Chapter Text
The rain was coming in thick and fast, to the point that Charlotte was beginning to regret such rash and obstinate action. Huddled in a copse of trees that offered less and less resistance, her dress drenched, her coat offering little protection of its own, Charlotte wondered if perhaps she might have finally bitten off more than she could chew.
It had started out innocuously enough: a request from Leo relayed by Mrs Wheatley at Augusta’s behest, that Charlotte call on Heyrick Park while in Sanditon for Georgiana’s 21st birthday party. She was reluctant to see the master of the estate and – if she owned the truth – the estate itself for fear it would dredge up memories she’d rather forget or remind her of the oversight she may have made in accepting Ralph’s proposal. Charlotte determined, however, that her enduring affection for the two youngest residents of the estate meant she could not bring herself to decline such an invitation.
Thus she found herself under greying skies making the familiar trek out of town that she’d made so many times the past summer, the last of which had proceeded with such expectation and concluded with such an affront that she was at least glad to be able to replace the memory with a journey more neutral – if somewhat apprehensive – in nature. She was here to call on Leo and Augusta and nothing more. That she might not even see Mr Colbourne was a distinct possibility and she wasn’t entirely sure whether to hope or dread such an outcome as she came upon the first prospect of the house.
Leo – being Leo – ran to meet her on the drive and instantly proposed a turn about the grounds. Charlotte was proud of herself for managing to contain her wince at such a choice of words spoken to her on the approach to the house by a Colbourne no less, and nodded over Leo’s head at Augusta and Mrs Wheatley that they would undertake a quick reconnaissance mission under Captain Leo’s command before returning to take tea with them both. If Mrs Wheatley glanced with a sceptical eye at the heavy sky, well, Charlotte had already turned to receive instructions from Leo and didn’t see it.
“And so tell me Leo,” she said to her young charge when they were safely on their way. “What do you have to say about London? I understand from the Parkers that you are recently returned from a stay with your uncle?”
Leo maintained her scrutiny of the horizon and about the trees as she shrugged at her former governess. “It was better suited to Augusta than it was to me, but I suppose it was at least nice to spend some time with Father and Uncle without any disagreement.” At this point she glanced back at Charlotte. “Well, almost no disagreement. I did hear Uncle’s voice raised at Father after they’d returned from dinner with their Cousin Susan.”
Charlotte started at the name but supposed there must be a hundred Susans in town and she knew but one of them.
“I would hope that you’d be less inclined to listen at doors Leo, on the chance it should lead you astray as it did last summer. One can never be sure they’ve had the whole story when they’ve not been an active participant.” And yet even then there are so many opportunities to be mistaken or misled, she completed to herself in her head.
“I suppose you are right, Miss Heywood,” Leo answered, swerving off their path and into the thick brush that led further away from the house. “Father did say to Uncle Samuel that gossip serves no one and we’d best not engage with it, so I think you are at least in agreement there. I do hope you and Father can be friends again one day, Miss Heywood,” Leo called over her shoulder. “He has not been at all the same since you went away.”
Charlotte froze a moment in place at the notion that Mr Colbourne may have been missing her as she had conceded to allow herself to miss him and the girls, in those small moments in between where pretending that she didn’t became too cumbersome. Could Leo’s observation be trusted in her youth and given her propensity to jump to conclusions? While undoubtedly an enthusiastic inspector of nature and malacology, Charlotte was unsure if Leo’s powers extended to people too.
Leonora was a good thirty yards ahead of Charlotte by the time the latter had shaken herself of her introspection and she plunged after her young friend, into the woods before she lost contact with her all together. The abruptness of her movement caused her dress to snag on a nearby branch and Charlotte quickly found herself careening head first into the forest floor. The ground rose to meet her in a rush and she flung out her hands to break her fall at the very last minute, taking a mouthful of leaves in the process but with only her pride and dignity to the damage.
Very elegant Charlotte, however did Mr Colbourne let you go? she admonished herself as she drew herself up to her knees and examined the damage. There was a hole in her gloves and a pull in her skirt where the branch had snagged, alongside some muddy stains where her clothing had accompanied her face-plant into the earth. What a sight she’d make returning to the house and her wish that Mr Colbourne be absent for the entirety of her visit returned with a flourish to the forefront of her thoughts.
By the time Charlotte had righted herself and brushed off the dirt as best she could, Leo was far into the distance and Charlotte was angry at herself all over again for becoming distracted by the man such that she’d managed to lose his daughter anew despite no longer even being the governess.
“Jolly well done Charlotte,” she grumbled aloud before calling to Leo to come back. Some fruitless entreaties to the ether to get Leo’s attention, Charlotte trudged ahead with resigned determination and a smidge more attention to her footing lest she take another tumble and dismiss any last notion that Alexander Colbourne might ever glance twice at her again.
You’re engaged to another man, her inner voice whispered. What right have you to wish another man turn his head toward you?
Charlotte hurried into the rapidly thickening undergrowth wondering exactly when Heyrick Park had turned into such a jungle. She called for Leo with increasing levels of either desperation or exasperation, she was hardly sure which. Though she had no doubt that Leo could fend for herself, a rumble and clap of thunder overhead drew her attention to a sky nearly charcoal in colour and all at once far more threatening, and thoughts of appearing foolish in front of Mr Colbourne were quickly replaced with a sense of urgent panic.
“Leo,” she called fruitlessly. “Leo, can you hear me? Dearest, we simply must get out of this weather or we risk being soaked!”
She cast around for footprints, signs of having brushed through the foliage, scuff marks on a tree trunk from scaling (or attempting to scale) to its upper branches. With nothing to be found and fearing becoming lost herself, Charlotte had no choice but to turn back to the path from which they’d strayed. The relief that she hadn’t lost it herself and had a clear way back to the house did nothing to quell her nerves. She stepped out of the tree cover and directly into the path of Alexander Colbourne as the first treacherous drops of rain fell from the sky.
“Miss Heywood.” His expression was of bewilderment, not just at the sight of her, but no doubt at the state as well; out in the rain, as she now was, without any means of protection, with a muddy dress (six inches deep rang in her head), scuffs on her knees and her gloves, and doubtless leaves and twigs plural in her hat and attached to her coat.
His self-assuredness seemed to inflate in direct proportion to her state of dishevelment and disgrace, as he puffed his chest. “And to what, pray tell, do we owe the pleasure?” The heavy irony that laced the tone of his closing word left her in no doubt as to his true feelings upon seeing her (and in such a state!) and it took everything she had not to bark out an equally sharp retort that would also leave him in no doubt of her current state of betrothal. Instead, she ground her teeth together and spoke without releasing them. “It’s Miss Leonora.” The words were barely distinguishable. “She’s missing.”
As if to underline the gravity of the situation, Mother Nature chose that moment to let out a ghastly clatter of thunder, followed for emphasis by lightning, and brought to a final, terrible climax where the light pitter patter of rain transformed into a veritable torrent. Was she in a better mood, Charlotte might have admired the lock of hair that fell over Colbourne’s forehead even when it was plastered to his head, or that his white shirt was quickly becoming translucent in the downpour, now that he was removing his coat to offer it to her, gallant in spite of his smugness (or perhaps it was just smug). Oh my, what would the view be like were he not also wearing a waistcoat?
Unable to see his gallantry as anything other than conceited self-agrandisement, Charlotte refused his offer of a coat and instead turned to the undergrowth from which she’d just come.
“Am I to understand that not only have you come to my estate in spite of it being so disagreeable to you, but you’ve also proceeded to lose my daughter, and now wish to become ill as a consequence?”
“I came to the house of my two very dear former charges,” she paused for dramatic effect to indicate the two residents of Heyrick that she was desirous to see as if to say … and no more than two … “...and I agreed to accompany Miss Leonora on a turn about the grounds.” She hoped very much that those words pained him as much as they’d pained her earlier that day but felt barely any triumph in seeing the momentary twitch on his face as they registered. “Despite her lack of instruction over recent months, Leo’s intrepid spirit remains fully intact and she carried on her mission without me. Had it not been for the blasted weather of this insipid mausoleum I would no doubt still be in her company.”
Charlotte knew that her argument was baseless but she was too overcome with seeing him there before her, angry and defiant and real, making her feel alive for the first time in months even in the irrationality of her fury at him for what was entirely her own fault. Oh, how she’d missed him.
In her breathless anger Colbourne couldn’t help but find her, well, breathtaking. In that moment, with her muddy skirt and the leaves caught in her hat going limp with the rain, her cheeks rosy and her eyes on fire, all he wanted to do was take the two steps forward that separated them as they faced each other, crush her against him and never let her go. But she was engaged, furious with him, and had lost his daughter.
“There is no sense standing here arguing when Leo is out there,” he growled back at her. “Go back to the house and I will find her.” He made to walk past her, replacing his coat as she had refused his offer and headed in the direction that she’d lately pointed.
“I don’t need your help,” she yelled, mildly aware that she was approaching a level of shrill that rendered anything she said borderline ridiculous, and went after him, reaching to catch his arm. As she did so, he swung abruptly around to face her and she couldn’t curtail the reflex to shrink backwards and leap away from him. His face, incensed at the impropriety of her attempts to waylay him, was quickly shamed at the notion that she thought he might strike her.
“Miss Heywood,” he said flatly, any inclination to keep shouting now subdued. “Please will you see sense. You are clearly not dressed for such a task and might well have injured yourself in the fall. I request that you return to the house while I go and recover Leo.”
“You have no right to make any request of me, Mr Colbourne,” Charlotte’s tone had come down a few octaves and a decibel or two, but was still just barely civil. “I shall continue my objective to find Leonora with or without your support.”
Sick of her protests and too stubborn and hurt by the sight of her there and so plainly disgusted by him, Colbourne turned and marched into the undergrowth without her, not bothering to determine if she was keeping pace with him. It took him only minutes to locate Leonora sheltering in her tree house and when he turned to find Miss Heywood no longer with him, assumed that she’d finally conceded and made her way back to the house to wait for them.
Leo could tell that her father was unusually affected and put no protest at being told to abandon her post.
“I only wanted to show Miss Heywood what we’d built together,” she told her father as she struggled to keep pace with him in their return to the path, this time via a shortcut that the two had taken regularly when installing the shelter in their favourite tree.
Colbourne paused and looked down at his daughter’s anxious face. He sighed and crouched down before her, the two of them already wet enough now and not far from a bath, a fire and a dry change of clothes. “It’s not you that I’m angry with Leo,” he told her solemnly, staring her squarely in the face as he had done those months ago in the soldiers camp. He waited until he saw understanding in her eyes before he dropped his own to the ground. “In truth, I’m angry with myself. Angry about the father that I was to you and Augusta until recently, angry that I let my anger get the better of me time and time again, angry that I cannot be the person I would so like to be…” Colbourne trailed off and looked Leo in the eye.
“Angry that you couldn’t convince Miss Heywood to stay? With us? With you?” Leo ventured.
Colbourne felt his heart crack a little in his chest and he had to look down again to compose himself. Only the rain running into his eyes and washing away any tears that might threaten to prick there reminded him of the state and the weather they were both in and he looked up again, any residual anger burnt away.
“Now when did you get so insightful?” he grinned at Leo. She grinned back, much like she had also done that day in the camp.
“I had a great teacher,” she replied. That she did.
“Come, let us get back to the house and get dry and see if we might speak to that teacher.”
Of course, they got back to the house and Miss Heywood wasn’t there. She hadn’t returned. Colbourne looked dumbfounded as Mrs Wheatley delivered the news and felt the terror on his face reflected back at him as he looked to Augusta to be absolutely sure that this wasn’t some cruel joke.
What had he done?