Page 12 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

Great burn scars along the right side of his face, across his ear and approaching his eye. The burns had even taken some of the hair at his temple. A gruesome, disfiguring wound. Textured and shiny, not quite the color of his skin. Along with his ill-temper, it made him seem not entirely human. More a beast than a man.

Yet, he had touched her with a certain degree of gentleness.

Which meant that there was some little good in him. And surely there must be, else why would she have consented to be his wife?

A frown notched her brows. It was vaguely mortifying to be so much in the dark about the man she’d married. Goodness, she didn’t even know his name! All she had learned so far was that he was a lord and that she was a lady. But lord and lady who, and of what?

“Sure you don’t want more tea?” Turner asked, drawing back. “Or something to eat? We don’t have much in the larder to speak of, but I⁠—”

“I don’t require anything,” Charlotte said. “Except…perhaps you might answer a few questions?”

The valet’s expression shuttered. He took a step back from the bed. “I ain’t the best man to be answering questions, my lady. You’d do better to ask…”

There was an awkward silence.

“My husband?” Charlotte finished for him.

Turner dropped his gaze. “He, uh, should be back anytime with your dog.”

Anytime?

Charlotte didn’t know when that might be. The bedchamber was so dark and grim, with its heavily draped windows and single low-burning glass lamp, she couldn’t tell if it was presently day or night.

How long had she been asleep up here? Hours? Days?

She straightened the bedclothes over her midsection with anxious fingers. The patterned quilt was thin with age and the sheet so worn, she could practically see through it. “What do you call him?” she asked.

“Your dog? That’s a question only you would know, ma’am.”

“Not my dog. My husband. You call him ‘my lord,’ but lord what?”

“Err…” Turner retreated another step into the shadows. “It’s, uh, Eversleigh. But only lately. Afore that it were something else.”

“Eversleigh.” Charlotte strained to remember. “And I am Lady Eversleigh?”

Turner didn’t reply.

“I must have hit my head very hard,” she said.

“You did at that, my lady,” Turner agreed quickly. “Happen the doctor will come soon and sort you straight.”

“How long was I⁠—”

Her question was interrupted by the sound of heavily approaching footsteps. It was accompanied by a fury of angry yips and growls.

Charlotte’s pulse quickened in alarm. She pushed herself up on trembling arms as the door to the bedchamber burst open. A blood-stained Lord Eversleigh stalked in holding a snarling little dog. The creature was all but foaming at the mouth.

“Oh!” Charlotte cried.

“Your dog, Madam,” Lord Eversleigh said in a tone that would have curdled milk.

Charlotte blinked at the wild canine. “My dog? I don’t…”

But she couldn’t bring herself to admit that she didn’t remember it. Not when her husband was in such a foul mood.

“The poor dear,” she said instead. “Is he hurt?”

“He is fine,” Lord Eversleigh replied icily. “Filthy, ungovernable, and not fit for a civilized household, but otherwise⁠—”