Page 72 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

“I’ve not done a very good job, have I?” Lucy squeezed Charlotte’s hand. Her eyes were alarmingly earnest. “Though I have tried to, Charlotte. I hope you will remember that.”

Charlotte’s smile turned quizzical. “What are you on about?”

Lucy didn’t reply.

“You’re not blaming yourself, are you?” Charlotte asked. “You shouldn’t. I don’t at all regret having met Lord Eversleigh. Quite the reverse.”

Lucy’s already pale complexion went a shade paler. “You’re not saying…?”

Charlotte released her friend’s hand. “I’m saying nothing. He intrigues me, that’s all.”

“Like a horrible villain in a fairy story,” Lucy returned. “His face⁠—”

“This isn’t a fairy story,” Charlotte interrupted with sudden sternness. “I won’t make it into one. There’s danger in being too fanciful about a gentleman.”

Lucy guffawed. “How could anyone be fanciful about him?”

Quite easily, Charlotte thought to herself.

Despite his scars. Despite his gruff exterior. Even despite his past.

Magnus had been a victim of circumstance. So too had Miss Farr and her brother. Three young people whose lives were forever changed after letting their emotions run away with them. Magnus had been punishing himself for it ever since. The letters he’d written to his father had attested to that fact.

They’d also attested to Magnus’s integrity. To his dedication to hard work. His willingness to put himself in harm’s way. And to his humility in the face of the early accolades he’d received for his conduct in the Navy.

He’d been desperate to earn back his father’s love and approval. It had been evident in every letter. All those dutifully written lines about his dangerous exploits and the favorable reports he received from superiors. As if, by being noble enough, heroic enough, his father might once again find him worthy.

That belief had appeared to dim with each successive letter. Yet, Magnus’s essential character had never changed. Neither had his account of the scandal that had resulted in his exile.

A contemporaneous memorandum.

That’s what it was called. Charlotte remembered reading the phrase once in a novel that had culminated in a dramatic court proceeding. Such documents carried the weight of truth because they weren’t colored by memory. They were written at the exact time an incident occurred.

Not that Charlotte had needed corroboration.

Every instinct she possessed told her that Magnus was speaking the truth about his past. Not just because of who he was and what he was coming to mean to her, but because the situation that had led to the tragedy was all too plausible.

She heaved a sigh. “The trouble is, there are too many rules,” she said, as much to Lucy as to herself. “Endless, rigid rules about how we might meet someone and how we must behave when we do. A whole second language comprised of behavior, all the way down to our merest gestures and expressions. And if one lapses in any regard…the consequences are such that one might never recover.”

“There’s nothing wrong with rules,” Lucy replied. “Not if they have a sensible purpose.”

“But we’re not born knowing them,” Charlotte said. “And they’re not always civil, are they? Don’t smile at this person. Don’t shake that one’s hand. This gentleman is suitable to court and that one must be given the cut direct. Don’t marry beneath you, but don’t reach too far above. And for heaven’s sake, don’t be kind to an unsuitable person lest they get the wrong idea.”

“One must remain in one’s proper sphere. Mama says that to go outside of it lies misery.”

“But what if it doesn’t? What if it’s only a whole new adventure?”

“At Moorcross Manor?” Lucy scoffed. “Doing what?” She adjusted her gloves with a contemptuous puff of breath. “The place is a disaster, and so is its master. I only saw the hall and the drawing room, but that was enough. And what about those stairs? Some of them were broken straight through! I don’t call that an adventure, Charlotte. I call that a hazard that might very well lead to your death.”

“Not at all,” Charlotte said. “Not so long as I walk with purpose.”

The carriage slowed as it approached the market square. The grocer’s shop stood on the left side, a plain wooden building with a painted sign, sandwiched between the butcher’s and baker’s. Across the way was the much more elegant draper’s shop. A large placard proclaimed its name: Kitteridge’s.

Lucy craned her head to look at it. Her face fell. “The closed sign is out,” she said in disappointment. “The woman must have gone for the day.”

“It makes no matter.” Charlotte leaned forward in her seat to address Mr. Frog. “You may set us down at the grocer’s shop.”

Lucy shot her a disgruntled look as Mr. Frog brought the gig to a halt alongside the shop’s front door. “I thought you wanted to look at ribbons?”