The only reason to marry is Love - A Sanditon fanfic

Chapter 8: The sweetest dreams

"He is nothing like I expected him to be."

Charlotte was walking arm in arm with Alison, watching Sidney on the road ahead, accompanied by Mr. Heywood and their brother Matthew. Even if the girls could not hear what the men were talking about from this distance, they appeared to be engaged in lively, amiable conversation.

"I'm not sure he is what I expected him to be either but I'm curious to know, what did you expect?" Charlotte asked her sister.

"When you wrote me that you had seen yourself forced to marry a man who had offered to save you from ruin and seemed to have good intentions, but who you still resented having to marry, I pictured someone quite different. An aged or ugly man who could not find himself a wife, or someone decent but penniless."

She paused her step and looked seriously at Charlotte.

"Char, most women would give their right hand to marry someone like your Mr. Parker."

Charlotte observed his tall, broad-shouldered figure, enhanced by the supremely well-cut clothes and the elegant top hat looking fashionably out of place her among the fields and trenches and found it hard to take in that she was married to that man.

"He is not my Mr. Parker", she objected even if it strangely warmed her insides when Alison called him that.

"Are you not Mrs. Parker?"

"Yes, I am but..."

"Then he is yours more than anyone else's. Just look at him! He is very pleasing to the eye and hehas a fortune. He is well-educated and sophisticated, he is clearly striving to get papa's approval and last but not least, he seems to adore you. What is there not to like? Is there something seriously wrong with him which I am yet to discover? If not, I don't understand why you are so opposed to being married to him."

Charlotte knew she was blushing. Alison was asking her something which had been on her own mind since they arrived here. Perhaps even before, but it was reinforced when he seemed to fit in so well with her family despite that his appearance stood in stark contrast to the surroundings. He got along with them brilliantly and seemed to enjoy being here. She had not expected that.

"I do not hate it, like I did first", she admitted thoughtfully. "But it all came to be for such strange reasons, meeting like we did, him taking pity on me and then getting married without any affections towards one another at all. You know I was determined that nothing but love would ever persuade me to accept a proposal and he did not want me as his wife really. He did not want any wife at all but married me out of the kindness of his heart. First I feared that he had ulterior motives and perhaps would turn out to be a brute behind closed doors, but I don't think so anymore. I think he is genuinely good. You are gravely mistaken though, he does not adore me. He tolerates my company but does not have romantic feelings for me. What you see is just an act to convince mama and papa."

"Then he is very good at acting."

"I suppose he is."

"So, is he not kind to you when you are alone?"

"Oh, yes, very, but he does not care for me. He has said so himself."

"To you?"

"To me and to his friend, Lord Babington, when I happened to overhear a conversation. Sidney does not mind being married to me, but it does not mean anything to him. He simply does not care."

"I still doubt it. And what are your sentiments Charlotte, if you are truthful? Have they not changed since you first met?"

If she was to be honest, she was confused. The kindness and generosity he constantly showed her without expecting anything in return had made her slowly warm to him. With the exception for when she had walked off alone in London and got lost, he seemed to have no wish to restrain or change her. On the contrary he encouraged sides of her that even her family found peculiar, like her imaginary travels. He always listened attentively and remembered what she said. Without hesitation he had agreed to join her to Willingden, only asked for a few days to arrange some business matters and then declared himself to be at her disposal. He was very amiable to her family and willingly put up with the lover's charade to make her parents believe the history and did it so well that even Alison, who knew the truth, thought it genuine.