Sanditon Season 2: The River and the Man

Chapter 7

Georgiana Lambe jogged in her seat as the carriage ran bumpily and she sighed. It had been nearly the entire day in total silence. Her guardian either brooded while looking out the window or sat with his tight jaw affixed and closed his eyes as if he was pained by an unseen affliction or injury. Like his very head hurt.

"Are you just going to keep brooding even when you are the architect of your own misery?" she asked. "It seems rather indulgent." Georgiana took to judgment like breathing.

He clenched his jaw and looked out the window trying to avoid this topic. He had endeavored to keep their interactions short because it often would include biting comments about his conduct with Miss Heywood. Charlotte, he said her name inside his head sentimentally.

"I warned her about you," Georgiana said with a biting edge. "I told her she could not trust a word you said." she shook her head, her loathing and disdain ever increasing by the day it seemed.

He sighed and remained silent. He deserved the verbal attack.

"But she was so in love with you, she could not hear it. She believed you were a good person despite all you put her through with your anger against women." she grew silent trying to decipher his reaction and as she did he turned to look at her. His dark brown eyes showing so much pain.

Sidney swallowed hard. "What happened between Miss Heywood and myself-" he tried to enunciate and keep his emotions in check. "-was deeply regrettable. You must understand I tried."

She shook her head. "That's the thing. I don't understand. There was a fire and what? Everything between you stopped?"

His mouth held in a straight line and he sighed. "I owe you an explanation," he said with a measured tone. "But I can't give it unless you promise not to speak of it to anyone. Not even in anger at me to shame...it could cause great harm if overheard and could cause some scandal for Miss Heywood and my brother Tom."

She frowned and looked at him distrusting. "Fine. I promise."

He swallowed hard. "My brother was reckless with money. Massive sums that I can't even begin understanding how one does that much damage." he held his cane and turned it. "My own reasonable fortune was not even close to enough to cover the huge debt nor with Arthur's combined. The fire was not insured and he and his family are ruined." he looked out of the carriage to see the street was cobbled now indicating their proximity to their destination. "Before the fire, I was going to offer marriage, but when I came to London to see what I could do I just had doors slammed in my face."

Georgiana frowned. "My fortune would have surely been enough, why didn't you try that? After all investment is not out of the question."

He sighed. "It is not my money to risk, and I promised your father that I would protect you and your fortune until either your age of majority or once you found a good match," he told her. "Sanditon is not a worthy risk at this point and truth be told since the fire it may be cursed. I had to do something and my feelings for Mrs. Campion are not tender enough for me to care what happens with her money."

Georgiana was quiet for a long moment thinking about his confession, but then in a flair of defiance, she looked up challenging. "What about Charlotte?"

He looked away pained. The truth was he often asked himself that same question. Every night before he laid his head down he imagined her there as she should have been beside him, her soft body pressed flush up against him limbs entangled from tender lovemaking.

It would have been a rushed wedding in their case. He would have been unable to maintain decorum if they had any quiet moments together.

No, there would have been no long engagement for fear of scandal. Theirs would have been a passionate union of the mind and body. Those heated thoughts would arrest his breath for a moment as tears would come. This was why he had taken to getting blindingly drunk right before bed. He didn't want to think of what would have been.

"I wish her every happiness," he said his eyes as heavy as his heart.

Georgiana scoffed. "No it would kill you to see her truly happy and not with you." she laughed. "Poor Sidney Parker, marrying the viper who passed you over in your youth. Charlotte will probably marry that Mr. Stringer and think how happy she will be."

He clenched his jaw as he felt a punch to his gut. "Stop, I would rather know she was happy than broken-hearted."

She laughed again. "No, you don't. That would mean she never loved you. Like Mrs. Campion? Do you really think she actually was pining for you for ten years?" She shook her head. "All those parties and friends. She likes to be worshiped and from the looks of it she is used to being followed. Look at her passel of admires. Little puppies at her beck and call." she rolled her eyes. "She is cruel too."

Georgiana looked away and swallowed feeling anxious about being near that odious woman.

"I know." he sighed and looked back to her uncomfortable. "I am sorry for what she said. She must have heard a rumor about your debacle last summer," he said referring to something that Eliza had said when she came to Sanditon a few weeks before.

Her eyes narrowed. "You should learn to put her in her place if you are to wed. Your life will become a living hell if she never shows anyone respect, least of all you."

He nodded. "It already is a kind of hell. But for the record, I wanted to offer marriage to Charlotte. I still would if I were free to. On that account please believe...I love her." His voice was low and dark. He had never gotten to tell her himself because he was a fool and she would not let him.

Georgiana nodded. "Good, now you finally know what heartbreak really is then. To want to be with someone so much but circumstances prevent it." she thought of Otis. Her love for him was gone, but a deep sense of regret and longing remained.

He appraised his ward and acknowledged her perceptiveness to himself. She knew the truth now. He knew now that it had been an obsession of an idealistic young man who thought himself so deep in love with Eliza and became stupid with a bruised ego, but now with the experience of life and loss, he felt wonder that Georgiana was right. The only woman he had ever truly loved beyond the visage was Charlotte. He had on the cliffs felt a knife enter his heart as he shut the carriage door on his dreams and her.

Eliza though classically beautiful had always been shallow and predictable, where Charlotte had so many layers to her. Every moment spent he learned something new. He tried to comfort himself that he was doing this for Tom, and Mary and his numerous nieces and nephews. That their situation was worth the two broken hearts in its wake.

His heart ached and his mind blistered from the subject. "Let us put the subject away and be careful if and when she is brought up."

Georgiana nodded. "I hope you don't end up marrying her," she whispered.

He sighed. The wedding was not set and he prayed it would never happen. However, he was a man of his word and he could not see any way out of the wretched circumstances. Burning inside with regret he looked out into the waterlogged street the carriage wheels slopped through. Just like the weather he knew there was no hope for sunshine. With a heavy sigh, he braced himself for his predicted audience with Eliza that evening.