Charlotte Heywood POV - Saying goodbye through a carriage window.
The carriage bounced and rocked its way across the bright green clifftop, carrying Miss Charlotte Heywood away from the man who stirred her heart, swept it up in love, and then broke it.
She stared straight ahead, desperate to ignore the urge to look back, only it was too strong. Slowly she turned in her seat and stared back at Sidney Parker through the small window on the back wall of the carriage. She had to have one last look. Chances were she would never see him again, and she needed to see him one last time. A part of her hoped he wouldn’t be there, that he would have gotten on his horse and hied off, but when she looked back, there he stood, in the same spot, the reins of his horse in one hand and his hat in the other. His gaze, forlorn and defeated, penetrated the retreating carriage and pierced Charlotte’s soul.
He didn’t want her to go, just as she didn’t want to leave, but there was no choice. He was promised to another, not for love, but as a means to save his brother from financial ruin. Sidney was selflessly giving up his happiness to keep his brother from debtor’s prison. Charlotte understood his choice, and even supported it, but knowing why he broke her heart, didn’t lessen the hurt.
She watched as Sidney slowly lifted his hat and solemnly placed it on the horn of his saddle. Overwrought with emotion, he fisted his hand around the reins and lowered his head to his horse’s neck, seeming to seek comfort from the creature.
A tear slipped from Charlotte’s eyes and trailed slowly down to her chin as she watched his despair. There it met the others, until their weight was too great, and they fell, wetting the top of her traveling frock.
She watched until he was no more than a speck on the horizon, and still she watched for a minute more, her heart hoping, where her mind wouldn’t allow, that he might gallop up, stop her carriage, take her in his arms, kiss her silly and then swear to find another way. The fact that he was his truest self with her meant that he couldn’t be with another, not for any reason.
It was selfish, but in that brief moment she didn’t care. If he had caught her carriage she would have agreed, she would have kissed him, she would have never let him go.
As the carriage swayed her along their journey, the view from the back window remained riderless. Knowing it was for the best, she turned and settled against the midnight blue velvet of the carriage seat and tried to muffle her sobs
It was over, truly over, and she didn’t think her soul could bear the pain.
Sidney Parker POV - Watching her ride away with his heart.
Sidney watched the love of his life glide away as the sun began its descent in the horizon. He dug his fist into his thigh and grit his teeth, fighting the urge to mount his horse and race toward the departing carriage.
Seeing her tear stained face through the carriage window had nearly ended him. He couldn’t breathe, not properly. Air wooshed in and out of his lungs in uneven heaves as his heart beat a riot in his chest. Every fiber of his being was crying out with the injustice of the moment. It was the second time in his life that he watched a woman he wanted ride away.
Only this time was different. What he felt when Eliza married another was a drop in a well compared to how he felt at this moment, as Charlotte left him. He felt as though she took his heart with her, and the beating that raced against his ribcage was only an echo of the pain he endured when he told her of his plan to marry Eliza to save his brother. Since that moment he lived without a soul, with no heart to guide him. He was merely a shell.
The carriage disappeared and suddenly all the strength in his body left him. His legs buckled and he sank to the road. He knelt in the muddied lane on top of the clifftop and put his head in his hands while his heart bled. He wished for a small moment that things were different. He wished, his fool of a brother, had spent the money for the insurance that would have rebuilt Sanditon after the fire. He wished he had been able to propose to Charlotte, keeping her with him forever. He wished, for a painful moment, that everything was different.
He lifted his head and stared out over the green grass and found the spot where he kissed Charlotte for the first time. He closed his eyes and let the memory of that moment fill him.
The nervousness that had filled him had been so unfamiliar, so unnerving, that he spoke awkwardly, unsurely. The experience was so foreign he nearly gave up, but then she smiled sweetly and assured him that she would rather walk along the cliff top then go into town for her fitting.
He found himself confessing his infatuation with their conversation the night before. The night he told her that he didn’t leave for London with Eliza, because he was his truest self when he was with her, and he wanted to stay. Once she admitted her own fascination with that moment, he knew that their lips would meet. It was inevitable. He needed to claim those lips for his, and he did.
The kiss itself was dizzying. The fresh air whipped around them in an unnoticed frenzy. The shiver up his spine had nothing to do with the wind and everything to do with the woman in his arms and what she made him feel. He knew, then and there, in that perfect moment, that he would make her his wife.
Only fate had other plans, and he was doomed to live a half-life without the part of him that made him feel alive.
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