Page 54 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

“Black.”

Her lips twitched. “Of course.” She lowered her cup back to the table. Her attention turned to the sliced bread, butter, and jam arrayed between them. “I brought plenty. Perhaps we should ask Turner to join⁠—”

“Unnecessary,” Magnus said.

Too late he realized how quickly he’d said it.

Infuriating.

Must he sound so desperate to be alone with her? Like some great, hulking recluse starving for a few seconds of her company?

Never mind that he’d been thinking of her every day since she’d left. That when he’d opened the kitchen door and seen her there, his heart had stopped—quite literally, stopped.

She looked radiant, elegant, fashionable. Unspoiled by disappointment or misery, and so far removed from Magnus’s sphere of life as to be completely on another planet.

Perhaps once they might have met as equals. Even then, he doubted she’d have looked at him twice. The only reason he’d ever appealed to anyone was because of the title he’d one day inherit, and the riches that were meant to come with it. But Charlotte had wealth and pedigree of her own. She had no need of his.

And Magnus hadn’t any riches anyway. His expectation of them was dwindling by the day. He and Turner had excavated most of the garden, and were now systematically tearing apart the house. All they’d found were reminders of Magnus’s miserable past. There was nothing that would help secure his future. Not so much as a few gold sovereigns.

“I shall set some aside for him,” Charlotte said, “Indeed, I can leave all of the provisions here when I return to Sowerby Hall. They’ll tide you over until Turner can get to the market.”

“He’s been to the market,” Magnus said, picking up his teacup. “They won’t serve him.”

She paused in the act of buttering a piece of bread. “Whyever not?”

Magnus shrugged. He’d have thought the answer was evident. “They know he’s my man.”

Charlotte lowered the butter knife. “Oh,” she said. The single syllable held a wealth of emotion. Surprise, disappointment, outrage.

Sympathy.

Magnus privately recoiled. He had no desire for her pity. “It’s no matter,” he said stiffly. “We have enough to see us through the week. After that, we’ll be gone.”

Her eyes went wide with surprise. “You’re leaving Moorcross Manor?”

“I am.” He drank his tea. “And not a minute too soon.”

“But…where will you go?” she asked. “And why leave at all? You’ve inherited the title, haven’t you?”

“I have.”

“And this is your ancestral estate, isn’t it?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to⁠—”

“You weren’t half so talkative when you were staying here,” he observed.

Charlotte gave an impatient huff. She passed him the piece of bread she’d been buttering. She had buttered it for him, he realized. “Perhaps that’s because I didn’t remember who I was then,” she said. “I didn’t know I was Charlotte Beresford.”

Magnus’s bare fingers brushed hers as he accepted the proffered bread. A jolt of heat went through his vitals.

Dashed inconvenient.

If he had any sense, he’d send her straight back to Sowerby Hall. It was far too intimate here, just the two of them, having her serve him like a wife might serve her husband. As if she cared for him enough to look after him.

Magnus couldn’t recall when anyone had cared for him so. Perhaps they never had. It had been too long ago to remember.