Page 98 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

“But he writes of so many things,” Agatha said. “And he’s genuinely interested in what I write to him in return. He claims to enjoy my accounts of our life here. Which encourages me to expound on them more with each letter. The last one I wrote to him was nearly ten pages long, front and back.”

Charlotte gaped. Ten pages front and back? How on earth?? “Your hand must have been aching!”

“If it was, I didn’t notice it. I was…” Agatha’s blush deepened. “Well, I daresay I was consumed.”

“Do Mama and Papa know?”

“There’s nothing to know.”

“A lengthy correspondence with an unmarried gentleman? I call that something.”

“I don’t wish to share it with anyone yet,” Agatha said. “I’ve enjoyed it too much to see it come to an end.”

“If he has intentions⁠—”

“He does not. He’s only my friend.”

“Hmm,” Charlotte murmured.

Agatha fixed her with a repressive glare. “I forbid you from speaking a word of it to anyone. This is my adventure, not yours. I shall have it in my own way.”

Charlotte’s brows lowered in a disgruntled frown. “Since when is letter writing an adventure?”

“Not a word, Charlotte,” Agatha warned.

Charlotte sighed. “Very well. If that’s what you want.”

Magnus came across the room to join them.

Charlotte was instantly diverted from her sister’s adventure to her own. She held out her hand to him with a radiant smile

Magnus’s fingers engulfed hers. He gave her an apologetic grimace. “I may have mentioned us taking a house in the district to your mother and grandmother.”

Charlotte’s smile softened with bemusement. “It’s not a secret,” she said. “Unless… It wasn’t meant to be one, was it? For I already shared it with Agatha.”

“I would promise not to tell a soul,” Agatha said with a trace of droll humor, “but it seems my brother-in-law-to-be has already done so.”

“Agatha!” Felicity called out from her seat at the piano. “Come and sing with us!”

“Yes, Aggie,” Delphia joined in. “Do come!”

“You’re the only one who can hit the high notes without making the dogs howl!” Henry added, provoking a burst of laughter among the cousins.

Agatha smiled in spite of herself. She was the best singer among them and everyone knew it. She squeezed Charlotte’s arm before releasing it. “I had better save us from the dogs,” she said. She dipped her head to Magnus. “Lord Eversleigh.”

“Magnus,” he said. “Please.”

Agatha’s smile broadened. “Magnus, then.” With that, she withdrew to the piano where she promptly joined her cousins in a rendition of Cantique de Noël.

Charlotte turned to Magnus. “I’m so pleased the two of you get along.”

He gazed down at her, still holding her hand. “Did you expect we wouldn’t?”

“I didn’t know what to expect,” she admitted. “I’ve never been betrothed before, let alone introduced my betrothed to my family.”

His mouth quirked. “I should hope not.”

“I know you thought it a dreadful ordeal.”