Page 21 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

“Not tonight, curse you. Tomorrow. First thing.”

Though God knew it would be too late. By sunrise, Miss Charlotte Whoever-She-Was would be thoroughly and irrevocably compromised. Any lady would be who had spent the night under a bachelor’s roof without benefit of chaperone. And Magnus wasn’t just any bachelor. He was the worst one. Indeed, he was the worst man in all of North Yorkshire.

Charlotte just didn’t know it yet.

Charlotte awakened in the morning to an odd snuffling sound at her feet. She cracked open a cautious eye to find Mr. Aloysius curled up in a tight ball at the end of the bed. He was snoring.

Her mood brightened considerably.

The poor dear. He must have gotten cold under the wardrobe. At some point during the night, he’d decided that joining her on the bed was preferable to shivering and hiding. Which meant that he wasn’t as terrified of her as she’d originally thought.

It also meant that she must not have been as bad of a pet owner as she’d feared.

“You chose me,” she said to the sleeping little dog. “We must have been friends, you and I.”

Using her arms to assist her, she slowly sat up in the bed. Her head hurt markedly less today. She credited Magnus for that. He’d washed her wound again last night and given her another swallow of whiskey for the pain. It must have done the trick. That and a good night’s sleep.

“Though I don’t know how it was a good night’s sleep,” she said aloud. “It was freezing, wasn’t it? I can’t imagine why Magnus wouldn’t make a fire.”

Mr. Aloysius gave another disgruntled grumble in his sleep.

“And where is Magnus?” Charlotte wondered.

As if in answer, the silence was shattered by the fierce clank of metal. It was followed by a heavy thud. The two sounds repeated in unsteady rhythm. They seemed to be coming from outside the window. The gardener, perhaps? Or the groundskeeper?

Hearing the noise, Mr. Aloysisus awoke with a snort. He stared at Charlotte with bulging eyes a moment before scrambling to his feet.

“Pray don’t go,” Charlotte pleaded with him. “I haven’t even had a chance to inspect your injured⁠—”

But it was too late. Before she could finish reassuring him, Mr. Aloysius leapt from the bed and once again plunged beneath the wardrobe.

Charlotte sighed. “Botheration.”

The thud and clang continued, louder still. It was punctuated by what sounded like an oath.

Pulling back the quilt, Charlotte swung her legs over the side of the bed. A wave of dizziness assailed her.

It was no match for her curiosity.

“Get up, Charlotte,” she said. “You can do it if you try.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, she rose to a standing position. Her legs trembled beneath her. She gave them a few seconds to acclimate before she proceeded.

“Just a little more,” she encouraged herself.

Step by cautious step, she made her way to the filthy window on the opposite side of the room. It was framed by a pair of ancient damask draperies. She wrinkled her nose as she drew them open, stirring a cloud of dust so heavy it made her sneeze repeatedly.

“Vile things,” she said when her paroxysms had ceased. “There’s no excuse for such untidiness. And this window is worse!”

Leaning across the inset window seat, she rubbed away the years of soot and grease from the glass with the heel of her hand. It still wasn’t completely clear, but if she stood on tiptoe, she could just manage to see through it.

Peering out, she spied a vast tangle of a garden. It was all thorns and brambles and untamed overgrowth. Like something in a fairy tale she only half remembered. A cursed place, as she’d been told. But a real one, this time, with no hope of a happy ending.

Her thoughtful gaze drifted over it, unable to find anything amid the endless bleakness to convince her otherwise.

She did, however, discover the source of all that noise.

It was Lord Eversleigh. Or Captain Sterling. Or Magnus. Or whatever it was he wished to be called rather than her husband. He was clad in his shirtsleeves, a shovel in his hand. He was beneath the bare branches of a gnarled tree, standing over a large, rectangular hole in the ground.