Page 24 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

Charlotte’s mouth tipped in relief. She’d been afraid he was going to refuse her request. A foolish fear, now she thought of it. Hadn’t Magnus been doing everything she’d asked of him since the moment she’d awakened? Despite his growls and grumbles. Despite the miserable circumstances of their home. He’d been taking care of her—and her dog—the best he was able, even if he did complain the entire time he was doing it.

She tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. Whatever gaps there were in her memory, she knew one thing for certain. Her husband was a good man. A man she was safe with. “It requires no persuasion,” she told him. “You need only lead the way.”

Chapter Eight

“Was it a grave?” Charlotte asked.

Magnus flashed her a narrow look as he escorted her through the labyrinth of towering hedges, tangled trees, and untended rosebushes that made up the gardens of his ancestral home. “Do men often go about digging their wives’ graves in your experience?”

“I can’t recall what I’ve experienced,” she said. “Perhaps they do.”

His tone darkened with disapproval. “Perhaps you read too many sensation novels.”

“I can’t recall that either,” she admitted. “Though I am fairly certain I enjoy reading.”

The sun shone brightly above them, undimmed by its usual barrier of clouds or fog. There was a bit of a chill in the air nonetheless. Typical of a Yorkshire morning when the spring rain had finally stopped and the summer was fast approaching.

Magnus’s attention lingered on Charlotte’s unbound hair. Sunlight glinted in the fiery threads, making them flash against the deeper strands of brown.

He cleared his throat. “You think retracing your steps will spark your memory?”

“It might.” She gave him a quizzical glance. “Was it a grave?”

“No, it wasn’t a grave,” he growled.

“Then what⁠—”

“It was a blasted hole. One of many I’ve dug on this benighted property since returning from the continent. Which is another reason you shouldn’t go traipsing about unescorted. You’ve already fallen from a wall. I won’t have you tumbling into a hole as well.”

Charlotte quickly inspected the debris-strewn ground around them. A frown crossed her face as she spied a freshly churned trench by a large rosebush ahead and another beneath a tree nearby.

Likely spots, Magnus had thought when he’d dug them. Each near a visible marker. A sane man would have buried his treasure in an easily findable location, would he not? Yet each attempt to unearth said treasure had uncovered nothing. It was gradually occurring to Magnus that it might be because his late and very unlamented father had been anything but sane.

“Are you attempting to improve the garden?” Charlotte asked.

Magnus snorted. “Hardly.”

“Then what is it you’re doing?”

He glared at her. Good lord. Was she always so persistent? So reckless in pursuit of her own curiosity? Her own pleasure?

But of course she was.

She pranced along nine-foot stone walls, didn’t she? As well as juggling a string of lovers and keeping company with scarcely tame dogs, and heaven knew what else.

“I’m looking for something,” Magnus said shortly. “Something my father has hidden here.”

“What—”

“That’s all you need to know.” He guided her over a tree root.

“Why?” Her blue eyes sparkled with inquisitiveness. “Is it a secret?”

“Yes. My secret. Or rather, my father’s for the time being. It makes no matter.”

“It obviously matters to you.”

His jaw tightened. Too right. It was the only thing that mattered. Not the house. Not the village. And certainly not this outrageous girl who had inconveniently fallen into his lap.