Sanditon Season 2: Finding Their Way Back To Each Other

Chapter 32: Eliza Be Damned!

~Charlotte~

I ran as quickly as I could back to Sanditon House and burst through the doors. "Lady Denham!" I yelled.

Alison came around the corner and shushed me while glaring. "What is wrong with you?" she asked.

"Where's Lady Denham?" I asked breathlessly.

"She's already in bed. She had a busy day and decided to call it a night. I just finished seeing her to her room."

"I must speak to her." I handed Alison Heraclitus before I ran down the hallway and flew her door open with a force I wasn't intending.

She sat up with a start. "Charlotte! What is the meaning of this?"

"Lady Denham, I apologize for barging in here and for waking you, but I must speak to you. It's a matter of urgency." I rushed to her bedside and sat down next to her. I could hear Alison standing in the doorway behind me.

Lady Denham sat up further in her bed but rolled her eyes while doing so. "What is it?" she asked hastily.

"I just overheard the most troubling news," I began. "I was walking along the beach with Mr. Moreland and we came upon Edward Denham and Clara Brereton talking."

"Were they, now?" she said, sounding repulsed.

"Edward spoke of how his and Mrs. Campion's engagement is a farce and his soul intention is to be in your good graces so he can inherit your fortune. He bragged that you have already made up the Will naming him as the beneficiary."

"Yes, yes, I know all of this," she said, dismissing my information.

I leaned back and gave her a confused expression. "You know their engagement isn't real?"

"Do you honestly think me a fool?" she asked. "No woman of higher class would ever engage themselves to someone like my nephew. I knew it wasn't real from the moment they walked in."

"But why have you played along?" I wondered.

"Mrs. Campion has money to spare. I might as well get something for Sanditon out of it. She's throwing money left and right, at my suggestion of course, to make Sanditon a more successful sea bathing community. I might as well take advantage of it while I can so I'm not always the benefactor of building projects. She's already laid down quite a fortune for the development of a donkey steed as well as some new houses."

"Did you truly make Edward your beneficiary in your Will?" I asked.

"That was at his insistence. Merely for insurance for what they are putting forth now," she explained. "It's easily changed later."

"There's more," I said. "Turns out Clara is pregnant with Edward's child. She'd have to be almost halfway through her pregnancy by now and unmarried. She's engaged herself to Andrew Moreland merely for protection of her and the child. But to me, it sounded like Edward wished to marry her and make it right."

"As he should if it's truly his child. But do we know that for sure? She's not proven herself trustworthy in the past."

"Mrs. Campion is still after Sidney," I added. "I don't think she will ever give up."

"Perhaps it's for the best. There's plenty of other interested men who are far more suitable," she said.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. "Like Isaac Moreland, I presume?"

"You did say you were walking with him this evening. You must enjoy his company on some level," she said, smirking and letting her eyes twinkle.

"Why are you so against Sidney? I don't understand. I love him, Lady Denham."