Walk after lunch

rain

Sidney paced nervously through the room. It just took too long. When he finally heard the door he was so relieved, he had to hold on to the door frame for a moment as he went into the hall to the others. His smile disappeared immediately when he only saw Mary and Tom.

"Where is Miss Heywood?" he asked alarmed.
"Is she not here?" Tom sometimes gets him so upset! Otherwise he wouldn't ask about her.
"Oh, Sidney," Mary complained, "I thought one of you had taken her."
This is exactly what he was trying to avoid. It was so, so frustrating. Why couldn't she just do what any young lady would do?

"She may have gone back to Lady Denham," said Tom. But Mary immediately contradicted him.
"After she felt offended by her?"
"I see. No. What do we do now?"

But at that moment Sidney had already stormed out of the house. He fetched his horse and hurried it, despite the bad weather, towards Lady Denham's. She could be anywhere. When the area became more overgrown he began to slow down so as not to miss her. After a while he even began to call her name. First decently with Miss Heywood, later even with Charlotte.

Feverishly, he wondered what she might have done. After all, she was intelligent and grew up in the country. It wasn't the first time she'd been out in such scary weather. Of course, the coast had the surprise on her side, and the weather could change here from now on. Still, Sidney was convinced that she knew what to do in such weather if she was too far from a safe place.

When he thought he could catch a glimpse of her, he let the reins loose too much and when a loud thunder banged, his horse reared up and the next moment Sidney was lying in the mud. The impact squeezed all the air out of his lungs and he felt a stabbing pain through his right leg. You gotta be kidding me. He called for his horse, but there was no sign of him anywhere. Swearing loudly he tried to sit up but knew already in this moment that it must be a more serious injury.

His thigh hurt extremely, slowly he tried to touch his leg with shaky hands, but he could not really bring himself to do so. He was afraid to feel what he feared. Cold sweat on his forehead mixed with the heavy rain and in no time he was soaked. All because he was too proud and confused to take Miss Heywood home. Who knows what happened to her. Sidney noticed how his vision was slowly fading and just managed to turn sideways before he passed out.

Clutter. A song of angels. Lovely. Steady. Something warm pressed against his head.
"Please!" he heard a pleading voice. Crying. But calm. Strangely familiar, yet strangely distant. Sidney forced his eyes to open, they were heavy. Everything was blurry.

"Please!" That voice again, and that warmth on his face. Then a pain. Deep and overshadowing. Pain. He opened his eyes and saw her. Her eyes were big and sad. But she smiled down at him with love. Her hair tickled his face. When had she changed her hairstyle?

"Sidn... Mr Parker!" she exclaimed. He had heard what she was about to say and stared at her.
"You are here. You are with me. You're with me again." Charlotte laughed in relief. She briefly disappeared from his sight. But he felt her warmth on his neck. Was she pressing herself against him? Sidney tried to move, but something was pressing on his arm. Charlotte came back into his vision. He tried to smile at her, but he wasn't sure if he could.

"All right," she said in a firm voice.
"What is..."
"Oh, Mr Parker. You're hurt. Your leg. I erm...I had to take your tie off to make a bandage." She blushed. "I'm sorry."
"No" finally got his voice back. "it's all right."

Sidney made arrangements to sit and Charlotte helped him do so.
He looked down at himself. His tie was wrapped around his thigh. Apparently, he was bleeding, because it looked like a tourniquet. But what worried him even more was that it was pretty far up. Near a very delicate area. He felt heat rising inside him. Disappointed that he was not awake to see this sensation and to watch her face.

Following his gaze, Charlotte blushed all the more and muttered
"Sorry."
"There's no need." he said softly, smiling at her. The pain was just bearable.
"Well, it's my fault you..."
"That's true, though" he interrupted her harshly, "what were you thinking?"
"Wh..at?" she stuttered.
"that you run alone in the woods?"
"I'm not."
"But of course! I saw you leave. I thought you were going straight to Trafalgar..." he grumbled, but this time she interrupted him.
"Mr. Parker!"
"You could have gone to Layd Denh..."
"Mr. Parker!"
"But no, independent, smart, little Miss Heyw..."
"Mr. Parker!" she almost screamed.

Sidney looked her in the face, which was strangely close to his. And it was not because she was yelling at him that he became silent, but because her warm fast-moving breath tickled his face. Her eyes were so big from that close up. Dark. Like bitter chocolate. She penetrated him with her gaze and he wanted to dip into her eyes and lose himself in them.

"When I arrived in Trafalgar, Mary told me you'd gone to look for me."
"Oh."
"Yes." she blushed even more and lowered her eyes. No, no! He wanted her to look at him again,
"How did you get to me so quickly?" he asked in a warm, gentle voice.
"Your horse came along and...well..." She pointed her head in one direction. There was his horse tied to a tree.
"You rode him?" Sidney felt the stabbing pain again and he clung to something. It was her hand. Charlotte flinched with a warm flash as he grabbed her hand and squeezed. But she didn't pull it away, she tried to calm him down as much as she could.

"Yes, I can ride." she said dryly, ignoring the firm grip.
"yes I mean, he's wild and..."
"I think I've tamed him" she amusingly said.

Not only him, thought Sidney, and shrugged at the next thunder. They had to get out of the weather. But he had to ask one more question before the faint could have him back.

"...it's...not a Ladys-saddle," he snorted. Charlotte laughed briefly. He stared at her.
"No, it's not."

Oh, what he would have given to see Miss Heywood riding on his wild friend in the manor. The skirts above her knees. Sidney felt his cheeks turn red again. Since when had he become a young fellow again? He could not remember the last time he blushed. Oh yes, he did! Earlier, in their conversation right after lunch.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Parker."
"What?"
"I'm afraid we have to try to go home." A warmth flooded through him at her words. His heart beat wildly. His wounded leg throbbed in unison with the beating of his heart. The murmur in his head increased.

"Please, no!" she shouted. Charlotte grabbed his face with both hands and looked him firmly in the eyes, pleading in a low voice.
"Mr Parker, please!" she pleaded.
"What?" he whispered and looked strained into her eyes, but her mouth was so close and so sweet. Her hands on his face a sensation. All over his body it was tickling and throbbing.

"Stay with me," she returned. He could only nod, because somehow that sentence seemed to have meaning. At least to him.
"You must get up. We have to get on the horse so we can go back."

He felt hot and cold. At the thought of standing up with what appeared to be a broken thigh. But the heat rising in him came from her. All because of her.

"Fortunately, her leg is not broken," she told him.
"It didn't?" he asked confusedly.
"I don't think so, when I patted it down..." Sidney could not hear any more, the fanaticism went through with him and he could only see in his mind's eye how Miss Heywood felt him up.
"...that is good."
"I beg your pardon?" he asked.
"Well," she said with a smile, "that you only have a flesh wound..." she answered innocently.
"Yes, yes."
"All right." Charlotte got up and tried to get him on his feet somehow. She supported him as he lifted himself up in pain. He leaned on her a lot and it was actually much less really necessary, but he just couldn't let her go now.

When, under pain and great effort, they had managed to get him on the horse. He reached out his hand to her and with one foot in the stirrup she made it onto the horse in one smooth movement. Charlotte, however, sat behind him, and not in front of him as Sidney had wished. But as it turned out, that was also a very good decision. Because that's how he was able to enjoy her delicate little hands around his torso. Her breasts pressed against his back, her face between his shoulder blades. Her warm breath tickling at his neck.

"Thank you!" he said over his shoulder. And as the rain and he roared wind above them and a loud thunder spurred the horse.
Charlotte had no chance to say anything. Instead, she pushed herself closer to him.