Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Nearly three hours later, the thump of footsteps on the creaking stairs announced the return of Magnus’s valet.
Magnus swiftly rose from his place on the bed as Turner entered the room. He’d remained there for the entirety of his valet’s absence, a reluctant officer at his post, only leaving the young lady’s side to refill the water pitcher and to fetch fresh cloths.
She still hadn’t awakened. She hadn’t stirred again either, not even when Magnus had nearly soaked her hair in a clumsy effort at irrigating her head wound.
“Well?” he asked.
Turner held a folded piece of paper in his hand. He looked unusually pleased with himself. “Good news, my lord.”
Some of the tension left Magnus’s shoulders. For the first time all morning, he felt a flicker of relief. He moved toward the door with guarded anticipation. “The doctor’s with you?”
Turner shook his head. “There’s no doctor.”
Magnus stopped. “No doctor in the village? I don’t believe it.”
There had certainly been one before Magnus left.
A pompous, aged relic of longstanding who had helped rally the villagers against Magnus in the aftermath of the scandal.
Magnus presumed the old quack would be dead by now.
It didn’t follow that an equally insufferable individual wouldn’t have come to take his place.
“Oh, they have one right enough,” Turner said. “He’s in Upper Beadwell attending to a squire with apoplexy. The woman at the market said as how he wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.”
Tomorrow?
Magnus stiffened at the prospect. He had no intention of keeping the young lady here overnight. “You did leave word for him to come here?”
“I mentioned it,” Turner said vaguely.
Magnus’s voice roughened with impatience. “And?”
“As it happens, my lord,” Turner confessed at length, “when I said that the earl required a doctor to treat an injured girl up at Moorcross Manor, she ran me out of the store.”
“She what?”
“Called me ten varieties of liar, and accused me of playing a foul prank. ‘Another injured girl at the Manor?’ she says. ‘What was I, born yesterday?’”
Magnus expelled a frustrated breath. He ran a hand through his hair. “Wonderful.”
“I kept telling her that there was a girl here, maybe hurt bad. But she never heard nothing about any village girls gone missing today. Which made me think, sir, what if this ain’t a village girl?”
“Your powers of deduction astound me.”
“Might have come here on a passing coach, I says to myself. Got off the stage in Bead’s Hollow and wandered along the road when she came to your estate. Happen she had something with her that might identify her.”
Magnus folded his arms. His attention returned to the young lady, her slim figure dwarfed by the monstrous size of the great mahogany bed. But for her pallor, she might have been sleeping.
An unnerving notion on multiple levels. To see her, amid the tangle of his sheets and the very pillows where he’d rested his own head the last several nights.
As if she’d made herself perfectly at home there.
It gave Magnus a sudden sympathy for the bear in the fairytale who had discovered a girl sleeping in his bed.
So too must he have felt to find an intruder in such a private place.
Except this young lady’s hair was more like spun silk than burnished gold. Dark and glimmering with threads of reddish-brown fire.
“Her pockets are empty,” he said. “I checked.”
Turner came forward. “No need of that, my lord. I’ve already discovered her particulars.”
Magnus’s gaze jerked back to Turner with immediate alertness.
Turner waved the folded paper. “Found this letter in the shrubbery, didn’t I? She must have dropped it when she fell. Tells us exactly who—and what—she is.”
Magnus frowned at his valet’s cryptic choice of words. “What in blazes is that supposed to mean?”
“Charlotte, she calls herself, the brazen hussy. Engaged to a fella back home, and fixing to meet another fella by the bridge this very morning in some secret assignation.”
Magnus blinked. “She says that?”
“Oh aye. Writing to her sister, she was. Telling all her shameful secrets.” Turner glanced down at the letter. “Says she staying at a hall somewhere, with a family name of Champion.”
“That’s it?” Magnus’s frown deepened. “There’s no return address? No surname?”
“There was no envelope. No other details neither, except…” Turner hesitated before continuing.
“She does spread some vile gossip about you and the village. The curse and all, and about you being an evil gentleman who did terrible things.” He offered Magnus the note. “You can read it yourself if you like.”
Magnus took a reflexive step back. The hell he would. He had no desire to hear the young lady’s ignorant account of his scandalous history. And he certainly had no interest in prying into her own sordid affairs.
Engaged to one man and having an assignation with another? And she had the temerity to call him someone who did terrible things?
A muscle clenched in his cheek. Infuriating as the whole situation was becoming, he couldn’t afford to lose sight of the matter at hand.
One way or another, he had to get this female out of his house before nightfall.
And he had to do it without alerting the entire population of North Yorkshire that the notorious son of the equally notorious Earl of Eversleigh was temporarily back in residence.
“I don’t need to read her blasted letter,” Magnus gritted out. “What I need is for you to go back into the village and make inquiries—discreet inquiries—into where we can find these Champion people.”
Turner’s face fell. “Back to the village, sir? But I only just come from there. It’s a half dozen miles both ways, and I ain’t as young as I—”
“Do you have a better suggestion?”
Turner shrugged. “Thought you might know the folks.”
Magnus had never heard of them before. It was doubtless some family that had taken up residence during his absence. As for the Hall… It could be any number of houses within ten miles. “I don’t wish to know them,” he said.
“Well, then…” Turner scrunched his face. “What about this fella she was meeting at the bridge?”
“What about him?”
“Happen I could go to the bridge myself, tell him what’s occurred, and persuade him to come fetch her?”
By some miracle, Magnus kept his countenance. “Bring the girl’s secret lover to collect her from my bed?”
“Better than her remaining there,” Turner said.
Magnus might have agreed with the premise if he were a different man. But he wasn’t. Too easily, he recalled a similar circumstance from his past. He also recalled just how that fateful encounter had ended. “And what if he demands satisfaction?”
“I don’t think a duel would be likely in this day and age.”
“A scandal would.”
“But, sir—”
“No.” Magnus shook his head. “I’ll not invite the meddling of some enraged paramour with a false idea of gallantry. He’s likely not even at the bridge anymore. Not unless he’s waited over three hours. It’s approaching noon.”
“Mayhap he did wait,” Turner said. “She’s a right pretty lass.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
Turner wisely made no reply. Which was a reply in itself.
Magnus scowled at him. “Forget the rogue at the bridge. Direct your thoughts to finding the Champions.”
“And if I do find ’em?” Turner asked. “What, then?”
“Call on them in my stead,” Magnus said. “Tell them to send a carriage to retrieve their guest.”
Turner’s narrow shoulders slumped with resignation. “Anything else, my lord?”
“Oooh…” A weak moan sounded behind them.
Magnus and his valet turned sharply in unison.
The young lady moved restlessly in the bed. Her thick lashes fluttered. Slowly, ever so slowly, she opened her eyes. They were a soft shade of cyan blue. The exact color of a robin’s egg.
Magnus’s heart briefly lost its rhythm.
But only briefly.
He’d seen hundreds of sets of fine eyes during his travels. Hers were nothing new. Never mind that they were a little wider, a little more vulnerable. Never mind that she was in his bed.
She raised her hand to her wound with a whimper. “My head.”
Steeling himself against any further physical reaction, Magnus returned to her side. He caught her hand in what he hoped was a sufficiently gentle clasp. “Don’t touch it,” he commanded. “I’ve only just cleaned it.”
She blinked up at him in confusion. There was no sign of horror in her face at the sight of his burn scars. No hint of repulsion at all. “I don’t understand…”
Her words trailed away as her unfocused gaze drifted about the room, moving from Magnus’s face to the rumpled bedclothes and then to the nearby washstand where Magnus’s shaving implements were still laid out from his morning ablutions.
She scarcely seemed to notice Turner, though the valet was steadily creeping forward, his hat in his hand.
“You had a fall, Charlotte,” Magnus said, speaking loudly and clearly. “That is your name, isn’t it? Charlotte?”
Her eyes returned to his. “Are you my husband?”
Magnus dropped her hand as if she’d scalded him. He’d have backed away completely if it wasn’t for Turner standing behind him. Her husband, by heaven!
“And this is our bedchamber?” Charlotte asked in the same perplexed tone.
Turner poked his head out from behind Magnus. “Don’t you remember, my lady?”
Charlotte looked at him for the first time. “I don’t remember anything.”
Magnus marshaled his scattered senses. “You fell,” he said. “You hit your head on the stones. And I’m not your—”
“An urgent word, my lord!” Turner said with a hard tug on Magnus’s arm.
Magnus broke off, allowing his valet to pull him aside. “What now?”
“You can’t be setting an amnesiac straight before their time,” Turner whispered. “Have to play along with them, don’t you?”
Magnus’s brows lowered. “What nonsense is this?”
“Seen it myself during the attack in Japan. One of the midshipmen didn’t know who he was after the cannonball hit.
The surgeon said as how we had to humor the lad.
” Turner made a disparaging sound. “Thought we knew better, didn’t we?
Gave the poor sod the facts. Too much for him, it was.
Fell into a right state. Thrashing and shouting, like a madman. ”
“If this is another of your tortured metaphors—”
“It ain’t, my lord. You’d recall it yourself if you hadn’t just had half your own head blown off.”
Magnus ignored the callous description. At the moment, his battle scars were the least of his concerns. “You’re saying I have to let this…this person believe that I’m her—” He stopped short of saying it. It was too offensive. Too ridiculous. Like some cruel jest of old made at his expense.
Turner nodded. “Until she gets her memory back, aye. Which she’s bound to once the shock wears off, ain’t she? All we have to do is—”
“May I have something to drink?” Charlotte interrupted politely.
Magnus briefly closed his eyes, silently cursing every decision that had led him back to Moorcross Manor. No amount of money was worth this infernal risk. Better he had stayed in France. Better he had died.
At the moment, he rather wished he would have.
It was far preferable to acting out this insulting pantomime. Pretending that he was someone—anyone’s—husband. That he had a pretty, auburn-haired wife with robin’s egg blue eyes who could look at him without recoiling.
With a final kindling glance at Turner, Magnus went to the already opened bottle of whiskey that stood on a dust-covered table near the fireplace. He poured out a glass. It was the only thing he knew of that was suitable for shock. Good thing, since it was all he had to offer her.
“Here,” he said. “Try this.”
Charlotte attempted to lift her head only for it to drop back again on her pillow. “I-I’m afraid I can’t—”
“I’ll help you.” Once more, Magnus sank down on the edge of the bed. Sliding his arm around her shoulders, he assisted her up just enough to sip from the glass he held to her lips.
A subtle fragrance stirred his senses. The sweet, sultry scent of roses. A perfume applied with such a delicate hand as to only be discernible on close contact. Something she’d put on for the benefit of her lover, Magnus didn’t doubt.
Ignoring the beguiling smell, he tipped the glass for her.
She took a tentative drink. Her face immediately contorted with distaste. “Oh!” she coughed and sputtered. “What is that?”
“Medicine.” Magnus raised the glass again.
Charlotte grimaced as she took another choking swallow. “I thought… tea, perhaps.”
“’Spose I could make some tea for my lady,” Turner said.
Magnus directed a warning look at him. “That won’t be necessary—”
“Could you, please?” Charlotte interrupted. “With sugar?”
Turner bowed once before darting from the room.
It was all Magnus could do not to go after the blackguard and wring his scrawny neck. Just because they couldn’t disabuse this woman of her concussed delusions, didn’t mean they had to play along with them.
“I haven’t forgotten how I take my tea,” Charlotte said. “That’s something, isn’t it, my love?”
My love.
Magnus’s attention jolted back to his unwelcome guest. She was staring up at him in uncertain expectation. He cleared his throat. It was damnably tight all of a sudden. “Err, yes,” he managed.
Returning her head to the pillow, he surged to his feet. He didn’t know where he was going, only that it seemed a wise idea to put some space between them. He made it as far as the window.
The view through the glass was obscured by years of grease and soot.
Magnus could make out but little of the tangled garden below.
In his youth, it had been one of the finest rose gardens in Yorkshire, courtesy of the fleet of gardeners employed by his father.
But no more. All that had ended when Magnus had brought ruin upon them.
He chanced a wary look over his shoulder. Charlotte was still staring at him. Still confused. “Do you remember anything else?” he asked.
An elegant crease marred her brow. “There was a pistol, I think.”
Magnus concealed a flinch.
“And…” Charlotte hesitated. “A dog.”
“Your dog. Quite,” Magnus said promptly, grateful for anything that would take her mind off him having threatened her with his revolver. “He was injured, I believe?”
“I don’t know. I can’t—”
“Don’t overtax yourself. Turner will find him.”
“Turner?” she echoed weakly.
“My valet. The one who’s fetching your tea.”
“I can’t remember him,” she confessed.
“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Magnus said. “However you did recall your dog. I count that as progress.”
Her lids were growing heavy, her voice fading. Still, her gaze held his. “I wish I could remember you.”
“Most people would be wishing the opposite,” he said.
She didn’t reply. Eyes drifting shut, she mercifully slid back into sleep.