Chapter 13 #2
Lucy was startled out of her emotional paroxysms as effectively as if Charlotte had just doused her with a ewer of cold water. She ceased pulling on Charlotte’s hands, fixing her with an alarmed stare. “Your dog? What dog?”
“A handsome stray I found during my walk into the village,” Charlotte explained. “I’ve named him—”
“You can’t have a dog at Sowerby Hall!” Lucy objected. “Mama would never allow it!”
“It’s only temporary,” Charlotte said. “Just until I can take him home to Beasley Park. He’ll be no trouble in the meanwhile.”
Lucy didn’t appear to hear her. “Mrs. Goodenough won’t allow it either. She can’t abide dogs. Nor can Mr. Frog. He sneezes for days whenever he encounters one.”
Charlotte’s temper began to rise. This was so like Lucy!
Hopping from one distressing thing to another, like someone dancing on a bed of hot coals.
Fear, anxiety, ladylike indignation. Always the sole voice warning of consequences during any reckless endeavor Charlotte and her school friends had embarked upon.
Always the one most likely to fall into a fit of the vapors when things began to go wrong.
“How can you spend the summer with Lucy Champion of all people?” another school chum had asked Charlotte as they’d been packing at the close of the term. “She’s so terribly high strung.”
“She’s also an excellent card player,” Charlotte had returned undaunted. “And an equally capable horsewoman. I sense she’s courageous as well. Or will be when she at last finds her nerve. Besides,” she’d added, “I’ve never been to North Yorkshire. It promises to be an adventure.”
Charlotte couldn’t regret her words. Not even now. Had she not come to stay at Sowerby Hall, she’d never have visited Bead’s Hollow. Never have found Chance. Never have met Magnus.
“I shall keep him away from them until I return to Somerset,” she promised Lucy. “No one need see him at all. I can—”
“No, Charlotte,” Lucy said. “Unequivocally, no. I can’t go against my mother and the entirety of the staff. It’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible, surely,” Charlotte replied.
Lucy’s expression took on a mulish glint. “This is.”
Charlotte slid her hands free of her friend’s with a disgruntled frown. “Well, I call that rather poor spirited.”
Magnus remained silent beside her. The constable was silent too, only a pointed cough betraying his impatience.
“When I invited you,” Lucy said to Charlotte, “you agreed to abide by my mother’s rules.”
“How was I to know her rules were so draconian?” Charlotte asked with a huff. “My own mother—”
“It’s not the same,” Lucy objected. “A dog in my family isn’t the same as a dog in your family.”
“A dog is a dog!” Charlotte exclaimed.
“Miss Beresford,” the constable interrupted. “Miss Champion. Perhaps this can wait? The carriage is outside. And we have imposed on his lordship long enough.”
Charlotte was at once drawn back into the moment. Here, in this great musty drawing room in this neglected old manor house, with Magnus standing steadfast by her side. There was no warmth here save that generated by the four of their bodies. There would be even less once Charlotte had gone.
Emotion constricted her throat. “I won’t abandon him,” she said. “He needs me. He has no one else.”
She was talking about Chance, obviously. Yet Lucy and the constable shifted where they stood, averting their eyes from both Charlotte and Magnus.
Surely they didn’t think Charlotte meant…?
Magnus cleared his throat. “If I may propose a solution?”
Charlotte looked up at him, still vastly out of countenance. Lucy looked at him too, but only briefly. Her gaze quickly darted away. She retreated several steps.
“Another cabbage crate?” Charlotte inquired. “Or is it an apple crate this time?”
“Neither,” Magnus said. “I propose you leave the dog in my care.”
Charlotte blinked. “Leave him with you?”
“Temporarily,” Magnus said. “Until such time as you can take him.”
She searched his face, her temper slowly receding. “But…you don’t like him.”
“True.” The wryest of smiles quirked the edge of Magnus’s mouth, as fleeting as it was surprising. “Then again,” he said. “I don’t like anyone.”
Charlotte’s stomach trembled with the delicate flutter of butterfly wings. Never had she been so convinced that he meant the opposite.
It was a wondrous feeling. As though she had been invited through a long-bolted door. A secret door. One that hadn’t been opened in ages, but that was unlocking now to admit only her.
Well, her and her dog.
It was a one-time invitation, she sensed. To refuse it would be to close that door forever. To leave Moorcross Manor and to never see Magnus again.
Walking through the door, on the other hand…
It meant that this wasn’t the end of their story.
She would, after all, have to come back and collect Chance eventually. Or perhaps Magnus would return him to her at the Hall?
Charlotte wasn’t going to quibble over the details. Her brain hadn’t been so addled by her fall that she couldn’t recognize a good thing when she saw it. “Very well,” she agreed. “If you insist.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Magnus said.
“But you must talk to him as I have,” Charlotte said. “He needs gentling.”
Lucy regarded Charlotte with an expression of dismay. One would think that Magnus was a man incapable of being gentle, and that Charlotte was certifiably insane for addressing him so.
Well, and perhaps she was.
“I’ll make no promises,” Magnus said. “I do have my own affairs to attend to.”
Yes, digging holes, Charlotte nearly retorted.
“Your best effort is all I require,” she replied instead.
Magnus inclined his head.
It was good enough for Charlotte.
Lucy and the constable closed in upon her, each of them eager to depart.
“Come now, Charlotte,” Lucy said, setting an insistent hand at her waist. “We must get you home.”
“Quite right.” Constable Reeves attempted to shepherd them both toward the door. “It’s time to leave his lordship in peace.
Charlotte didn’t budge. As Lucy and the constable hovered anxiously about her, she extended her hand to Magnus. “Thank you, Lord Eversleigh,” she said formally. “You have been—and continue to be—of great service to me.”
Lucy stilled at Charlotte’s words and the constable fell quiet. The two of them stood, staring at her dangling hand. Their discomfort was palpable.
Charlotte felt the creeping threat of a similar discomfiture. Indeed, Magnus hesitated so long in responding to her gesture, she feared he might refuse it. She was just on the verge of withdrawing her hand when he took it. His fingers engulfed hers, warm, strong, and—yes—exceedingly gentle.
There could be strength in gentleness, Charlotte believed.
“I remain at your service, Miss Beresford,” Magnus said with equal formality. He bowed over her hand. And then—
Turning it in his, he kissed it.