Thank you for following the story so far. In case you have been wondering: this is going to be a long tale. A very long tale. With several ups and downs. And, of course, a very happy ending.

x

Pillow Fights

When Charlotte woke up on Sunday morning, the sun was shining bright and warm into her room, and the old herring gull with the damaged plumage was watching her from its vantage point on the gutter. For a moment, she was disoriented, then she remembered. Everything. The ball. The work. Serving beverages until three o'clock in the morning. Helping Manoel to clear up the ballroom. Tumbling into her bed, fully clothed, when the first stretches of the new day were already visible on the horizon.

And Sidney Parker.

She pulled the blanket over her head, but that did not make him go away.

Upon what experience of the world do you form your judgements?

You see it fit to … accuse him of criminal conduct ...

A girl with so little understanding…

Glaring down at her, full of anger and contempt. She cringed.

What had she been thinking, sharing her observations so freely with a man who drove a car worth a small yacht, mingled easily with society (one of those two friends was a lord, the F&B manager had told her), and was, after all, the brother of her boss?

And yet, she could not help but think that there had to be more to it, that his anger had been ignited not only by her thoughtless assumptions.

With a sigh, she pushed the blanket away and got up.

After a long shower, a strong cup of coffee and some friendly messaging with her family, she donned a windbreaker and her walking shoes, determined to make the best of the day. It was her day off, after all, and she was ready to explore Sanditon's coastline.

Down in the parking lot, she stumbled across Mary and the Parker children. "We have waved Uncle Sidney good-bye," Alicia informed her.

"And his friends," Jenny added.

"I see." Charlotte tried to find something neutral to say but could not think of anything other than that she was immensely relieved.

"I would have loved to have them stay for lunch," Mary said with a sigh. "We don't see that much of Sidney these days. – What are your plans, Charlotte?"

"I'm going for a walk of discovery."

"Very well. Enjoy yourself, then."

Charlotte did enjoy herself. The beach was as marvellous as everyone had said, an extensive line of fine sand running parallel to the town, marked by low dunes on the land side and stretching into a far plain during ebb tide when the mudflats were laid bare.

Towards the east, where the coastline rose up to the cliff, the beach became rockier, creating tidal pools and secret coves. It was too cold for sea-bathing, but she did take off her shoes and socks, rolled up her trousers and put a toe into the water. The shallow surf hugging her feet was wonderfully cold and invigorating.

Paddling in the shallow waters, she continued her walk. She did not manage to get Sidney Parker's words out of her head, but when she returned to the hotel in the afternoon, she was much more optimistic when it came to her future at the Sanditon Grand Hotel.

On Monday morning, when Charlotte came to the office, Mr Parker was already gone to Brighton to his meeting with the bank, the one that had required her and Mary to get Lady Denham's last-minute signature. Esther was behind the reception desk, staring disinterestedly at her monitor and scarcely returning Charlotte's "Good morning". The room temperature dropped to freezing point when Clara came by and asked Esther to change the allocations for the VIP rooms.

"Go change them yourself," the head receptionist said without looking up.

"That's your responsibility," the housekeeper replied.

"Is it? When did you stop meddling where you don't belong?"

"You and I should be friends, Esther."

"No thanks, Miss Brereton."

Charlotte closed the office door. Whatever was going on between these two and Edward Denham, she did not want to be part of it. She would have liked to be friends with Clara, who had seemed to be kind and helpful when they first met. What she had seen in the utility room did not put her off, but the strange conversations at the ball, first with Edward, then with Clara, made her doubt. Perhaps she would have forgotten the whole affair if the two involved had not insisted on pulling it up again. Maybe it was better not to get too friendly with either of them.

The hotel's bookkeeping was definitely more fascinating than the petty fights of the Denham cousins. Charlotte spent the morning at Mr Parker's desk devising an Excel-sheet for all incoming invoices, entering them once she found a matching delivery note, and sorting them by date. She was searching through the hotel's reservation system, trying to find out how to track outgoing invoices, when a sharp knock on the door made her look up.

"Come in!" she called, and in stormed a young man with a dark blond wave of hair on his head, carrying a massive folder and a roll of wallpaper under is harm

"Oh," he said, visibly surprised. "I thought Mr Parker was here."

"I'm sorry," Charlotte said. "He's in a meeting in Brighton. – Perhaps I can help?"

"I doubt it. Unless you're familiar with water pipes and plumbing." There was a friendly twinkle in his light brown eyes.

"I'm not," Charlotte said with a smile. "But I'll let Mr Parker know that you were here, Mr…"

"Stringer. James."

"I'm Charlotte Heywood. – Charlotte." – and shaking James' hand, she thought that after a number of disappointments, here was at last one kind soul.

"So you are Mr Parker's trainee for this summer?" James asked.

"I am."

"Do you like the hotel?"

"Very much. It's a fascinating place. Seems to breathe history on every corner. Are you working here as well? Sorry, I haven't met you before."

"Not to worry. I was off for a couple of days last week. Had to see Stringer Senior to the hospital…" For a moment, there was a sorrowful look on his face. "Anyway. I'm working on the building site."

"Oh, Regency Row? That's such a beautiful project! Mary Parker showed it to me. It's like travelling back in time."

James smiled. It was a very nice smile, showing pride in his work, but also modesty about her praise. "That's exactly what it was meant to be like. I'm glad you like it. Do you want to see the designs for the interiors?"

"Absolutely!"

The interiors were just as stunning as the exterior. "We are trying to recreate a Regency atmosphere wherever possible," James explained, pointing out the fireplace in each apartment and the high Venetian windows with window sills wide enough to sit on during a rainy day and stare outside with a good book, a cup of tea and some biscuits. "This is the wallpaper for the corridors. It's a custom-made design, based on actual posters from the Regency period." The wallpaper he rolled out was a strange mix of advertisements in heavy black print, promoting amongst other news a rendition of Cinderella, the Sanditon Regatta of 1819 and Mr Thomas Parker's brand-new bathing machines.

"How imaginative," Charlotte said. "I have never seen anything like that. - A Giant Sea Serpent?" she read out one of the announcements. James grinned.

"An old Sanditon tale. Have you not heard about it?"

"No?"

"It's what the Sanditon parents used to tell their children to make sure they kept away from the beach and the surf: That in the very ancient days, a giant sea serpent ravaged the shore, and could only be pacified with the sacrifice of an innocent child."

"Urgh," Charlotte said. "That's gruesome!"

"The museum has a whole section on it. When Sanditon became a seaside resort and people flocked to the beach, they found the story counterproductive and stopped telling it. But some people still believe that there is an ancient creature living in the currents off the beach and that it will return one day and demand another sacrifice. - Have a look at the bathrooms," James added when he saw Charlotte's horrified face. "They are inspired by the original bathing machines that were installed here two-hundred years ago." Charlotte was immediately distracted, the cold shiver that had run down her spine forgotten.

"This is fantastic! Such imagination! Did you do all that?"

"Some of it. My father is an architect as well, and he has worked for the Parkers many times. I took over from him after… he's in hospital for cancer treatment right now."

"I'm so sorry, James," she said, squeezing his hand.

"It's alright. He's… he can be a bit bossy at times and keeps demanding updates on the building works. - Doesn't trust me at all," he added with a crooked grin. "Anyway. Where were we?"

"Stringer Junior!" Mr Parker walked in, all cheerfulness and merriment. "We missed you at the ball on Saturday. It was a raging success, wasn't it, Charlotte? I see you two have met?"

"I was with my father." James rose from his seat.

"Ah, of course. Your dear father. How is he faring?"

"We don't know yet how the therapy will work."

"It will turn out well. Just don't lose faith. – Now, what can I do for you?"

"There is… the matter we talked about last week…" James blushed as he tried and failed to exchange a meaningful look with his employer.

"I'm not sure I know which matter you are referring to, James," Mr Parker said, not meeting his eye but searching through his phone.

"It was about water pipes and plumbing, wasn't it, James?" Charlotte said.

Mr Parker put down his phone. "Ah! That matter! We better discuss that on-site, shall we? – Take a break for luncheon, Charlotte, and I'll see you afterwards." He took James by the elbow and led him out of his office, and Charlotte closed her new Excel-sheet and walked down to the staff canteen.

On her return, Edward Denham was lounging about Reception, leaning over the desk and rolling a golf ball back and forth. "He's a lord, you know," Charlotte heard him say to Esther.

"And if he was a prince I couldn't care less," the head receptionist answered, staring at her monitor. Edward turned to Charlotte and threw her the golf ball.

"Do you enjoy a ball game, Miss Heywood?"

She caught the ball just before it crashed into one of the glass cabinets displaying pictures of old Sanditon. "I play cricket."

"Do you? Care for a golf lesson? I'll give you a trial for free."

"Thank you. I'm rather busy right now." Without looking at him, she walked into Mr Parker's office, closed the door behind her and leaned against it. These people were so confounding.

Mr Parker was apparently stuck on the building site, discussing that matter – whatever it was, water pipes and plumbing or something completely different –, so she immersed herself into the beautiful world of accounting once more. When Mr Parker finally returned, she had added another batch of invoices to her sorting system.

"Ah, Charlotte, my dear. You seem to be very busy. Finding the light at the end of the tunnel?"

"It seems to be a very long tunnel, but I think I do. I've made an Excel-sheet of all incoming invoices, and a list of priorities for the ones due for payment."

"Oh?" He had started tapping on his phone, but now shoved it into the pocket of his jacket and looked her over the shoulder. "That looks very organised, my dear. Thank you."

"There are some invoices though… I've put them here in the stack labelled questionable. Maybe we can go through them right now? Then we'll have everything sorted by tonight."

"Splendid," Mr Parker said, though this time it did sound like a weak echo of his usual enthusiasm. Nevertheless, he took a seat next to her.

"First of all, there is this one," she said. "It's an outgoing invoice to a Mr Mathews in Manchester for a wedding party here at the hotel, dated last September. I can't find any indication that it has been paid yet, or that a reminder has been sent, and it's quite a substantial amount."

"Is it?" Mr Parker held the invoice at arm's length. "Oh, yes. I remember. The Pratt-Mathews' wedding. Dreadful story. And very delicate matter, for several reasons. Could never bring myself to pester them about the payment."

"But what happened?" Charlotte asked, expecting something really terrible like giant rats emerging from Arthur's lovingly made wedding cake, or the whole wedding party falling ill after tasting Strawberry Secrets. Mr Parker sighed deeply.

"They went on a honeymoon to the Maledives. One day, after a snorkelling excursion, when the new Mrs Pratt still had her goggles on, she accidentally mistook her husband's phone for her own. Which led to the unfortunate discovery that he had been having an affair with her estranged sister. Virtually even during the honeymoon."

"Oh dear," Charlotte said.

"Yes. Poor girl. She fled the Maledives and filed for divorce the moment she touched British soil. Had to go into therapy afterwards. – Dreadful story. Broke up the whole family."

"But still, they could pay for the wedding party, couldn't they? Mr Pratt's behaviour is not your fault, and at the moment it's you who's paying for the party. Why don't you have a deposit policy?" Mr Parker shrugged his shoulders.

"The Mathews are old regulars at Sanditon. Nearly… yes, very nearly family. Years ago, the elder girl… well. It seems a bit late to ask them for payment now, my dear."

"Absolutely not! I'll call Mr Mathews. I'll tell them I'm new here, and as I checked the old files, I stumbled across this. He can't do more than put the phone down on me, and even then we can take further action."

"Would you really do that?" Mr Parker was staring at her with large eyes.

"Of course. It's your money, Mr Parker. – Which brings me to another one. Look at this one. Apparently, we are being charged five hundred pounds every month by a Lydia Hillier for social media services."

"Oh, yes, of course. Dear little Liddy. Have known her since she was a toddler, following the Sanditon Easter egg hunt and getting stuck in the broom."

"But what exactly are you paying her for now? Surely it's not a compensation for a trauma in the shrubbery?" Mr Parker took the invoice from Charlotte's hands and studied it at arm's length.

"Well, as it says here: social media services."

"And what would that be?"

"She's taking care of our social media accounts. You have to go with the time, if you want to be successful in this ever-changing world, Charlotte." For once, Charlotte hoped Mr Parker would not sound like an advertising banner nearly every time he opened his mouth. This was serious.

"Well, I have checked the hotel's social media accounts. All I've found was a message saying the hotel is on Twitter now, a discount code on Instagram for Heely's shoe shop, and a post on Facebook from the beginning of April about the Easter Bonnet Parade of Bexhill's Motoring Club."

"That's quite an event every year over in Bexhill. I think Lydia has an uncle there who's a member of the club. Or was it a cousin?"

"But you're not paying someone five hundred pounds every month so they can promote their uncle's hobbies." Mr Parker gave her a forced smile.

"No, of course not. But that's how it goes in small towns like Sanditon. You know your neighbours, you know the people you're working with, you help them. Lydia's father has been our gardener for years."

"I see," Charlotte said though she did not. In Willingden, her mother did the gardening – her father had no time for such frivolities, and neither of them would have had the idea of paying anyone for services they had not received.

"Lydia is studying marketing, and this is her way of getting some practice," Mr Parker said. "I'm glad to be able to support her for her father's sake."

"I see," Charlotte said again. "Would you mind if I talked to her about one or two ideas I have for these social media accounts?"

"Not at all, my dear, not at all." Mr Parker's phone was buzzing with an alarm. "Time to pick up the girls from school. I'm off. – Don't work too long today, I can't afford to pay you overtime," he added with a grin that was only half in jest.

x

By Wednesday Sidney believed he had found a solution for what he kept calling "the Lambe-situation". It was not perfect, it was not easy, but it was definitely better than having a sulking seventeen-year-old imprisoned in his guest room.

When Sidney had accepted his former mentor's request to have an eye on his teenage daughter while he was sailing around the world for six months with his new wife, it had appeared to be a simple enough task. Gigi was in an elite boarding school in Kent, Sidney was supposed to visit her once or twice a month, and when the school year ended, he would drive her to Heathrow Airport and put her on a plane to Antigua where she was to join her father and his new wife.

What he had not anticipated was that Gigi would manage to get herself expelled from that boarding school within days of her father's departure. He had also not expected her to answer all his attempts at a sensible conversation with wild threats bordering on blackmail. He was now in charge of a girl that hated him nearly as much as she hated her father and her stepmother, and he had no idea how to deal with troubled teenage girls. And as he could not deal with her on his own, he had decided to find someone who could. Or so he hoped.

"Go away!" Gigi cried when he knocked on her locked door.

"I won't. Open the door, Gigi."

"I said, go away!" With a sigh, he took out the spare key – it was his flat, after all – and unlocked the door.

Gigi was lying on the bed, curled up like an embryo, turning her back on him. Part of him felt sorry for her and the mess her existence had become during the last month, and for the role he was playing in it. But a larger part of him was angry at her for being one more stubborn girl that made his life a misery – just like that impudent Charlotte Heywood with her large eyes, her freckled nose and, worst of all, that impossible dimple. Not to mention Eliza, whose invisible presence kept hovering around him, even after eight years.

"We'll be going to Sanditon on Friday," he said. No reaction. "You are going to stay at my brother's hotel until you can meet your father in Antigua. I have arranged for our former nanny to look after you."

"I'm not a toddler that needs a nanny!"

"Then stop behaving like one, Gigi."

"I hate you, Sidney Parker!" He caught the cushion she was hurling at him.

"Yeah. You're welcome to join the list. I'm going to stay with you for a couple of days, to make sure that you settle in." The next cushion came flying.

"You cannot force me to go to that place."

"I can. I don't think your father foresaw this situation, but he did sign a paper, giving me the authority on your residence."

"I'll run away!"

"Then I'll catch you. – Listen, Georgiana," he said, using her full name to underline the gravity of the situation. "I know this isn't easy for you. I have not completely forgotten what it is like to be seventeen and to be in love for the first time."

"You know nothing," Gigi glared.

I do, Sidney thought. I know so much more than I ever wanted to. And I wish I could spare you that disappointment that is inevitable to happen, that pain you can only overcome if you cauterise your heart.

But that was not what he said. What he said was: "We are leaving Friday after lunch."

Notes:

In the next chapter, Charlotte's "Best Intentions" will lead to the worst results.