as though he is somehow to blame for the position we are now in.”
The light burning in her eyes only made him love her more, but again the sentiment in his heart was not that which found voice.
“And what position, pray tell, would that be?”
She gestured limply between them as if to say can you not see this kink in the very fabric that knits this universe together that we should be divided by the mere blink of a summer misunderstood? And then drew herself together and spoke more coldly than she ever thought possible to the man she loved.
“I will not hear further contempt for my fiance and by extension the calling of the integrity of my family into question. Kindly keep your thoughts to yourself until we have departed for Willingden.”
Colbourne bristled at such a notion. “Ah, so it is I who has transgressed, is that it?”
“I did not come here to engage in a quarrel,” Charlotte replied, chin slightly set to indicate she did not mean to back down.
“Why did you come here, Miss Heywood?”
“To support Mary,” she replied, a little too quickly.
“And that is all?” His jaw clenched.
“Yes, that is all.”
They stared at each other in stand off.
“I find that quite difficult to believe, if you must know.”
“It does not speak much to your character that you would question my word. Have you perhaps been spending a little too much time in the company of your other guests?”
Charlotte knew she was treading the edge of a line, but she couldn’t help herself.
“And were that the case, of what concern would it be to you, Miss Heywood? What business is it of yours with whom I pass my time?”
Charlotte could see his anger rising, as it had that day in his study and out on the driveway at Lady Denham’s garden party. She knew how he struggled to control it and had equally — as Augusta before her — figured out exactly how to push his buttons. And so be it. If she was to endure this never-ending destruction at the hands of the men who professed to love her; be it Ralph’s blind cornering of her or Colbourne’s two steps forward, one step back, she would at least be able to speak her mind.
A thought which quickly tripped. She knew she had not spoken her mind since that day in the Trafalgar House drawing room where she’d told Colbourne that being his governess was not enough for her. Since then, she’d succumbed to the well-intentioned but insistent badgering of her parents and the fumbling awkwardness of foregone conclusion that was Ralph, and the only honest thing she’d said hence was her outburst to Colbourne after the shooting party.
The words why didn’t you rang wildly in her head. She looked at him, really looked at him standing before her, simmering in anger, and she wanted to scream at him again WHY DIDN’T YOU? Why, why, why, why, why, why, why?
“The Montroses seem very well suited to life in the country,” she swallowed it all away and replied with only a little edge.
“And if they are?”
“Then I wish you both every happiness.”
“After all of this, the least you could do is speak candidly, Miss Heywood.”
“And what, prey, makes you think that I am not?"
“You cannot mean that.”
“Cannot mean what?”
“A woman of your intelligence, who has transformed my children into intelligent women themselves, parroting small talk and social niceties…” he trailed off.
“What would you have me say, Mr Colbourne?”
“Say, something — anything! — that convinces me this is the right way.”
“I must return to Ralph,” she turned and made to move away from him.
“Running away will not help things,” he called after her. “I speak from recent, personal experience. I can assure you without question, that it is no cure.”
She whipped around to face him, something finally snapping deep inside her chest. A relief and an explosion all at once.
“No cure for what?” she snapped. “For the rank stupidity of men? Unfortunately, women in my position, nay, women in ANY position, whether they be married, titled, or none of the above, are subject to the whims and mercies of men. So do enlighten me, Alexander, as to what you would have me, a farmer’s daughter, do with this mess,” she gestured vehemently with one arm, “that seems to have been created only to put me into the little box to which I was assigned at some point or other by a man.”
She said the last word with such contempt that any frisson of electricity at hearing her use his christian name was quickly snuffed out. He could do little to defend himself from any of those accusations and only had deflection left available to him.
“As intolerable as that may be, it is not I who took those decisions for you.”
“Did you not?”
She had turned back to face him and Colbourne couldn’t help but take a micro step backwards. She was incandescent and he only wished it weren’t currently with rage directed towards him. “Did you not send me away, without consulting me on my own feelings or considering my opinion? Did you not speak in riddles and evasions rather than directly to me?”
She gestured to herself with a firm hand to her sternum. “A young woman who knows her own mind and whom you profess to admire?”
“And yet it is you that have come to my home. You who have sought me out. Why is that, Miss Heywood?”
“I had hoped that coming here to Heyrick Park would be an opportunity to put this all behind me. And this is how I am received.”
“And if I am not mistaken, you were not invited in the first place!”
“Then I will go.” She turned to leave as he cursed himself for encouraging her to do the exact opposite of what he would have her do.
“Charlotte.”
It was her turn to be flummoxed by the intimacy of hearing her name on his lips. She paused to hear him, but did not turn back immediately.
“Stay.”
At this, she was powerless, and wordlessly, ever-so-slowly, she rotated on the spot, to look at him once again.
He did not repeat the rest of his declaration of five days ago, yet the words were written all over his face. His arms loosely at his sides, his palms slightly open in surrender. He took a step forward to her, closing the distance between them, and yet it still felt like it was he who was submitting to her once again.
Charlotte bit her lip, willing her face not to crumble. She took a long, shaky breath out to steady herself, but didn’t move any further away.
“This afternoon’s visit,” she began softly, almost at a whisper, the anger and heat of her words from moments earlier, dissipated, “has dredged up memories of one of the worst days of my life to date. Being sent away from here,” she paused and swallowed, before adding, “by you.”
Colbourne’s eyes slammed shut and his head dropped. He was the worst of men, the worst of the kind of which she had spoken just moments earlier. His own fight drained out of him, replaced only by shame and defeat. He did not have the strength to watch her walk away from him again and he hung his head, waiting to hear the finality of footsteps carrying her away for good.
So his breath caught when he felt a brush of fingers against his own. His eyes fluttered open, and there she was. Teary, as she had been mere days ago out on the windswept cliffs of Sanditon.
“I had not considered,” she continued, “the pain that it would be to experience it over and over again. But I assure you that it is very real.” Her fingers brushed his again, and he took the chance to grasp them, squeezing tightly as if to say give me a sign and I will never let you go again.
“You do not suffer alone,” he returned, drawing her fingers slowly upwards, watching her reaction as she held his gaze, ready to stop at any moment should she give him the slightest indication that it was unwelcome. He hesitated, noticing the forlorn little daisies now crushed beyond measure in her hand.
“I had thought to offer them to Leonora,” she explained ruefully, opening her fingers to let them fall while allowing him to maintain his grasp of her hand. “They appear to have succumbed to the weight of my temper.”
“I will pick her some more in their place, and tell her they are from you. She will treasure them and be none the wiser,” he replied softly, pulling her fingers once more towards him. Charlotte nodded as her gaze followed the path of their joined hands to his lips.
Lips which grazed her fingers and while she blinked involuntarily at the contact, she felt emboldened to meet his gaze. He tugged gently and she needed no further urging to step right into the space before him, tear-streaked eyes still boring into his through wet lashes, a heave of her chest as she breathed in and out so deliberately that he felt it reverberate through himself. Without knowing exactly what he was doing, he dropped her fingers and reached haltingly towards her, coarse thumb catching delicate tears and brushing them away, fingertips that traced down the side of her face and under her chin reverently. He brought his other hand carefully to her waist. Gently, as though to indicate that he would step down at the slightest indication that his caress was an imposition, but unable to otherwise bring himself to do anything but love her for as long as he might be able, short as it may be.
Charlotte sighed as if she had been about to say something and then couldn’t bring herself to do so but given no move to stop him, Colbourne let the anchor of his hand on her hip and the cupping of her head bring them slowly towards one another for what must surely be their last ever kiss. If the cliff-side kiss had been one of conviction and pressure relief, this moment stolen briefly from the inevitability of her betrothal to another was infinitely more tender. And if the fireside kiss of some months ago had built a swift and dangerous heat between them, there was a measure of finality in the way he held her against him and an assertiveness with which she kissed him back. As if he was saying to her just let me love you as you deserve to be loved, even for just one moment and she was ready to let him and to let herself, for that one moment, choose for herself what loving and being loved could be.
It was languid, not feverish, and determined, purposeful, assured. Charlotte knew without a doubt that she would never feel as she did with and for this man, with any other. That when she left Heyrick today, even though it was likely not the last time she would see him, it was most certainly the last time they would ever have in one another’s company, and so she meant to prolong it. Letting Colbourne wrap himself completely around her, letting him pull her to him, letting him break the rhythm of their kiss, to nuzzle her ear, place a kiss beside her lobe, kiss a path along her jaw back to recapture her lips, a hand lightly cupping her head, fingertips which trailed down her neck and over her shoulder blades and down her spine, blazing a path of tingles despite the layers of her clothing, such that she gasped, and at that gasp, he broke them apart.
Anxious eyes searched hers for any sense of contempt or impropriety, but found none. He pressed her against him, unwilling to let her go just yet, and then leant back to place a reverent kiss upon her head.
“We cannot keep doing this,” Charlotte said eventually as Colbourne pressed his forehead to hers. They stood frozen in their embrace, the only movement the gentle rhythm of shared breath. Despite whatever passed about them, a rustle of wind in the trees, the distant labour of farmers or the nearby twittering of household staff, here in this little corner of their respite, there was a vacuum of quiet. While the world kept turning around them they stood still; together for the briefest moment.
“I will never tire of doing this,” he responded.
And as if to prove his point, he once more captured her lips which, despite whatever protest she may have just made, she offered willingly, pressing her hands into his chest and working them up to his shoulders where she permitted herself the luxury of playing with the soft hairs at the base of his neck. She felt him shudder beneath her touch and a thrill rippled through her own chest, that she could have such an effect on one as stoic and measured as him. She hummed into his mouth at the realisation and it was his surprise that this time broke them apart.
It was her turn to doubt. “I must beg your forbearance for my lack of decorum. It is hardly becoming of me.” She bit her lip as she searched his face. “Please, I beg you do not think too poorly of me.”
“Charlotte,” he huffed in reply, cradling her head gently in his hands as he sought to reassure her. “I will love you until I have gasped my last breath, I couldn’t possibly think poorly of any time spent in your company.”
“You must accept my decision,” she whispered, heart still racing, her words betraying the truth she felt in her heart. “You must let me go.”
“I cannot.” He maintained his embrace and she gave no indication that he should release her.
“You must,” she insisted, sounding as much as if she was trying to convince herself, as she was him. “Else you’ll never have the future you deserve. A future that could be very dear indeed.” She looked pleadingly into his eyes, those eyes that bid she stay with him forever. That they make a life together of their very own.
“And what of your future, Charlotte?” he whispered fiercely in return. “Do you not deserve a future which is dear as well?”
She pushed against him fruitlessly and then bowed her head to his chest in resignation. “I will be close to my family and with a family of my own. It is not my right to ask for more.”
“It might not be your right, but I can think of no one more worthy of only the deepest and sincerest felicity in marriage than you, Miss Heywood.”
At such earnest and tender candour, she couldn’t bring herself to look at him, but the tremble of her shoulders and jagged exhale against him told him she was still struggling to bring her emotions under control. He wrapped his arms around her more fiercely, heart racing wildly against the ear she had pressed to his chest. Only at the beat of hasty footsteps slapping with such deliberateness as sounded false to his ears, did he release her and step away. Looking over Charlotte’s shoulder, he saw his housekeeper come into view with an impassive expression on her face.
“Mrs Wheately?” he enquired.
“Sir,” she looked pointedly at Charlotte’s back but said nothing further.
Colbourne cleared his throat. “Miss Heywood has been kind enough to give me some, uh, counsel on her former charges. You know as well as anyone, the value of her influence in that area.”
To her credit, Mrs Wheatley’s expression did not change but he knew without any doubt that she saw straight through him all the same. He would have continued, but he was drowned out by a shrill and insistent dissonance somewhere in the direction of the front hall. He looked questioningly at the older woman before sneaking a glance down at Charlotte, still standing before him, with her head bowed.
“As I was trying to tell you, sir. The Montroses wish to take their leave and it might be best if you were to see them to their carriage. If you can spare him, Miss Heywood.”
Charlotte had felt the loss of him against her instantly, like a physical attack on her person. She’d remained facing away from the stern housekeeper, desperately scrubbing at her face with a handkerchief in an attempt to pull herself together. Upon being addressed directly, she spun on her heel, with a smile plastered to her face.
“But of course, Mrs Wheately.”
Mrs Wheately gave Charlotte a prim nod in return. She could see the younger woman had been crying but covered it well and if her hair was a little more tousled and her face somewhat flushed, well a woman in her position did well to defer her attention towards other things.
Colbourne looked once more at Charlotte, fighting the magnetic pull that it was to be in her presence, but before he could surrender completely, Mrs Wheatley spoke again.
“Sir, I must insist. Lady Montrose was quite… determined and it would be best if she didn’t find reason to come looking for you.” She glanced about them, ensconced as they were in a rather secluded part of the grounds, where only the staff could reasonably be expected to venture.
“Thank you, Mrs Wheatley, I will come directly.” Colbourne stepped forward decisively to follow the head of his household, but upon reaching the path by which she’d come in, he turned once more to Charlotte.
“Thank you, once again, Miss Heywood,” he bowed to her. She curtsied in turn and finally brought her eyes back to his face. “I will endeavour to do as you have suggested,” he went on softly, “and mend my relationship with Augusta. A truce, if you will.”
“A nice thought that I will take back with me to Willingden, sir,” Charlotte replied. “If this is the last time we are to meet.”
Colbourne nodded in reply, but didn’t speak. Mrs Wheatley’s keen eye did not miss the brief flash of pain in her employer’s face before his mask of sober indifference slid back into place. She touched his arm as she followed him down the path.
“There remains Miss Lambe’s party, does there not, sir?”
“Indeed, Mrs Wheatley, but I venture Miss Heywood will be rather tied up with Mr Starling and I with my duty to Augusta.”
“Time spent securing your own happiness would not be at odds with Miss Markham’s, Xander,” she told him.
Colbourne paused for a moment, pressing a thumb to his lips as if lost in thought or perhaps a recent memory, and for a split second he was miles away in a world of his own making, but it was fleeting, and soon the tightly drawn master that she knew and over whom she despaired was back before her.
“My only preoccupation, Mrs Wheatley, is what’s best for the girls. If they are in need of a mother, then they will have one, but my wishes are secondary in all matters.”
Mrs Wheatley sighed as he strode away from her and peered back into the courtyard they’d recently departed. Charlotte remained where they had left her, head slightly bowed, her own fingers pressed to her lips, seemingly lost in a memory of her own, and equally resigned to a future where her wishes came secondary to the duty she shouldered for those around her.