The Homecoming Bride

Chapter Eighteen: Everybody Wants to Rule the World

AN: This chapter contains a flashback to Emmy's past featuring a character heavily based on George Mackay as Preston in the new British thriller "Femme"...

WARNING: This chapter contains HEAVY sexual content and descriptions of vomit.

CHAPTER SONG: "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Lorde

"Charlotte, maybe Joe ought to take you home. You're pale as a ghost. You need to rest and see a doctor." Molly stood outside the village lodge with the Yorkshire woman to speak with her privately away from the crowd. "I've not seen you like this before, as you've seemed perfectly fine today. With Joe's background in medical school, he's sure to have noticed if something was ailing you."

Both women stood by where Charlotte had previously been spotted by Will and Emmy as she had been violently sick with purging.

In the darkness, it had been hard to see what substance she had been spewing from her body... but since they were standing together in a quieter instance, Molly looked to the stained area of the ground where Charlotte had vomited.

Instead of just bile or phlegm as with regular sickness... Molly saw that the grass was stained with blood, bright red and deadly.

Charlotte wasn't just sick... and she could no longer conceal it as she had hoped.

"Consumption." Charlotte slowly began to remove the pins fastening the ribbons of her chestnut hair together, looking down at the ground instead of Molly. "The symptoms started soon after I lost Edward. I stopped eating and began losing weight, though my Edward's parents almost had to force-feed me to gain it back."

"When did you start coughing up blood?" Molly whispered, so they wouldn't risk being heard if somebody else came outside.

"A few months ago, before I came here to Surrey and started becoming close with Joe. I went to a doctor in Dublin and he said I have 6 months to a year. And with Edward gone... I found myself looking forward to reuniting with him. And that's why I have to leave Surrey." Charlotte ran her fingers anxiously through her disheveled hair as Molly placed her hands on the side of the lodge building to steady herself.

"Joe's mother died of consumption... and it almost killed him... after losing his brother too." Molly turned in the shadows to face Charlotte. "Does anyone else know if not Joseph? Will or Emmy don't know either?"

"No. They only need to know that I'm leaving Surrey to be with Edward's parents in Dublin. They've missed me since I've come here. They have no daughters of their own and have come to view me as one since I married Edward." Charlotte looked up into the night sky, gazing up at the stars twinkling in the ebony atmosphere.

"And what of Joe? How is he to react to you leaving Surrey?" Molly asked, crossing her arms with a firm raising of her brow.

"We discussed it last night... after he asked me to marry him and I turned him down. I can't give him what he wants and I know he'll never fully give me his heart either. He yearns for another as I miss my husband... in hindsight, it's for the best that we part ways, and he understands as such." Charlotte found herself wiping away tears of guilt from her tired eyes.

"The intimacy of your relationship with Joseph is your affair... but I know you've helped him cope with his loneliness and he cares deeply for you. He and Will leave again for France in a week after my brother returns from his honeymoon. If you plan on leaving for Dublin, do it soon... before he discovers your illness. He's a smart man and he'll know if you're keeping something from him." Molly found herself torn between distress and bitterness toward Charlotte's predicament.