Page 44 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

“Your best effort is all I require,” she replied instead.

Magnus inclined his head.

It was good enough for Charlotte.

Lucy and the constable closed in upon her, each of them eager to depart.

“Come now, Charlotte,” Lucy said, setting an insistent hand at her waist. “We must get you home.”

“Quite right.” Constable Reeves attempted to shepherd them both toward the door. “It’s time to leave his lordship in peace.

Charlotte didn’t budge. As Lucy and the constable hovered anxiously about her, she extended her hand to Magnus. “Thank you, Lord Eversleigh,” she said formally. “You have been—and continue to be—of great service to me.”

Lucy stilled at Charlotte’s words and the constable fell quiet. The two of them stood, staring at her dangling hand. Their discomfort was palpable.

Charlotte felt the creeping threat of a similar discomfiture. Indeed, Magnus hesitated so long in responding to her gesture, she feared he might refuse it. She was just on the verge of withdrawing her hand when he took it. His fingers engulfed hers, warm, strong, and—yes—exceedingly gentle.

There could be strength in gentleness, Charlotte believed.

“I remain at your service, Miss Beresford,” Magnus said with equal formality. He bowed over her hand. And then⁠—

Turning it in his, he kissed it.

Chapter Fourteen

Hours later and Charlotte’s heart was still thumping hard. She’d said scarcely anything during the carriage ride back to Sowerby Hall (despite the endless peppering of questions from Lucy and the constable), and even less when she’d arrived.

Now, ensconced in the Champions’ comfortable guest chamber, bathed and dressed in a clean cotton nightgown, with her hair freshly arranged in an orderly plait. Charlotte rested in the pink, silk-draped four poster bed as Dr. Calthrop finished his examination.

Mrs. Goodenough and Lucy fussed nearby, endlessly straightening the coverlet, fluffing the pillows, and arranging fresh cloths at the washstand.

Charlotte hardly noticed them. And she paid little mind to the doctor.

No.

Her mind was still caught in that final moment with Magnus. The way he’d taken her hand. The way he’d kissed it. Not like some cross, miserable, battle-scarred curmudgeon, but like a courtly gentleman of old.

Had he been mocking her?

The thought had occurred to Charlotte as the Champions’ carriage had rolled out of the drive. But Charlotte didn’t think so. Indeed, she very much suspected that he’d meant it.

But meant what, exactly?

There was the puzzle.

“A concussion all right,” Dr. Calthrop concluded. Withdrawing from Charlotte, he returned his instruments to his leather bag. “Might easily have been worse if left untended.”

Lucy froze in the act of smoothing the bedclothes. “What do you mean it could have been worse?”

“The things I’ve seen, Miss Champion…” Dr. Calthrop shook his head with somber significance. “Young lad in Upper Beadwell tumbled out of a tree in ’67. Fell into a coma and died three weeks later. And that tree wasn’t half as tall as the wall around Moorcross Manor.”

“Farmer Fletcher’s boy,” Mrs. Goodenough remarked knowingly. “God rest his soul.”

Lucy looked between them, pale faced. “Miss Beresford isn’t still in danger of dying, is she? Not now she’s awake?”

“She’s been well tended by the look of it.” Dr. Calthrop snapped his case closed. “Eversleigh’s boy, was it?” He gave an amazed huff. “Not to be believed.”

“He is Eversleigh now, according to the young mistress,” Mrs. Goodenough said. “And not a boy, neither.”