A carriage ride trough Willingden

The accident

Highly concentrated Charlotte lay in the grass and watched the rabbit that she had in her sights. When suddenly her sister called her name. A four-horse carriage raced along the path and a bad feeling overcame her. In the next moment a wheel had already jumped off. Charlotte called out to her siblings and ran.

The coachman tried to calm the horses down, apparently not injured, but didn't answer. After she called, the door of the carriage, which now lay on the side, opened and a large man with red cheeks looked around excitedly. An elegant lady, slightly dazed, looked around with a disoriented gaze. Charlotte did not hesitate any longer and helped the lady out by climbing onto the carriage.

The man did not want any help and jumped down from the carriage and injured his foot. Just as Charlotte and her siblings were about to bring the two home, the woman called out in despair.

"Sidney!"

Worried that a third person, possibly even a child was injured in the carriage, Charlotte climbed back up the side of the carriage without thinking and leaned inside. He was not a child. It was a dark-haired man who seemed to be unconscious inside and didn't move. Charlotte climbed carefully into the carriage and bent over him. Her heart was beating up to her neck. Please don't let him be dead! She reached over to him and touched his face.

"Sir?" He didn't answer.

"Sir? Please wake up!" She pleaded and patted his face.

She continued to bend over him. He had his eyes closed, his lips slightly open. A gaping wound on his left temple. She took her handkerchief and pressed it on the wound and muttered a prayer.

Oh Lord, please don't let him be dead! Her heart was pounding so loud and the blood was rushing in her ears she couldn't hear his breath. So she leaned forward and put her ear where the heart seemed to be. She couldn't hear it beating through his clothes, but because she was so close, she saw his chest rising and falling. So he was still breathing.

Thank God!

"What the h..." he cursed angrily. 

Charlotte immediately went up and with joy that this stranger was not dead, tears came to her eyes.

"Sir, are you alright?"

She pressed her handkerchief back against his wound. He hissed and knocked her hand away.

"What about Mary and Tom?" he asked scared instead of answering her.

"They're out and unharmed, so far." She smiled at him again.

"This damn carriage,....would have rather rode" he scolded and Charlotte looked at him amused, apparently he was well enough to swear.

"Can you get up?" she asked nicely.

"If you'd just get off me!" he snapped.

A little pain pricked her heart, why was he so unkind? She just wanted to help.

"Beg you pardon, I had to see if you were still alive." Charlotte apologized immediately with a sarcastic undertone.

"You can see that!" he hissed.

In a whirl of darkness, babble of voices and pain, Sidney tried to orient. Suddenly something pressed against his temple and the pain changed. A pressure on his chest made him panic and when he could finally open his eyes he looked into a face. A face distorted in the semi-darkness of the carriage.

"What the h..." he cursed. 

He saw the face flinch and therefore spoke no further. He looked into big dark eyes. Something glittered in them. A soft, lovely voice let him know that it was a woman. It irritated him. She apparently pressed on his temple. The pain and her closeness were almost unbearable and he knocked her hand away.

An expression of pain scurried across her face and he had to turn his gaze away from her. Mary, Tom, where were they? This girl smiled at him, and his heart made a strange double beat. He then scolded to himself to order his thoughts. What had happened?

"Can you get up?" she asked in an enchanting calm tone. And he wanted his answer to sound joking, but it came out a little harsh. A quick-witted sarcastic response came from her and she tried to push herself as far away from him as possible in this cramped room. Immediately he missed something. What was going on?

Before Charlotte got up, she gave him the cloth soaked in his blood, stood up and climbed out of the carriage without another word. Sidney pulled his face when he got up, too, in pain or because of the awareness of having hurt the young thing, he couldn't say for sure. He pushed himself up and slipped off the carriage without hurting himself like his brother. Astonished that she had not yet run away, but had been waiting for him, he stared at her. She was pretty. Big chocolate brown eyes, her hair waving wildly around her reddened face.

Sidney shook his head and looked into the distance.

"The others have already gone ahead." She explained, then lowered her gaze and turned to walk. "Ah, here come my brothers."

And then she walked with quick steps towards two slim boys. They weren't sixteen, Sidney thought, and followed her. When he almost caught up with them, he actually wanted to apologize for his behavior, but was distracted by the look in her face.

Those eyes! The beautifully shaped lips. What?

Why was he staring at her lips?

His heart was beating wildly and he was now completely confused.

By the time they got to the house, they had hardly spoken a word. Charlotte had just introduced herself and her brothers, he had told her his name, but nothing more.

He seemed to be a narcissistic, arrogant, snob. Ungrateful. Nasty. Even his broad shoulders, his size and his handsome face couldn't change that. And the irritating fact that she had noticed all this, although she hadn't looked at him at all!

When they finally came into the parlour, she left the injured to her mother and her healing hands. She did not expect to get in touch with him again, although the thought made her heart beat faster. Probably out of anger at his behavior.

Or?