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Mrs. Charlotte Colbourne closed the front doorway to the Sanditon School for Young Girls and listened for the slight chink of iron against iron as she turned the key in its lock. It was a satisfaction that never failed to thrill her.
She touched the slender wedding band about her fourth finger and smiled, stepping from beneath the sheltered portico. Three months married, and she knew herself to be the happiest of women in her choices of life and love, as well as position. A position Alexander had afforded her with no expectations apart from his desire to please her.
Whereas most gentleman lavished their wives with diamonds and pearls, her husband had gifted the burgeoning town a schoolhouse - a place of refuge and their first investment as primary shareholders. But the school had also proven a family endeavor, allowing Leonora to attend with other, like-minded little girls and providing Augusta the opportunity to live a life beyond the line of societal expectations. Their niece had readily agreed to teach science and music.
Latching the gateway, Charlotte turned to Augusta and linked an arm through her own. With summer but a breath away, the afternoon was yet upon them, and they had taken to walking home. Together, they followed Leonora across the crowded thoroughfare and up a sidestep past the Mansfield Villas and Trafalgar House, as the cobblestone gradually dwindled to the salt-stained grasses of the cliff face.
Augusta squeezed her wrist. “Matilde Burcham is to be the death of me.”
Charlotte would gladly sympathize. “Another difficult day?”
“I shall strangle her before the semester is through.”
“A rather harsh course of action,” she reflected. “What has the child done this time?”
Augusta sighed. “She defies me at every opportunity.”
“The art of an educator is limitless but taxing on occasion. Matilde requires boundaries and will be all the more grateful to you for setting them, as you work to understand each other.” She smiled at the thought, well aware of the Burchams and their contrariness. “You’ve already made great strides in winning her trust.”
“She is my comeuppance, after I treated you so abominably last summer.”
“Perhaps,” she laughed. “But surely you’re not about to give up?”
“Of course not, Aunt. I am far from defeated.”
They walked the remainder in companionable silence, even as the woods of Heyrick began to thicken around them. Sunlight speckled the familiar pathway, prompting Charlotte to reconsider her niece and the duality of her declaration. Every meaning she had fashioned from her silence these past few months was a fight for clarity.
Disappointment had matured Augusta, as she made to rise from the heartache and betrayal of first love. She had raged against them and the now unknown trajectory of her life. But any scandal surrounding the elopement between herself and Sir Edward Denham was short-lived, given its unexpected end. Abandoned in the church yard - and with a small fortune of ten-thousand pounds resting untouched in the vestibule - the dear girl had wept at his desertion, unaware and clinging to Charlotte upon their return to Sanditon.
For this alone, Charlotte might be grateful. Her broken heart was but a small measure of kindness and the first Sir Edward had ever shown to anyone other than himself.
Leonora scampered by them, interrupting her reverie. “Mrs. Wheatley!” she called aloud, tearing through the front entrance of Heyrick and into the kitchens. She held a small jar of sand and saltwater aloft, her prize from their trip to the tide pools this morning. “Come and see what we collected at the beach.”
Charlotte and Augusta entered behind, as Mrs. Wheatley rounded the wooden table to lean over the jar. Her brow furrowed. “What is all this excitement?”
Charlotte rested one hand on the table and the other about her daughter. The little girl needed no further encouragement, dipping her finger into the brine and swirling up a storm of stand. She bounced on her toes in anticipation. “Wait,” she urged them.
A moment passed and the granules settled.
They all leaned closer.
Slowly, a pair of long, tapered eyes appeared from beneath the sand, followed by the hard encasement of shell and pincers. Scuttling about their new home, the sea crabs were as pale as milk drops and just as small. “Augusta took us this morning.”
Mrs. Wheatley studied its occupants before turning to set a large platter of fruit, cheeses and bread on the table. “Did all of your charges leave with such companions?” she questioned, wiping her hands over a dishcloth.
Leo shrugged. “Matilde threw hers out to sea.”
“She is a menace,” Augusta groused.
Mrs. Wheatley smirked. “It would seem the little girl is as obstinate as yourself.”
Augusta tossed her head and plucked a fat strawberry from its bowl. “Be that as it may, I have had far more practice and shall not be deterred.” She bit into the reddened fruit with more force than was altogether necessary.
“Your semester ends in three weeks for the planting season,” the matriarch pointed out. “Do you think that enough time to make any further headway?”
“More than enough.” Augusta licked the tart juice from her fingertips. “Now, if you will excuse me, there are essays to be graded.” And with that, she marched from the kitchen, quite determined to prove herself in the right.
Leo tilted her head.
“Yes,” Charlotte laughed. “You may change into your breeches but take care not to let night fall on your return, my sweet girl. Your father and I expect you back before dinner and with enough time to ready yourself for polite company at the dining table.”
Her daughter needed no further encouragement, bounding for the servants’ stairwell. Charlotte turned to Mrs. Wheatley. “Where is her father?”
“He is away just now, ma’am, attending to a…personal matter.”
“A personal matter?”
The older woman smiled. “A secret.”
Charlotte straightened.
“And you’ll get no more than that from me.”
She sighed, finishing a bite of bread. “Very well. I shall find Augusta. Several of those essays may need a second opinion.”
XXXXXXX
Alexander found his wife seated at the window of their study, a collection of texts surrounding herself and bare toes skimming the carpet. She had taken to finishing her lessons after dinner and was already hard at work. Should he offer his assistance - and offer he always did - she might smile at his teasing advances and move to sit in his lap.
But tonight, Charlotte leafed through the pages of his exsiccate herbaria and twiddled her pencil in absentminded concentration. “How are you progressing, wife?”
Her head whipped up, and he grinned.
The streak of graphite over one arched eyebrow was sweetly provocative and were it not for the surprise that awaited them outside, Alexander would have locked the door to lay her down amongst the parchment paper. “That well,” he chuckled.
“I am only taking notes.”
“You are free to take the book, itself.”
“Absolutely not.”
He leant down to cradle her face and swept a thumb over her brow to erase its grey tint, as she huffed. “I love those girls, dearly. But it would return to you in pieces, husband.”
“You will make scholars of them all,” he encouraged.
“Thank you.”
“Are you at a stopping place?”
“Very nearly.”
Chasing the fabric of her sleeves down each slender arm, he lifted her to himself. “No more tonight, then.” His hands dropped to her waistline. “I have something I wish for you to see.”
She bit her lip. “Is it to be a secret?”
Alexander kissed the shell of her ear. “Only for a moment,” he promised, leading her from the study and through the kitchen to the gardens outside.
Rosemary, thyme and caraway rested quietly beneath the windowsills, as English ivy beetled over the ironwork of their arbor. She plucked a sprig of juniper and gloried in the tickle of grass beneath her feet, even as he swept them past the Guelder rose and down the pathway towards the lower pond. The night air had chilled the coming an early summer heat, but certainly not the wellspring of its native vegetation.
The juniper fell from her hand, as he pulled her closer to his side and ducked beneath the canopy of a large maple tree. A warm glow encompassed the space, and she stilled in wonder.
Seated upon a border of river stone, tallowed candles encircled the moss-covered ground, spiraling outward to tease at the edge of the pond. Their favored trysting place, each point of light winked over the water, while dragonflies sent ripples across its surface. Her delighted smile was enough to leave him all the more in her power.
Charlotte stepped into the center, and he took her pelisse. A mound of quilts and pillows cushioned each pretty footfall, as she twirled to take in its expanse. Tilting her head upward to study the spread of foliage, her chocolate-colored curls reached clear to her hips.
Alexander swallowed and left the garment to drape over an overhanging limb. A willowed basket lay secreted away behind him for later in their evening.
“It’s wonderful,” she breathed.
“I would do anything to make you happy.”
Her smile widened. “If only the good people of Sanditon were to discover your secret, Mr. Colbourne. They should never believe the romantic heart that beats beneath such a frightening and taciturn exterior. Indeed, what might become of your reputation?”
He watched her sway in the candlelight, drifting closer and loving her with a strength no rational man had a right to feel. “If they see me as no more than a fool in love, then so be it. I care little for what others might think - only you, Charlotte.” His hands fisted in the pleats of her day dress to bring her flush against him.
She worked at the knot of his cravat. “Why tonight, husband?”
“It is an anniversary of sorts.”
“We’ve been married but three months.”
“Yes, thank God.” The small ribbons along her neckline teased him mercilessly. “But it has been a year since you accepted the position of governess at Heyrick.”
She paused. “A year to the day.”
He rocked her, gently. “A year since you restored us - me - back to life and challenged every bitter lesson I had ever learned about love.”
Charlotte allowed the white scrap of fabric to fall beside them on the moss. Kissing the hollow of his throat, she moved to the buttons of his waistcoat.
“Would that you might understand what you’ve done to me.”
“Oh, but I do,” she reassured. “Never could I have dreamt such happiness.”
He kept both arms firmly about her middle and turned them to settle with her back against his chest, even as she pressed slowly sweetened kisses to the knuckles of his free hand. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew her gift. “Then allow me this indulgence.”
“Xander,” she chastised, softly. A small, diamond-drop pendant twinkled in the candlelight between his fingers. “You would spoil me.”
“Yes.” He nuzzled at her cheek. “Lift your hair, my darling.”
She swept the curls from her shoulder, allowing him to reach forward and clasp the trinket around her neck, their breath catching as he lingered on the soft sweep of skin between shoulder blades. “Diamonds and pearls,” she murmured, almost to herself.
“Is it to your liking?”
“It is more than I ever imagined.”
Alexander rested a hand over her heartbeat and reveled in the quickening of her pulse. “You brought light into my darkness,” he confessed.
His wife shivered. “And where might I have been but for the safety you provided?” She trailed a knowing path over the tendons of his wrist and up his forearm. “Whatever you feel for such darkness, you are my best hiding place.”
The fire from her fingertips set him on edge. So intertwined were their thoughts and feelings, she would meet his hungered touch with her own. “As one needs the other, then?”
“Yes,” she affirmed. “Now, what have you planned for us?”
“A lifetime would not be enough, but for tonight?” He laughed, quietly. “I intend to treat my wife to a picnic, and then lay her down in the quiet of the countryside to love her most indecently until we are both well satisfied.”
She titled her head to look at him fully, a faint blush at her cheeks.
“Afterwards, we might try our hand at astronomy.”
“Stargazing,” she sighed.
He traced her lips. “I am determined to study every inch of you,” he whispered, “and map the constellations of your body, my love.” He swept lightly over her brow, returning to the freckles at her nose. “I will find them and compare their beauty to those scattered across our skyline.” His fingers drifted lower to the diamond nestled at her throat. “And I will prove you far superior to any such imitation - heavenly or otherwise.”
Her blush had deepened, as he charted the woman he so desperately needed.
She caressed his bristled cheek.
“Will you allow me?”
Charlotte kissed him, and Alexander swept her up to lay them down beneath the maple tree.