Page 94 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

Magnus fetched the sketchbook for her as she took a seat. He brushed off the mud from the page before joining her on the bench. He didn’t preserve any distance between them. His arm brushed against hers as he sat down, the side of his leg pressing against her heavy skirts.

Butterflies fluttered in Charlotte’s stomach at their closeness. He was very big and very warm. The heat of his body stood in stark contrast to the chilly December air around them. She nevertheless felt a shiver go through her. It had nothing to do with the cold.

Chance and the other dogs milled at their feet a moment longer before the rustle of a bird in one of the willowy bushes near the stream’s edge diverted their attention. They raced off as a pack, setting up another storm of barks.

“It may yet be salvageable,” Magnus said, handing the sketchbook back to her.

Their bare fingers brushed as she took it. Her heart skipped a beat. “Thank you.”

He examined the unfinished pencil sketch. “Is that Chance?”

“The start of him.” A frigid breeze through the branches of the trees stirred a loose curl on her cheek. She’d piled her hair into a corded hair net this morning. It was ill-inclined to stay there. Tendrils had already worked their way free all about her face. “He’s been doing very well here, as you see,” she said. “He’s made particular friends with the smaller dogs. The cats as well. Even Mr. Aloysius has come to tolerate him.”

“Is this how you’ve been filling your days in my absence? Sketching?”

“And riding, and church, and shopping with my mother and sister. I’ve been reading too. Mr. Verne has a new book—Around the World in Eighty Days. I’ve already read it twice.” Charlotte’s pulse skittered under the steadiness of his regard. She was rambling, she knew. “There was an assembly in Heycombe last month. I think I mentioned it?”

“You did.”

“I didn’t attend.” It hadn’t seemed right to be dancing with gentlemen acquaintances when her heart belonged to another. “What about you?”

“I’ve attended no assemblies either,” Magnus said.

She gave him a speaking look. “How have you been passing the time? That’s what I want to know. Your letters were exceedingly vague on the subject. Indeed, the postmark often revealed more to me than you did.”

“I’ve been doing what I should have done from the beginning. Getting my house in order.” His mouth curved. “I have you to thank for it.”

“Me?” She wrinkled her nose. “You must mean my father. If he’s the one who told you it was necessary⁠—”

“It was you,” Magnus said gruffly. “You’re the one who urged me to put the dry goods in the pantry.” He withdrew a folded envelope from the interior pocket of his Chesterfield coat. He held it out to her. “I found this there, inside the wall, not long after you left Yorkshire.”

“Inside the wall?” Charlotte took the envelope in surprise.

“Open it,” he said. “Read it.”

Charlotte did as he bid her, unfolding the letter and reading it, not once but twice. Her brows lowered with disapproval at the words his father had written. This is what Magnus had found in lieu of the missing treasure? A nonsensical letter lacking in all finer feeling?

“You don’t believe this, do you?” she asked.

“Which part?”

“It’s all of it wrongheaded,” she said. “You didn’t sin, for a start, and you’ve no need to redeem your past. Not to mention that he shouldn’t be congratulating himself. Your success has nothing to do with him. Even less than you imagined, it seems, since he all but admits that he didn’t exercise his influence on your behalf.” She handed the letter back to him. “And he’s wrong about the pantry, by the way. It’s not always a woman’s purview. Sometimes it’s the butler’s.”

“He was a product of his generation,” Magnus said. “And he wasn’t in his right mind. Not by that time.”

“He was unkind,” Charlotte replied. “He misjudged you awfully.”

“I don’t care about him,” Magnus said. “I care about you.”

She stilled, caught by the blazing intensity in his gaze.

“From the start, you’ve only seen the best in me,” he said. “You saw it long before I could acknowledge its existence for myself. It was you who read the letters I wrote to my father. You who made me face the past. Made me forgive myself in some small measure for the actions of my youth.”

Charlotte vaguely realized that she was holding her breath. Magnus had never spoken to her so earnestly. There were no more scowls. No more beastly defenses. He was, for the first time, making himself fully vulnerable to her.

“You’re the only one who has ever seen me, Charlotte,” he said. “Not for my past, or for my present deficiencies, but for the man I am.” He paused. “You must know I’ve fallen in love with you.”

She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. She could only look at him, riveted, as her heart pounded and emotion tightened her throat.