Page 46 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

Lucy rolled her eyes.

“I do,” Charlotte insisted. “Why else do you imagine I’ve been exploring?”

Lucy exhaled heavily. “Did you have to explore in that precise place? Atop that precise wall? After all my warnings⁠—”

“I didn’t plan on it.”

“You never do plan,” Lucy said. “You simply do. Just plunging ahead, no matter the consequences. You always were far more courageous than the rest of us.”

Releasing her friend’s hand, Charlotte reclined back against the pillows. “It’s not courage that compels me, but curiosity, I fear. Or, in this case, compassion.”

“Mrs. Daventry called curiosity your besetting sin.”

“I remember.”

“And now I fear…” Lucy trailed off again. Her face was unusually troubled. It was the exact expression she’d worn last year when she’d confessed to reporting one of their friends to the headmistress for taking a moonlight drive with a gentleman. A justified action, to be sure, but one that had resulted in a great deal of trouble for the young lady in question.

Recalling that particular incident, Charlotte’s apprehension surged anew. She looked at Lucy intently. “What?”

“You spent the night with him, Charlotte,” Lucy said as if it were the most obvious fact in the world. “What do you suppose it is that I fear?”

Charlotte lapsed into a meditative silence. She knew her friend was right. That the time Charlotte had spent in Magnus’s company—in his house and in his bed—would cast a long shadow over the days to come. And possibly longer, too, if gossip were to spread.

Which it very well might, given that Kitteridge woman’s predilection for spewing village tittle-tattle.

The question was, would that gossip spread as far as London? As far as Somerset? Would it travel all the way to Beasley Park and to the ears of Charlotte’s mother.

Or worse, Charlotte’s father?

“It’s like one of those dreadful fairy stories,” Lucy said. “The one where the princess eats the pomegranate seeds. A careless decision that ends up changing the course of her whole life.”

Charlotte gave her friend a dark look. “That’s not a fairy story. That’s Greek Mythology. And she wasn’t a princess. She was a goddess.”

“And what was he, hmm?” Lucy returned. “Not a prince. Not a hero, certainly.”

“He was a God.”

“Yes, indeed. The God of hell.”

Mrs. Goodenough reentered the room with an armful of freshly folded towels. “We all know what he is,” she said. “Though I beg your pardon for saying it outright.”

Charlotte expelled an exasperated breath. “No one is saying anything outright! No one ever does. Only that he’s a beast or a demon, and that he’s responsible for a curse falling on the village. But no one ever says why.”

“Might be that it’s not fitting for a young lady’s ears.” Mrs. Goodenough crossed to the washstand where she deposited the clean towels. “Might be that it doesn’t bear repeating.”

“It involved a girl, did it not?” Charlotte asked Lucy.

Lucy dropped her gaze. “I don’t know the particulars. Only that he was a terrible man. And that it was because of him that she died.”

Charlotte’s blood ran cold at the accusation, but her courage didn’t falter. She’d never quailed from the truth before. She didn’t intend to start now. “Did he kill her?” she asked bluntly.

Lucy flinched. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I suspect so.”

Charlotte looked to the old housekeeper. If anyone knew the truth, surely it would be her. “You’ve lived in Bead’s Hollow a long while, haven’t you, Mrs. Goodenough? You must know the facts of the case.”

“Aye. I know them.” Mrs. Goodenough collected Charlotte’s soiled dress and underthings. “Wasn’t but eleven years ago. Back then, Squire Farr’s family was the second finest in the district. And his daughter the handsomest.”

Charlotte hesitated. “Is she the one who⁠—"