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She was soaked through, shivering miserably. It did not compare to the aching in her heart as she looked on to Willoughby’s home. Numbness had settled into her skin, but if it was from the rain sliding down her skin or from her abused heart she didn’t know. Her romanticism inclined to the latter option.
“Marianne!” a voice called out. The desperate feeling in that single calling made her heart keen out. Willoughby?!
But the face that peered into hers and the rough hand that smoothed back her soaked hair wasn’t her love.
“C-colonel Brandon?” She asked through chattering teeth.
“Thank god, Miss Marianne, I’ve found you. You’re wet through. You’ll catch cold in this weather.”
She wanted to argue that so could he, but her mind was a little scattered.
“Marianne, look at me.”
The assertiveness in his voice made her heart jump and her eyes met his. She found it hard to focus but she felt a flush of guilt heat through her. Brandon’s eyes held so much emotion – more than she would have ever though in such a sedate man of his age. Anger, happiness, relief, worry, agony; it was all there and more, making her realize how foolish her romantic sensibilities had become.
He asked if she could walk, and when she failed he picked her up with an apology.
She protested, “Your s-s-shoulder...”
“Hush,” he whispered.
Before sinking into delirium she wondered if Willoughby would have done the same as the Colonel, had their situations been reversed. It always seemed Willoughby was getting her into foolishness, versus out of it. And was Willoughby that selfless – helping a woman that had scorned him?
A distant fuzzy thought tangled her mind. The Colonel was very warm to her chilled skin. I think he’s right. I’ve become ill.