Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
“That’s impossible,” Magnus said.
The main room of the Moorcross Manor kitchens was lit by a branch of guttering candles. The dancing flames were barely sufficient to illuminate Turner’s weary face.
“It’s true enough, sir.” Perching on a wooden chair, Turner proceeded to remove his boots. “I asked at the market again, and at two of the shops. Won’t say the tradespeople were forthcoming, but they did speak to me. None of ’em would admit to knowing these Champion people.”
Magnus leaned back against the sink, all but disappearing into the deepening shadows that blanketed the edges of the room.
The sun had set over an hour ago, taking most of his hopes with it.
What little remained had been extinguished by his valet’s return.
There was no longer any question that Charlotte would be obliged to stay the night.
“What about the post office?” he asked.
“Closed, my lord.” Turner massaged one of his stockinged feet. “Won’t open till midday tomorrow the sign said.”
“This infernal place,” Magnus seethed.
“Happen the young lady will have to sleep here,” Turner said.
“Oh, you think?” Magnus retorted acidly.
“Not much of a choice, I reckon. Unless you take her to the village yourself and leave her with one of the womenfolk till the doctor comes back. Might be better than keeping her here. An unwed young lady and all.” Turner scrunched his brow.
“Except…Village shutters at nightfall, don’t it?
Don’t suppose we’ll have any luck finding a person to help us. ”
Magnus raked a hand through his hair in bleak resignation. “No one’s going to help us.”
“The doctor—”
“He won’t come until tomorrow, if he comes at all.” Magnus suspected it would be the latter, given his recent run of luck. “We’ll have to find the Champions ourselves.”
“Don’t know how we could,” Turner said, making a prolonged show of rubbing his other foot.
Magnus wasn’t moved by his valet’s theatrics. “You’ll have to go door to door, naturally.”
Turner balked. “Tonight?”
“Not tonight, curse you. Tomorrow. First thing.”
Though God knew it would be too late. By sunrise, Miss Charlotte Whoever-She-Was would be thoroughly and irrevocably compromised.
Any lady would be who had spent the night under a bachelor’s roof without benefit of chaperone.
And Magnus wasn’t just any bachelor. He was the worst one.
Indeed, he was the worst man in all of North Yorkshire.
Charlotte just didn’t know it yet.
Charlotte awakened in the morning to an odd snuffling sound at her feet. She cracked open a cautious eye to find Mr. Aloysius curled up in a tight ball at the end of the bed. He was snoring.
Her mood brightened considerably.
The poor dear. He must have gotten cold under the wardrobe. At some point during the night, he’d decided that joining her on the bed was preferable to shivering and hiding. Which meant that he wasn’t as terrified of her as she’d originally thought.
It also meant that she must not have been as bad of a pet owner as she’d feared.
“You chose me,” she said to the sleeping little dog. “We must have been friends, you and I.”
Using her arms to assist her, she slowly sat up in the bed. Her head hurt markedly less today. She credited Magnus for that. He’d washed her wound again last night and given her another swallow of whiskey for the pain. It must have done the trick. That and a good night’s sleep.
“Though I don’t know how it was a good night’s sleep,” she said aloud. “It was freezing, wasn’t it? I can’t imagine why Magnus wouldn’t make a fire.”
Mr. Aloysius gave another disgruntled grumble in his sleep.
“And where is Magnus?” Charlotte wondered.
As if in answer, the silence was shattered by the fierce clank of metal. It was followed by a heavy thud. The two sounds repeated in unsteady rhythm. They seemed to be coming from outside the window. The gardener, perhaps? Or the groundskeeper?
Hearing the noise, Mr. Aloysisus awoke with a snort. He stared at Charlotte with bulging eyes a moment before scrambling to his feet.
“Pray don’t go,” Charlotte pleaded with him. “I haven’t even had a chance to inspect your injured—”
But it was too late. Before she could finish reassuring him, Mr. Aloysius leapt from the bed and once again plunged beneath the wardrobe.
Charlotte sighed. “Botheration.”
The thud and clang continued, louder still. It was punctuated by what sounded like an oath.
Pulling back the quilt, Charlotte swung her legs over the side of the bed. A wave of dizziness assailed her.
It was no match for her curiosity.
“Get up, Charlotte,” she said. “You can do it if you try.”
Slowly, ever so slowly, she rose to a standing position. Her legs trembled beneath her. She gave them a few seconds to acclimate before she proceeded.
“Just a little more,” she encouraged herself.
Step by cautious step, she made her way to the filthy window on the opposite side of the room. It was framed by a pair of ancient damask draperies. She wrinkled her nose as she drew them open, stirring a cloud of dust so heavy it made her sneeze repeatedly.
“Vile things,” she said when her paroxysms had ceased. “There’s no excuse for such untidiness. And this window is worse!”
Leaning across the inset window seat, she rubbed away the years of soot and grease from the glass with the heel of her hand. It still wasn’t completely clear, but if she stood on tiptoe, she could just manage to see through it.
Peering out, she spied a vast tangle of a garden. It was all thorns and brambles and untamed overgrowth. Like something in a fairy tale she only half remembered. A cursed place, as she’d been told. But a real one, this time, with no hope of a happy ending.
Her thoughtful gaze drifted over it, unable to find anything amid the endless bleakness to convince her otherwise.
She did, however, discover the source of all that noise.
It was Lord Eversleigh. Or Captain Sterling. Or Magnus. Or whatever it was he wished to be called rather than her husband. He was clad in his shirtsleeves, a shovel in his hand. He was beneath the bare branches of a gnarled tree, standing over a large, rectangular hole in the ground.
Charlotte blanched at the obvious implications. “Good heavens! Is that a grave?”
She watched a moment in horrified fascination as Magnus continued digging.
“I knew he didn’t like me overmuch,” she reflected aloud, “but is he so eager for me to succumb to my wounds?”
She touched her head with tentative fingers. It still hurt. And she still found it difficult to maintain her balance (not to mention the trouble she was having in remembering much of anything before she’d awakened in this room). But surely, she was a far way from requiring a burial plot?
There was only one thing to do, Charlotte decided. She must show Magnus that she was no longer in danger of dying. That she was not just a little better, but well and truly recovered.
Withdrawing from the window, she looked about for her clothes.
She found them on a chair by the bed; her skirt, bodice, corset, and crinolette folded with meticulous care.
She had no recollection of Magnus being so considerate of her things.
Quite the reverse. He’d tossed them aside as he’d removed them from her, all the while grumbling about what a nuisance she was.
Yet, his touch had been infinitely respectful. That Charlotte remembered with crystal clarity. The way he’d held her as he unfastened her garments. The way he’d eased her back onto the pillows and carefully sponged her brow.
“A perplexing gentleman,” she observed as she dressed herself.
“One instant he warns me he’s a wild beast, and the next he’s as gentle as a lamb.
” She shot a glance in Mr. Aloysius’s direction.
The tip of his nose and his furry black paws were just visible beneath the wardrobe.
“And he’s been equally kind to you, I see. ”
Two new dishes had been placed on the floor by the wardrobe’s feet. One contained water. The other must have contained Mr. Aloysius’s breakfast.
“No one is ever quite what they seem, are they? Not my husband, anyway.” Charlotte struggled to fasten the final buttons on the back of her bodice. “Though he does appear to be digging my grave at the moment.”
Her shoes came next, sans stockings. As for her hair…what would be the point? She didn’t dare risk running a brush through it and reopening her wound. Her head was already throbbing again as it was, merely from the exertion of dressing herself.
“He’s seen me worse,” she rationalized as she exited the room. “He’ll not mind my rumpled state. If he notices it at all.”
She closed the door behind her, careful not to let Mr. Aloysius out. The hall was far darker than her room. It took a moment for her eyes to acclimate. “Does nobody ever open the draperies here?” she wondered. “Or bother lighting a lamp?”
Her question was met with unequivocal silence. No one seemed to be about. Not Turner, or any other of the servants.
If there were any others.
Charlotte proceeded down the hall in the direction of an enormous blackened oak staircase.
The wood on some of the steps was splintering.
Not only rotten but very likely to fall away under too much weight.
She clung to the dust-covered banister as she descended, her every step taken with an excess of care.
All the while, she looked about her, eyes goggling at the state of the place.
She had thought her bedroom neglected. It was nothing to the rest of the house. Shimmering cobwebs wreathed the precariously hung paintings, cushions rotted on the sofas and chairs, and long-dead flower arrangements and rotten fruit adorned the dining table and sideboards.
It was as if the world had stopped here. Not in a planned sort of fashion, with packed cases and scrupulously placed Holland covers, but in a stark, sudden way. As though the occupants had one day simply abandoned their posts. Stopped caring. Stopped living.
Meanwhile, outside, the clanking and thumping continued unceasing.