~~Charlotte~~

"Charlotte?" Alison called from the closed door she had already knocked on twice. I had completely broken down after the dinner and didn't wish to see anyone.

I thought back to what it was like when I saw him step out of the carriage. To have him standing before me was like a dream. I couldn't even breathe. Then to have him offer his hand to help me into the carriage. All I wanted to do was touch him, but I knew if I did, I wouldn't be able to hold it together. It was hard enough just standing in front of him to keep my composure. Then when he wrapped his coat around my shoulders, I thought I was going to burst into flames. I didn't need it. I was warm enough just being in his presence. But the coat smelled like him and I wanted to savor that smell even if for a moment. Why did he have to do this? Why was he here? Why couldn't he just stay in London and leave me in Sanditon?

When we got to Sanditon House, I knew I had to get away from him as quickly as possible before I lost it. Alison helped me get upstairs without breaking down. I insisted I was fine, even when she knew I wasn't. Georgiana wasn't fooled either. She cursed him for showing up and doing what he did; to play with my heart and make things far worse than they already were.

When Esther came up to help me get ready, she wondered why I looked so upset. I insisted I was only embarrassed by my appearance and felt like I had ruined the dinner. Esther insisted I had not and helped to get me ready so we could all go back down. She didn't know how my heart still belonged to Sidney and how seeing him now completely undid me.

I had a tight grasp of my emotions during the dinner. Of course, Lady Denham almost broke those chains when asking about children. How could it not? In that moment all I thought about was a happy home with lots of children with Sidney.

Then after dinner Sidney had to come talk to me when all I wanted was to be left alone. I wanted to distract myself with reading and forget he was in the same room with me. Forget the pull on my heart to run to him and give myself to him. He had to talk to me though. I knew deep down he was struggling with the same torment I was; to hold all the emotions at bay when at any moment it felt like they were going to spill out for the whole world to see. He needed to be with her now, not me. When he said he didn't have the slightest idea where she was, made me realize he didn't intend to be with her. They may be married, but it wasn't going to be a happy marriage. I wasn't sure why that made my heart break even more for him. He was trapped in a marriage he didn't want. At least I still had the ability to fall in love with someone else, even if the thought seemed impossible at the moment. But Sidney would never be free from her. He was a prisoner.

After he left with Mr. Crowe and Mr. Parker, I excused myself, saying I was tired from the long day and went to my room to release the emotion that had been tightly held at bay. Perhaps I was holding on to a small piece of hope that some miracle would happen, and he'd come back to me. That wasn't possible now. I had to get used to seeing him; being in his presence no matter how hard it was. I had to tighten the rope around my heart and except the way things were.

Somehow Alison had gotten into the room and crawled onto the bed with me. As much as I didn't want to see anyone, she was a welcome sight. She held me tightly and allowed me to cry until sleep finally found me.

By morning, I had hardened my heart to love and especially to Sidney. I now understood why he left for The West Indies. How I wished it was possible for me to board a ship and disappear into the unknown and start over. I understood why he was so cold to the world. I understood more about love and heartbreak than I ever wished to know. If I couldn't escape him, I had to immerse myself in work as he did while away. Perhaps in ten years, I can move on. Perhaps in ten years he will also move on and learn to be happy with his choice. More than anything I wanted him to be happy. If I never found love again, I wanted him to learn to love her. He loved her once, he can do it again.

I went to the building site early the next morning trying to distract myself from the emotions fighting against each other inside of me.

"Miss Heywood!" Mr. Robinson called out when he saw the carriage pull up at the terrace. Georgiana and Alison had decided to stay at Sanditon House, but I needed to work so I didn't go mad. Lady Denham insisted I take the carriage from now on, no matter what. Even if it wasn't raining, I wasn't allowed to walk. I thought it absurd. I didn't mind the walk. In fact, it helped distract my mind. I did as Lady Denham said, though, as I wasn't about to disagree with her. I got out of the carriage as Mr. Robinson came running over. "The men have decided to take the day off since it's still raining pretty hard."

"What? No, they can't," I yelled. "We'll never finish in time if we don't continue." I walked past Mr. Robinson and headed for the group of men standing under a cover. I was angry and they were going to know just what I thought of them.

The men were all laughing and making plans to go drink later this afternoon. Some had plans to go now even and start their drinking early.

"We must keep working!" I shouted. They all turned and stared at me dubiously. I felt small with all of their eyes on me. "What are you all afraid of? We might get a little wet, but rain never hurt anyone."

Everyone looked around at each other giving doubtful expressions. "It's not that we are afraid of the rain, miss," a man from the group said, speaking for all of them. "It's more about the inability to build anything in the rain."

"There's plenty we can do," I countered. "There's painting that needs done. We can start clearing the burnt and broken wood from the rest of the buildings. We can work on the integrity of the inside of the buildings." I named off just a few things we could do, even though there were plenty of other things we could do also.

"I have a tent set up down by the river. We can make bricks," Mr. Fritz added.

They all glanced around to each other waiting for someone to make a decision. "If I can do it, so can all of you," I said irritatingly. This shouldn't even be up for discussion. I walked over to the pile of broken and burnt wood and started to pick it up and add it to the work wagon. I didn't wait for any of them and I definitely didn't care if I got wet. Thankfully, a few minutes later, Mr. Robinson said something to all of them to change their minds, then he instructed half the men to go with Mr. Fritz to build bricks while the rest of them were put to work painting the inside of the buildings or helping me to remove burnt and broken wood from the other buildings. I was still angry that everyone was so quick to give up, but I wasn't going to let them stop.

Working all day and being angry with the men was very helpful with not thinking about my exchange with Sidney. I barely thought about him all day. At least not until I was back at Sanditon House and saw him for a brief moment collecting Georgiana to take her back into town. I waited in the carriage a little longer than I should have, waiting for Sidney and Georgiana to leave. As soon as their carriage was on its way, I got out of my carriage and went inside.

"Charlotte, is that you?" Alison called out from the drawing room. I was exhausted and wet from the day's work. All I wanted to do was go upstairs and change my clothes then go to sleep, but instead I was being called into the drawing room where Alison and Lady Denham sat. It was as if they were scheming the way they whispered and giggled with each other when I walked in.

"Oh dear," Lady Denham gasped when I walked in and she saw the sight of me. I had forgotten how wet and dirty I was.

"Charlotte, perhaps this work is too much for you," Alison said. "Might I suggest you stay home tomorrow?"

I shook my head. "If I stay home the men won't work. They didn't want to work today either until I forced their hand."

"Miss Heywood, you'll need to take some time off to remedy yourself," Lady Denham said. "We are going to hold a ball."

"Yes, we talked about holding a ball when the Prince Regent arrived," I reminded.

"No, I'm talking about now," she countered. "It's been weeks since Sanditon has had a proper ball. Poor Alison has yet to experience a Sanditon ball. It'll be at the end of the week. Miss Lambe and Alison have convinced me to host it."

"Yes, Lady Denham is forcing me to dance with that horrible Crowe fellow," Alison said with a detested tone to her voice.

"Mr. Crowe?" I asked confused by what they were talking about.

"It's for your own good, Alison," Lady Denham said. "Trust me on this. He's a good dance partner." Alison rolled her eyes and scoffed.

"Are you trying to be matchmaker again, Lady Denham?" I asked with a laugh. Esther had confided in me what she sent and did to try and match her and Lord Babington together. I'm not sure it was much what Lady Denham did, but Lord Babington's persistence that finally won Esther over. I couldn't imagine my sister ever finding anything in common with Mr. Crowe to the point she would want to be matched with him.

"Mr. Crowe is a suitable husband with a fine fortune and position. He'd be suitable for Alison."

"But I don't like him," Alison said.

"What's like have to do with marriage? He can take care of you. That's all that matters," Lady Denham retorted.

"I refuse to marry anyone unless I am in love with them, let alone like them," Alison said.

"You may change your mind if you give him a chance," I said. She looked at me like she couldn't believe I was siding with Lady Denham. "Mr. Crowe is a very nice man from what I know of him. He can be a little bit of a drinker at times, but he isn't always like that."

"I can't believe you are in agreement," Alison said.

"I'm not in agreement, Alison. I'm only suggesting you give him a chance. Even if you don't fall in love with him and never marry him as I assume Lady Denham is hoping for, at least you were kind to him. I don't think you have said one kind thing to him since you met him. Do you blame him for being discourteous towards you?"

She sighed and gave me an annoyed look. "I guess I'll try to be nice. But if he says anything offensive, I will never speak to him again and I refuse to stand by while you two try to match us up."

I gave her an endearing smile. "I'll do my best to take a couple days off before the ball," I said before turning and going to my room. I changed out of the wet clothes and crawled under the covers to fall asleep. Even food didn't entice me when a butler brought up a tray of food later in the night waking me from my slumber. I turned and just went back to sleep.

The next morning, I was met with Alison telling me to stay home and when I insisted I couldn't, she got very angry and decided to come with to see why exactly I had to go in.

When I arrived, the men were already at work. I was quite surprised I didn't have to convince them to work in the rain another day. I was thankful for their willingness to work.

"Why exactly do you need to be here?" Alison asked from the carriage seat when we pulled up to the building site.

"I have to ensure the men are working and not trying to leave for a drink," I explained. The rain had let up a little, but from time to time the rain would start coming down then stop again. I couldn't trust they weren't going to find a way to bail on the work.

"It looks like they are all working hard today," Alison said observing the men as the carriage pulled up.

"There was a very different sight yesterday," I explained.

"Well since it looks like everything is in hand, might I suggest we return to Sanditon House?"

I thought about it for a moment until deciding against it. "I can't. If I don't show up, what kind of precedence am I setting?" I got out of the carriage and looked back at Alison. "Would you mind going to the post office and seeing if a letter has arrived from Lady Susan yet?" Alison nodded her head and instructed the driver to go down the street.

I saw Mr. Fritz stacking bricks for the buildings and went straight over to him.

"Mr. Fritz," I started. He stopped what he was doing and stared at me intently. "I wanted to thank you for yesterday." He gave me a confused look as if he didn't know what I was talking about. "For encouraging the men to continue working. If you hadn't spoken up, I fear I was losing my ground."

"What did you expect?" he laughed.

"I'm afraid I don't know your meaning," I said tilting my head to one side and giving him a confused expression.

"You're a woman. No man is going to listen to your instructions," he said as if it was the most normal thing to say.

I was angry for what he said. "I think I've done a good job so far expressing my wishes and having the men follow through with what I ask," I countered.

"That's only because they are being paid to listen to you," he explained.

"By whom?" I asked.

"I was not given a name of the benefactor. All I know is the men are given bonuses for listening to your instruction," he said.

"Mr. Fritz, time to get back to work," Mr. Robinson said breaking up our conversation.

Mr. Robinson smiled nervously and looked around at the building. "Things are coming along nicely," he said.

"What did Mr. Fritz mean?" I asked. "Why are the men receiving bonuses and who is paying them?" I gave him a very stern look and wanted answers.

He looked down and opened his mouth a few times like he was going to tell me, then thought better of it. "Answer me!"

"Mr. Parker has been paying the wages," he started.

"Tom is paying them? Where did he get the money? And why does he feel the need to pay them bonuses for listening to me?" I asked. I hadn't heard from Tom either after the letter I sent thanking him for sending the laborers. I wasn't aware he was paying the men also. How? Was it because Sidney and Eliza were married now? That had to be the way. It's the only thing that made sense.

"That's not…" he started then stopped sighing heavily. "The men have a hard time taking instruction from a woman and having a woman do the same work as them. I was advised to pay them more if it meant they would listen to you."

My breath was ripped out of my lungs. I was a woman. Why exactly would any of them listen to me? I was so naïve to think I was doing a good job. A part of me wanted to run away and hide in embarrassment. They must all look at me like a fool. Another part of me wanted to show these men what I was made of. To show them a woman could do just as much as them. I decided on the latter. I glared at Mr. Robinson and headed for the pile that still needed to be cleared and started doing it myself. I was not going to let these men put me down and make me feel less than them. I knew I was just as capable as them. I'd prove them wrong.