Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Magnus met his uninvited guests in what had once been the formal drawing room. The constable hadn’t come alone. He was accompanied by a whip-thin older woman in a black stuff dress. She was possessed of hard, flintlike eyes. Familiar eyes.
It was Mrs. Kitteridge.
Magnus’s stomach knotted at the sight of her. The redoubtable village busybody had been one of the rallying voices during his long-ago fall from grace. He well remembered the things she’d said then. Had it been up to her, he would have been hanged for murder.
They faced each other across the vast expanse of motheaten blue-and-gold carpet, mildewed French furnishings, and the dust-ridden oil painting of Magnus’s late mother that hung above the cold marble fireplace.
“It’s true then,” Mrs. Kitteridge said, raking Magnus with her gaze. “The demon has finally returned to his den.”
The constable stood at attention by the mantel. He was a man of early middle age, with a heavy mustache and an impressive pair of side-whiskers. Not anyone Magnus recognized. A newcomer very probably. “Now, now, ma’am,” he interjected, holding up a staying hand. “You agreed to bridle your tongue.”
“There’s no disputing his nature,” Mrs. Kitteridge replied. “Just look at him. If you can see him in all this infernal murk.” She surveyed the shadowy room with blatant contempt. “I’m not surprised to find him living in darkness.”
Magnus made no move to open the curtains or light a lamp. This wasn’t a social call.
“Does your manservant speak truly?” the constable asked him. “Do I have the pleasure of addressing the new Earl of Eversleigh?”
“A dubious pleasure,” Mrs. Kitteridge remarked under her breath.
Magnus ignored her. “I am Eversleigh,” he said. “And you are?”
“Constable Reeves.” The man made a curt bow. “I’ve had several reports in the district. All of them mentioned Moorcross Manor. It’s caused quite a stir in the village, you’ll understand.”
“Is that what brings you to my door?” Magnus asked. “Village gossip?”
“More than gossip, my lord,” the constable replied. “Your manservant was described to me by three separate tradespeople. First asking after a doctor, then after a missing girl. Which gave me pause considering the history of this place, I don’t mind telling you.”
“If you’ve got a girl held prisoner here, you may be assured we’ll find her,” Mrs. Kitteridge said to Magnus. “And this time we’ll finish what was started eleven years ago.”
“Mrs. Kitteridge, please,” Constable Reeves said. “I won’t warn you again.”
She clamped her lips shut with a mutinous glower.
Once, Magnus had been unmanned by that look. It had brought perspiration to his brow and provoked a queasy dread in his stomach. He recalled how they’d stood in this very room. How his pleas to his father had fallen upon deaf ears.
But that was a long time ago. Magnus had been an untried lad then, young and na?ve.
He was a man now. One who had known battle.
One who had seen death. This provincial woman was no threat to him in the scheme of things.
He’d already lost his home, his family, his reputation.
There was nothing much remaining, save his desire to protect his privacy.
The unwanted reminder of the bleak days leading up to his exile nevertheless made his blood boil.
“Is there a girl being kept here, Lord Eversleigh?” the constable asked Magnus.
Magnus held back a biting retort. His temper wouldn’t serve him here. Not with these two. The wise thing was to placate them. To come out with the plain truth and pray that, this time, cooler heads would prevail.
He was just about to do so when Charlotte’s voice rang out behind him, more authoritative and aristocratic than he’d ever heard it before.
“I am not being kept here,” she said.
Mrs. Kitteridge gasped as Charlotte entered the drawing room. She was still in her rumpled bodice and skirts, her hair disposed in a wild tangle over her shoulder. The very picture of a lady who had lately been debauched.
Magnus’s eyes closed briefly on a private groan.
Charlotte came to a halt at his side. “Lord Eversleigh and his servants have been looking after me ever since I injured myself on his property.”
He cocked a brow at her. Servants? Plural?
“His lordship’s valet, Mr. Turner, went for the doctor multiple times,” Charlotte continued. “We’d hoped you were him.”
“And just who are you, miss?” the constable asked.
“Yes,” Mrs. Kitteridge joined in. “Who are you? And how is it you find yourself in the clutches of this foul monster?”
Charlotte lifted her chin. Her back straightened so that she seemed to grow a full three inches in height.
“I am Miss Beresford,” she replied in that same disconcertingly regal tone.
“Daughter of James Beresford, Viscount St. Clare of Beasley Park in Somerset, and granddaughter of the Earl of Allendale.”
There was an audible inhalation of breath from Mrs. Kitteridge.
Constable Reeves stared at Charlotte with an expression of incredulity.
Magnus was hard pressed not to stare as well. His blood had gone cold.
“And Lord Eversleigh isn’t a monster,” Charlotte continued, as if she hadn’t just tipped his world on its axis. “To be sure, ma’am, I believe his actions may very well have saved my life.”
Charlotte didn’t owe Magnus anything. Not after discovering how many lies he’d told her.
Well, not lies, precisely. More like untruths.
Or half-truths.
And while he may not have uttered those lies outright, he’d certainly made no effort to correct her many misapprehensions. Not the least of which was her mortifying belief that the two of them were married.
Charlotte couldn’t think of it without blushing. And now was decidedly not the time to blush. She’d overheard the hostile tones of the strangers’ voices as she’d approached. Their condemning words and accusing questions. This wasn’t a cordial call. This was a distinctly unfriendly confrontation.
If you’ve got a girl held prisoner here, you may be assured we’ll find her, the woman had threatened. And this time we’ll finish what was started eleven years ago.
What was it that had happened eleven years ago? Charlotte wondered. Was it when the “terrible things” she’d mentioned in her letter to Agatha had occurred?
Charlotte didn’t know. And now wasn’t the time to satisfy her curiosity. In this moment, all that mattered was convincing these two overbearing villagers that her presence at Moorcross Manor was not only innocent, but that it had been temporarily necessary.
She set her hand on Magnus’s arm. He’d scarcely looked at her since she’d entered. She suspected he was angry, though it was impossible to tell from his face. “If you would assist me to a seat, my lord?” she said. “I find I’m rather lightheaded.”
Magnus’s eyes met hers. There was a frown at the back of them, as though he couldn’t tell if she was in earnest or if she was merely putting on a show of frailty for the constable.
It was a little of both if Charlotte was honest.
“Of course,” Magnus said. He guided her to a sofa near the fireplace. The damask upholstery had been eaten away in places, either by mice or by burrowing insects. Charlotte inwardly recoiled from sitting upon it.
But needs must.
Stiffening her back, she sank onto the rotting cushion. It was slightly damp beneath her skirts. A perfect complement to the rest of the house, she thought to herself. And to this musty, dreary, inadequately lit room. In comparison, Magnus’s bedchamber was practically luxurious.
The constable stepped forward in concern. “You look very ill, Miss Beresford,” he said. “Would you mind telling me—”
“Would you mind sitting down, sir?” Charlotte interrupted politely. “It pains me to crane my neck.”
“Forgive me.” The constable drew up a tattered armchair. “You hurt your neck, you say?”
“My head.” Charlotte touched her fingers to her temple in a not wholly fabricated affectation of pain.
Magnus strolled to the fireplace. The busybody in the black dress—Miss Kitteridge, was it?—scurried out of his path. She relocated herself to the opposite side of the room, still surveying Charlotte and Magnus down the length of her narrow nose.
The constable withdrew a small notebook and pencil from his pocket. He opened the notebook to the first page and, wetting the tip of his pencil on his tongue, began to write. “How did you injure your head, Miss Beresford?”
Charlotte glanced at Magnus. He was leaning against the mantelpiece, arms crossed at his chest. A portrait was mounted on the wall above him, festooned with cobwebs and blanketed in a thick layer of dust. It was a painting of a lady.
A stately, dark-haired one in a fitted evening dress with an enormous diamond necklace at her throat.
A matching diamond bracelet adorned her wrist and a huge diamond solitaire graced her ring finger.
Was she Magnus’s mother? Charlotte scanned his face for any resemblance.
Magnus looked back at her steadily, but not at all warmly.
He wasn’t the only one whose eyes were upon her.
Charlotte refocused her attention on the task at hand. “I-I was atop the garden wall,” she began in a halting voice.
“Atop the wall?” Miss Kitteridge echoed in blatant disbelief. “That ten-foot stone monstrosity that surrounds the estate?”
“Nine foot,” Magnus corrected quietly.
Charlotte moistened her lips. Not all of her memories had come back. There were parts she was going to have to make up as she went along.
Luckily, she had an excellent imagination.
As for the rest…she recalled enough of it now to give an adequate account of herself.
“I’d spotted a hurt dog, you see,” she said to the constable.
Magnus’s gaze sharpened. His thoughts were as clear in that moment as if he’d spoken aloud. Indeed, she could practically hear the sarcasm in his voice. A hurt dog? he seemed to ask. Not your hurt dog?
Charlotte averted her eyes. This wasn’t the time to be feeling guilty over all the trouble he’d gone to in bringing the biting, thrashing little canine back to her. It wasn’t her fault that she’d believed it to be her dog, any more than it was that she’d believed Magnus to be her husband.
To be sure, one could argue that it was, in fact, Magnus’s own fault. Had he shown her the letter she’d written from the first, she might have remembered who she was earlier instead of spending nearly two days confounded by a bewildering delusion.
“I have a weakness for animals, you see,” Charlotte explained to the constable. “My mother instilled it in me.” She paused, adding, “She’s the granddaughter of the Earl of Gordon, did I mention?”
Mrs. Kitteridge’s mouth fell open.
“You have an esteemed lineage, Miss Beresford,” the constable said. “Yet you find yourself here, on the outskirts of Bead’s Hollow? Atop a great wall, no less? It is a puzzle.”
“Yes, quite,” Charlotte agreed. “But the dog was injured, as I said. Once I saw him enter the grounds of the estate, I couldn’t simply leave him here, could I?”
“This place isn’t fit for man or beast,” Mrs. Kitteridge said.
“I had no notion at the time that the new earl was in residence,” Charlotte went on. “If I had, I’d naturally have inquired at the front door.”
“We none of us knew,” the constable told her.
“Which is why the only option available to me was to climb the wall.” Charlotte set her hands in her lap. “I was attempting to stand up to get a better look into the garden when I lost my balance and fell.”
Constable Reeve scribbled rapidly in his notebook. “And after that?”
Charlotte looked to Magnus. “Lord Eversleigh will have to supply the rest. I can remember nothing until I regained consciousness later that day.”
Magnus looked back at her. There was an expression in his eyes that was impossible to interpret.
Had he thought she would mention the pistol?
She certainly could have, though she didn’t know what good it would have done. On the contrary, she had the distinct impression that this unusually tense meeting was akin to a powder keg. Any stray spark could set it off. Charlotte didn’t intend that spark to come from her.
“Lord Eversleigh?” the Constable queried.
“I found her in my garden, with her skull cracked open,” Magnus replied as blandly as if he was discussing the weather. “I sent my valet for the doctor to no avail.”
Mrs. Kitteridge snorted. “We’re to believe that, in his absence, you nursed this young lady yourself?”
“He did, ma’am,” Charlotte replied. “I owe my life to him.”
“Miss Beresford overstates the matter,” Magnus said. “I merely cleaned her wounds and made her comfortable.”
Mrs. Kitteridge’s flinty eyes swept over Charlotte’s loose hair and rumpled clothes. “Very comfortable, I see.”
Charlotte’s cheeks heated in spite of herself.
“My valet returned to the village twice more in search of help,” Magnus informed the constable. “There was none to be had.”
Constable Reeves paused in his note taking. “Your man is unknown here, my lord. And your family has been gone for over a decade. Can’t blame the folks in the village for being wary.”
“Miss Beresford’s relations would be justified in blaming them,” Magnus said. “The villagers cold-heartedness has harmed her far more than it’s hurt me.”
“You profess to be concerned for her reputation?” Mrs. Kitteridge retorted acidly. “Yet you allowed her to stay the night without a chaperone? And she an unwed young lady? It’s a disgrace!”
“Would you rather I’d left her to die out of doors?” Magnus returned.
The constable scratched his side-whisker. “A quandary, to be sure, with the doctor away in Upper Beadwell and none of the folks in the village willing to render aid.” He exhaled. “Can’t say I blame you for taking her in, my lord, but Mrs. Kitteridge is right. It’s a damaging action all the same.”
“One that won’t be made right,” Miss Kitteridge pronounced. “You mark my words.”
“It’s been made right, ma’am,” Charlotte told her. “I am much recovered, as you see.”
“Recovered? Ha! You’re ruined, my girl and no two ways about it. Still…” She shot a scathing look at Magnus. “It’s a far sight better than the alternative.”
Charlotte couldn’t comprehend her meaning. “Which is?”
“Having your good name redeemed,” Mrs. Kitteridge answered. “By him.”