Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Charlotte was in bed when the constable returned. She’d retired there after spending over half an hour at the foot of the wardrobe, fruitlessly trying to coax Chance from his hiding place.
“You’ll have to come out eventually,” she told him as she rested on her pile of pillows. A tray with a half-finished pot of tea sat on the bed beside her. Another courtesy of Magnus’s. One of many, though he’d never admit they were anything of the kind.
Not friends indeed. After he’d rescued her and nursed her? After he’d saved her life?
“It doesn’t pay not to trust people,” she remarked to Chance. “Some of us are bad, I admit. But many of us aren’t. I’m certainly not. If you’d only have a little faith in me.”
She wished Magnus would do the same. Just have a smidgeon of trust in her, enough that he would tell her the truth about his past.
As it was, all Charlotte knew was that the scandal involved a young lady who had died. A Squire’s daughter named Miss Farr who was not Magnus’s sweetheart.
“Who was she, then?” Charlotte wondered aloud. “The sister of a friend? An acquaintance of Magnus’s father? Or one of Magnus’s siblings?” She paused, frowning. “Does he have siblings?”
And how did Miss Farr figure into the scandal? What had Magnus done to her, or been accused of doing? And if those accusations were credible, why had he not been arrested?
“Gossip is insidious,” Charlotte informed Chance. “It finds a home in even the best of villages. And Bead’s Hollow isn’t the best of villages, is it? The people aren’t very nice here. Not to dogs. And not to sons of earls either, it seems.”
A sharp knock at the door was all the warning she received before Magnus opened it.
He looked even worse than he had in the drawing room. His expression was drawn, his scarred face harshly shadowed. “The constable is back,” he said. “Along with your friend. You had better get dressed and come down before she succumbs to the vapors.”
Charlotte inwardly groaned. Poor Lucy! She would never forgive Charlotte for making her enter the place she was more afraid of than hell itself.
“I’m still dressed.” Charlotte pulled back the coverlet, revealing her egregiously rumpled dress. She slowly swung her legs over the side of the bed, careful not to excite another wave of dizziness.
Magnus crossed to the bedstead. He took her by the elbow with one large hand. His other hand spanned the small of her back as he assisted her up. “Not too fast,” he advised.
“I really am much better,” she said as she stood. “I don’t know why I must be plagued by these wretched dizzy spells.”
“It’s no great mystery. You cracked your skull open not forty-eight hours ago.”
She smiled. “All in a good cause.”
He made a disparaging noise, ill-tempered as usual. Yet, his hands remained on her, longer than she required them.
Charlotte found that she wasn’t opposed to his touch. Standing with him this way, feeling the heat of his body, the commanding presence of his size, the intensity of his gray gaze. It was rather like an embrace. Something she’d only ever experienced with a gentleman when dancing the waltz.
It made her pulse quiver in the most thrilling way. As though she was on the precipice of a great adventure. It was the very way she’d felt when she reached the top of the stone wall, an instant before her fall.
Except now, it wasn’t only her on that precipice. There was someone else, holding her safe.
Charlotte looked up at him as he loomed over her. Their gazes held for a perilous moment. Her chest tightened and her smile dimmed. “You’re not really angry at me, are you, Magnus?”
“I’m not angry at you,” he said gruffly.
His deep voice sent a tremor of warmth through her. “I’m glad,” she told him. “I shouldn’t like us to be enemies.”
“We’re not.”
“Even if you do snap and growl at me, and occasionally point pistols at me.”
“Charlotte…”
“I’m grateful for all you’ve done,” she said.
His black brows snapped together at her choice of words. “I’ve done nothing. And I don’t require your gratitude—” He broke off abruptly as Charlotte lifted a tentative hand to the scarred side of his face.
Her heart beat hard. “It’s not only gratitude, I confess.” She brushed her fingers over his cheek, gently, carefully. “I’d like us to be friends.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t seem to breathe. “I don’t need friends.”
Her smile briefly returned. “Nonsense. Everybody needs a friend.” She lowered her hand, directing a look at the wardrobe. “I’ve been trying to convince Chance of that fact. If only he’d come out from under there, he might learn to believe it.”
Magnus cast a distracted glance at the dog’s hiding place. He frowned, seeming to recollect himself. “I’ll have to move the wardrobe,” he said. “Once the little blackguard has no place to hide, I can put a lead on him and stuff him in a cabbage crate.”
Charlotte gaped. “Stuff him in a crate!” she echoed, appalled. She removed herself from Magnus’s grasp. “Is that how you imagine me taking him back to Sowerby Hall? Like a parcel of produce?”
“He’ll bite you otherwise.”
“He won’t,” Charlotte assured him. She made a futile effort to straighten her dress. It was wrinkled beyond repair. And her hair was surely beyond hope.
She chanced a fleeting look in the small mirror that hung over the washstand. A raggle-taggle specimen of a creature was reflected back at her. Pale, disheveled, and sporting a crooked scratch on her face.
The confidence that had inspired Charlotte to touch Magnus’s cheek vanished. It was replaced by a flood of feminine mortification. She didn’t consider herself a vain person, but this was beyond anything. She looked as though she’d been unceremoniously dragged through a hedge.
What was Lucy going to think? More to the point—what must Magnus?
Not that Charlotte was pretty in this moment, that was certain. Or accomplished. Or amusing. Thus far, he’d only seen her at her worst.
Though she didn’t know why she should care a jot what he thought about her. The man could find fault with a paragon. His instincts were deplorable as well. Putting dogs in cabbage crates? The very idea! Was he lacking in all finer feeling?
“Chance isn’t vicious enough to bite me,” she said. “He has a good heart, I can tell.”
Magnus scoffed.
“I can.” Charlotte struggled to hastily arrange the tangled mass of her hair into a plait. “Besides,” she added, “you can’t possibly move the wardrobe. It must weigh a ton.”
“I’ll move it,” Magnus said.
She cast a sidelong glance at his profile.
His towering height, the breadth of his shoulders, and the muscles lurking beneath the confines of his black cloth coat.
She’d seen the latter firsthand when they’d walked in the garden this morning.
An astounding sight to behold. Indeed, he was a much larger gentleman than her father and brothers.
It was excessively disconcerting.
“You can’t,” she repeated. “It will only terrify him.”
“Do you have a better solution?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” She finished her plait. “Have we any more milk and bread?”
“We haven’t any more provisions,” Magnus replied with an edge of sarcasm. “No thanks to you and that dog.”
Charlotte’s lips compressed. Why must he be so difficult?
“Come,” he said. He offered his arm. “I wasn’t jesting about your friend.”
“Yes, but what about Chance?”
“I’ll sort out the dog later.”
She grudgingly set her hand on his sleeve. “No cabbage crates,” she warned him.
Magnus made no promises.
Downstairs, Lucy awaited them in the drawing room. Clad in a sensible gray carriage gown, her hat and gloves still in place, she stood by the long bank of damask shrouded windows, wringing her hands. Her colorless face was the very picture of worry.
The instant she clapped eyes on Charlotte, she flew across the room. “Charlotte!” she cried. “Oh, Charlotte!”
A flare of guilt went through Charlotte as her friend fiercely embraced her. “I’m well,” she assured her. “Truly. There’s no cause to—”
“I was beside myself!” Lucy said. “And then, when Constable Reeves came to the door? You can’t imagine!”
“I daresay I can.” Charlotte drew back. Magnus was still beside her.
Lucy didn’t register his presence. Not yet.
Her eyes were only for Charlotte. “I fainted dead away,” she said, grasping both Charlotte’s arms. “Mrs. Goodenough had to revive me with Mama’s smelling salts.
And when the constable told me where you were—” She sank her voice to a horrified whisper. “I very nearly fainted a second time!”
“Pray don’t faint again,” Charlotte said. “All is well here.” She took Lucy’s hands in hers, giving them a reassuring squeeze. “Lord Eversleigh? Allow me to present my dear friend Miss Champion. We were at school together.”
Lucy’s anxious gaze darted to Magnus. Her already white face turned the shade of her gray dress.
“Lucy?” Charlotte continued just as she might have done if she were introducing two genteel acquaintances at a West Country assembly. “This is Lord Eversleigh. He’s been looking after me since my unfortunate accident.”
Magnus acknowledged Lucy with a stiff inclination of his head. “Miss Champion.”
Lucy swayed where she stood.
“Oh no.” Charlotte gripped her friend’s hands tight. “You mustn’t succumb.”
The constable rushed forward to join them. “I have your smelling salts, Miss Champion.”
Charlotte stopped the man with a look. “She’s perfectly fine. She only requires a moment to collect herself.”
“Oh, Charlotte,” Lucy moaned. “How could you come here?”
“That scarcely matters,” Charlotte said. “I’m here now, and—”
“We must away from this wretched place at once!” Lucy said.
Charlotte suppressed a flicker of irritation. It was one thing to be frightened of demonic earls and evil curses and quite another to completely forget one’s manners. “Really, Lucy,” she scolded. “Take hold of yourself.”
Lucy tugged at Charlotte’s hands. “We must away!”
Charlotte sighed. There would be no reasoning with her. Not when she was in this state. “Very well,” she said. “We shall go just as soon as his lordship fetches my new dog.”