Chapter 1 : Journey Home
Looking outside the carriage window, Charlotte can’t help but feel as melancholy as the sky is dark. The journey back home has been much too dreary and lonely. She has become use to the constant movement and excitement within Sandition. Charlotte could only hope being with her family again would help ease the loss she feels. Seeing Sidney’s eyes and saying goodbye was the hardest moment of her life. As Charlotte recalls those brief moments on the bluff, she can’t help but feel the emotions begin to overtake her.
How could I have loved him so deeply? Charlotte thought. A man of such position and responsibility. The arrogance he once had at their first meeting. The manner in which he viewed the “fairer sex” until her.
Charlotte begins to chuckle as she recalls all the adventures, good and bad, they had faced together. How angry he would get at her, for she was one to tell him he was wrong in his thoughts. How he tried to avoid her at every turn. Then, that first encounter that she will never forget. That one salacious moment on the beach where she saw things that even now makes her begin to blush. What she can only describe, from her limited knowledge, as a god taming the seas.
Then there was the kiss. The moment that time stood still and their hearts beat as one. How she will never forget the moment Sidney searched her eyes and it felt as if he was touching her soul. The wind blowing around them as they embraced. The thoughts of this man truly wanting her in that moment in time is more than even now her heart can take.
Fanning her face from the memories, “How could I not have loved him...” Charlotte says out loud as if someone was there with her. His passion for life and the inner turmoil he now faces to save his family. This alone strengthens her resolve to make the best of this path life has placed her on.
Although Charlotte will never forget the love she found, she looks out the carriage window to the approaching house and wonders what her future now holds. Charlotte can only pray that this new journey will take her path back to where she began to feel as if she was already home, Sanditon.
