The only reason to marry is Love - A Sanditon fanfic

Chapter 7: A charade for the Heywoods

A/N: Once again, thank you all for all the amazing and encouraging comments! I always try to respond individually but right now I have a hard time to keep up – so if I have not answered yet just know that it is greatly appreciated and really motivates me to keep going.

I hope you enjoy this chapter. Will likely write another chapter of 'Sanditon revisited' before next update of this

Chapter 7: Under the scrutiny of the Heywoods

The sight of her made him pause in the doorway for a while, without announcing his presence. She was casually stretched out on the floor, lying stomach down, propped up on her elbows with legs swaying in the air, absorbed by a book. Sidney swallowed. He had never known that a reading woman could be so tantalizing.

He softly knocked on the doorframe and she looked up with a startled expression as if he had caught her doing something naughty.

"Don't let me interrupt you."

He walked over and sat down beside her. Her skirts had slid down her angled legs and where inappropriately heaped around her knees, exposing her feet, slender ankles and calves. He could see that it bothered her that he had caught her with her attire in disorder, but he did not mind. Quite the contrary, he would rather like it if it was even more untidy. What if those skirts where hoisted further up?

Tentatively, he reached out a hand and gently touched one of her legs. Stroked from the ankle to her knee. The legs that had been swinging languidly, froze in the move and she stared at him with widened eyes. He retracted his hand, unsure if he only made her uncomfortable. He did not want that, but he wished she would welcome it.

"Do you mind if I touch you? It is just that your legs... you have very beautiful legs."

That did not cover half of what he felt. The shape of her feminine limbs only clad in thin stockings was sensual and enticing. Seeing them exposed like this made him want to undress her.

She rolled over on her back, wet her lips and parted them.

"No, I would not mind. In fact, I would welcome it. Lately, I have been longing for you to touch me."

Sidney snapped out of his reverie. This was bad in every possible way and getting worse for every day passing by. It had been bad enough when he dreamt of her at night, but then he could at least tell himself that it had nothing to do with his conscious wishes and desires. Now she popped up in his thoughts when least expected, like when he innocently had a cup of tea as was the case now. The sight of her legs in the library had done that to him. He could not believe that he was that easily affected. He had always thought himself a man in control of his desires rather than a lecherous creep, but now his own wife made him wonder.

He did not want to feel like that around her and he definitely did not want her to know about it. He enjoyed her company more and more but had to be careful to keep the physical distance. That was why he had retracted his hand when she took it in a gesture of comfort that day. He was not comforted, at least that was not the main reaction. Her touch made his hand and entire body tingle with excitement and he pulled away before the temptation to lace his fingers with hers became too strong to resist.

That moment between them had been seductive on more than just the physical level. The more he learned about Charlotte, the more he appreciated her. Her compassion, her intelligence. He had never felt compelled to tell anyone this much about Antigua and how he truly felt about the time there, about the darkness, despair and his shame for doing too little. His naïve siblings were too ignorant of the shady aspects of the world and most of his London friends cared little about anything beyond pleasures. Babington was an exception, but not even him he had told the difficult emotional sides of it, just the facts.