Page 31 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

“One could,” Charlotte returned. “But I will not.”

She held his gaze, refusing to be intimidated by him. Never mind that, until this moment, she’d believed him to be her husband. That she’d called him my love, for heaven’s sake.

The realization of her folly brought heat to Charlotte’s cheeks.

It was embarrassment, she recognized, not fear. Despite his crimes, Magnus had never actually hurt her. Quite the opposite, in fact. He’d tended her wounds, sat with her for hours, given the last of his bread to her dog.

“What I’m going to do,” she informed him, “is listen very carefully while you tell me exactly how it is I came to be here.”

A muscle flexed in Magnus’s cheek.

“Well?” she prompted him.

“You were standing atop my stone wall,” he said. “And you fell into my garden.”

“What was I doing on your wall in the first place?”

“You still don’t remember?”

Charlotte’s brow furrowed. The truth was that she didn’t. Though her mind was no longer completely in a fog, her memory remained as full of holes as a piece of Swiss cheese. She recalled Miss Champion. And some aspects of their journey to Yorkshire. She recollected Agatha, Artemis, and her cat, Mr. Aloysius. And she certainly knew that she wasn’t married. But as to the rest…

She huffed a frustrated breath. “I don’t remember that.”

“You were asking after your dog,” Magnus said. “You claimed he had come into the garden.”

“Claimed?” she echoed in indignation.

A rustling sound from beneath the wardrobe attested to the veracity of that claim.

Magnus’s lips thinned. “At the time, I had no reason to believe you.”

Charlotte picked up her letter from where it had fallen at her feet. Her eyes swept over the description she’d written of Magnus. An evil gentleman, indeed. Always assuming the worst about people.

Her mind jumped from that realization straight to another. A flash of memory as bold and clear as a lightning strike. It sent a chill straight through her veins.

“You thought I was spying on you,” she said.

Magnus went peculiarly still. He didn’t deny it.

“‘What the devil are you doing up there, you little spy?’” Charlotte fixed him with a kindling glare. “That is what you said, is it not?”

“Something to that effect,” he muttered.

Their eyes remained locked.

“And you pointed a pistol at me.”

Magnus flinched.

She pressed him without mercy. “Didn’t you?”

“I’m not proud of it,” he said.

“Is that when I fell? After you attempted to shoot me?”

“Thereabouts,” he admitted. “But I didn’t attempt anything. I only threatened⁠—”

“Only threatened!”