Page 22 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

Charlotte blanched at the obvious implications. “Good heavens! Is that a grave?”

She watched a moment in horrified fascination as Magnus continued digging.

“I knew he didn’t like me overmuch,” she reflected aloud, “but is he so eager for me to succumb to my wounds?”

She touched her head with tentative fingers. It still hurt. And she still found it difficult to maintain her balance (not to mention the trouble she was having in remembering much of anything before she’d awakened in this room). But surely, she was a far way from requiring a burial plot?

There was only one thing to do, Charlotte decided. She must show Magnus that she was no longer in danger of dying. That she was not just a little better, but well and truly recovered.

Withdrawing from the window, she looked about for her clothes. She found them on a chair by the bed; her skirt, bodice, corset, and crinolette folded with meticulous care. She had no recollection of Magnus being so considerate of her things. Quite the reverse. He’d tossed them aside as he’d removed them from her, all the while grumbling about what a nuisance she was.

Yet, his touch had been infinitely respectful. That Charlotte remembered with crystal clarity. The way he’d held her as he unfastened her garments. The way he’d eased her back onto the pillows and carefully sponged her brow.

“A perplexing gentleman,” she observed as she dressed herself. “One instant he warns me he’s a wild beast, and the next he’s as gentle as a lamb.” She shot a glance in Mr. Aloysius’s direction. The tip of his nose and his furry black paws were just visible beneath the wardrobe. “And he’s been equally kind to you, I see.”

Two new dishes had been placed on the floor by the wardrobe’s feet. One contained water. The other must have contained Mr. Aloysius’s breakfast.

“No one is ever quite what they seem, are they? Not my husband, anyway.” Charlotte struggled to fasten the final buttons on the back of her bodice. “Though he does appear to be digging my grave at the moment.”

Her shoes came next, sans stockings. As for her hair…what would be the point? She didn’t dare risk running a brush through it and reopening her wound. Her head was already throbbing again as it was, merely from the exertion of dressing herself.

“He’s seen me worse,” she rationalized as she exited the room. “He’ll not mind my rumpled state. If he notices it at all.”

She closed the door behind her, careful not to let Mr. Aloysius out. The hall was far darker than her room. It took a moment for her eyes to acclimate. “Does nobody ever open the draperies here?” she wondered. “Or bother lighting a lamp?”

Her question was met with unequivocal silence. No one seemed to be about. Not Turner, or any other of the servants.

If there were any others.

Charlotte proceeded down the hall in the direction of an enormous blackened oak staircase. The wood on some of the steps was splintering. Not only rotten but very likely to fall away under too much weight. She clung to the dust-covered banister as she descended, her every step taken with an excess of care. All the while, she looked about her, eyes goggling at the state of the place.

She had thought her bedroom neglected. It was nothing to the rest of the house. Shimmering cobwebs wreathed the precariously hung paintings, cushions rotted on the sofas and chairs, and long-dead flower arrangements and rotten fruit adorned the dining table and sideboards.

It was as if the world had stopped here. Not in a planned sort of fashion, with packed cases and scrupulously placed Holland covers, but in a stark, sudden way. As though the occupants had one day simply abandoned their posts. Stopped caring. Stopped living.

Meanwhile, outside, the clanking and thumping continued unceasing.

The endless racket wasn’t helping Charlotte’s headache. Indeed, the pain in her skull seemed to worsen with every footstep. Possibly she had been over-optimistic about her stamina. But it was too late to turn back now. Entering the front hall, she headed for the set of tall double doors. She found them heavily bolted.

“Oh, how provoking.” Charlotte rattled the iron bar, tugging and pulling to no avail.

A swell of panic constricted her chest.

Good heavens, was she trapped here? Being held prisoner?

“Confound this place!” she said, dropping her hand from the bolt. “There must be another way out.”

She cast about for an alternative means of exit. There was a second closed door nearby, much smaller in stature than the main entry. Crossing to it, Charlotte was relieved to discover it unlocked. She was somewhat less relieved to find that it led to another flight of stairs. They were narrow and dark. A servant’s stair, she guessed.

After descending to the bottom of them, she was breathless and perspiring. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand, belatedly registering that her fingers were trembling.

“I’ve overexerted myself,” she said with an unsteady huff. “By the time I find Magnus, I shall doubtless be ready to leap into that grave he’s dug for me.”

The stairway opened into a large but dilapidated stone kitchen. Charlotte could scarcely take it in. By some miracle, she found a door that led outside. It was mercifully unlocked. From there, it didn’t take much to find her husband. She simply had to follow the noise.

Thorny shrubs and bushes caught at her skirts as she wove her way through the overgrown garden. Voices rang out, clearer now the closer she approached.

“You can’t dig up the whole of the property,” Turner was saying.