A midsummer night's proposal

It was nearly two o'clock in the morning when they returned to Trafalgar House after the fire, exhausted, covered in grime, and stinking of smoke. A distraught Mary immediately disappeared into the nursery, wanting to be alone with the children, so Charlotte herded the fretful and overwrought Diana Parker upstairs to one of the guest rooms.

Sidney and Arthur were still out, looking for Tom, who had disappeared even before the blaze was completely put out and had not been seen since. But as Charlotte came down the stairs, she heard the front door open and the sound of voices, signalling their return. She met Arthur at the foot of the stairs, and the weary shake of his head answered her wordless question – they had not found Tom. Clearly devastated by the fire, the eldest Parker sibling had taken himself off somewhere to grieve in private.

With nothing more than a tired "Goodnight, Miss Heywood", uncharacteristic of his usual loquaciousness, Arthur continued past her to turn in for what was left of the night – or morning now.

Charlotte found Sidney in the study, pouring himself a glass of brandy. When he saw her, he poured out a second glass and handed it to her. Accepting it without protest – she was in dire need of fortification – she took a seat on the sofa before the fireplace, and after a moment, he sank down on it beside her.

She'd seen him dishevelled before, on a couple of occasions when he'd turned up at Trafalgar House after a night of drinking and carousing with his friends. But never like this. His hair was tousled and his pristine waistcoat was ruined. His cravat, like her gloves, had become filthy as a rag while fighting the flames and had long been discarded.

Charlotte did not want to disturb Sidney's thoughts, so she sat in silence, taking the occasional sip of her brandy while he stared unseeing into the flames flickering in the fireplace. Finally, he heaved a deep sigh and knocked back the contents of his glass in one go, before turning to face her.

"What will happen now?" she asked.

"We will rebuild. The insurance will cover the costs."

"I've been helping to organise the papers." She glanced at the table behind the model of Sanditon town, one half covered in neat stacks of documents, the other half strewn with paper. She did not want to overstep her bounds and speak ill of Tom in case it offended Sidney again, although she hoped there was little danger of that now. But certain matters were only for family and, as close as Charlotte had become to Tom and Mary, she wasn't family.

"There are a great many more bills and payments than I'd imagined," she continued carefully. "And the amounts are... substantial. Mr Stringer said today that Tom still hasn't given the workers their full payment."

Sidney looked up, startled. "He hasn't? But I lent him—" He cut himself off with a grimace; somehow, he was not surprised to learn of this. What else could he expect when it came to his older brother? "Someone has got to rein him in before he bankrupts us all," he said wearily.

Esther Denham had made much the same statement about Tom on their walk when Charlotte had first come to Sanditon, she remembered. She didn't have to ask who Sidney meant by "someone"; as much as he did not want it, it would fall to no one else. Perhaps it already had, if he was giving Tom the funds to pay the workers. And to think she'd ever questioned how much he did for his brother. She felt like such a fool. "Mr Parker—"

"Surely we've progressed beyond such formality, Charlotte."

"Fine... Sidney, then." It felt completely natural to hear him address her by her given name – he'd done it on more than one previous occasion, though she couldn't deny the frisson it sent up her spine. So she was not quite sure why doing the same to him made her heart race. She set the thought aside for another time, not wanting to be distracted. "I owe you an apology."