Page 67 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

Trust your heart, their mother would advise.

Papa would give different advice still. Don’t pay attention to what people tell you, Charlotte, he would say. Pay attention to what they do.

Charlotte held all of her family’s unspoken wisdom within her, heeding it with what she prayed was equal deference as she again turned to face the room. There was no point in dillydallying. She had but an hour or two alone. Possibly less. She was determined to make the most of it.

“Where to start?” she wondered aloud.

The walls and floor, Magnus had told her. They were an obvious place. He’d said the treasure was large. That it must needs be hidden somewhere that could accommodate it. But that didn’t mean that one shouldn’t investigate every nook and cranny.

“There might be some small scrap of intelligence somewhere,” she mused. “Something that directs us to the actual hiding place.”

Her eyes came to rest once more on the writing desk. Resolve stiffened her spine. “I won’t start with digging holes, removing floorboards, or tearing apart the paneling,” she said. “I shall approach this logically.”

She went to the desk and, pulling up the nearby wooden chair, took a seat in front of it. By the looks of the dust on the desk’s surface, the lid hadn’t been so much as touched in a long while, let alone opened.

“Pray God it’s not locked,” Charlotte said.

Sliding her fingers into the seam at the top, she gave the lid an experimental tug. It opened for her with an anguished screech of hinges more suited to an Irish banshee than a piece of dull furniture.

A relieved breath gusted out of her. “Well, that’s a promising start.”

The inside of the desk was somewhat less dusty than its outside. With its collection of pigeon holes, diminutive drawers, and little doors, it was not too unlike one of the bureaus at Beasley Park. A particular little rosewood one that resided in the morning room. Charlotte used it frequently when she was home, keeping her pens in one compartment, bottles of ink in another, and her private correspondence in a sideways pull-out drawer that masqueraded as a piece of decorative trim.

This desk wasn’t half so beautiful as her own, but its purpose appeared the same.

She began sliding out the drawers. There were the usual stationery items within them. Some old pens, congealed ink, and writing paper that had long since yellowed. She focused on the small, hinged doors next, opening each one in turn to investigate the little cupboard behind. Some held more writing paper and envelopes. Some were empty. And some⁠—

“Oh!” Charlotte bolted up from her chair with a start as a large spider crawled swiftly from its hiding place. She backed away, pulse racing, until the creature had gone from the desk. Only then did she dare resume her seat.

“Foolish girl,” she scolded herself. “To be scared of spiders of all things! One would think you weren’t raised in the country.”

Irrational as her fear was, it was almost enough to dissuade her from checking the remaining compartments. The last thing she wanted was to encounter another spider. Or worse, several of them.

But Charlotte couldn’t leave her search unfinished.

Holding her breath, she gingerly ran her fingers along the cracks that edged the inlaid paneling around the centermost cupboard door. If this was at all like her desk at Beasley, one of these seams would give way to another drawer. It was a common feature in writing desks of this sort, she believed. However, none of the pieces of trim inside this particular desk moved.

Until—

“I thought as much,” she whispered as the concealed drawer came loose from its hiding place. It wasn’t without difficulty. The wood must have warped at some point, necessitating some jiggling and a greater application of force than Charlotte was accustomed to.

“There you are,” she said when it at last slid free.

It was a narrow compartment, taller than it was wide. The perfect height and width for a person to store their letters.

And that was exactly what Charlotte found there.

A stack of letters, pressed tight together, still neatly contained in their envelopes. So many, she had to pry them loose from the drawer to remove them. Dust came along with them. Like the rest of the room, these letters hadn’t been touched in many years.

Neither had they been opened.

Charlotte removed the first envelope from the stack. It was addressed to the Earl of Eversleigh, Moorcross Manor, Yorkshire. And the sender…

She turned the envelope over. Written above the seal, in a neat, even hand, was Magnus’s name: M. Sterling.

With a deepening frown, Charlotte examined the next letter and the next. They were all of them written to the late earl. All of them from Magnus. And all of them unopened.

The return direction was the only element that changed. Some letters were posted from London. Some from France. Some from the farthest reaches of the world. Magnus’s name changed with them, from M. Sterling to Sub-Lieutenant Sterling to Lieutenant and finally to Captain.