Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Charlotte returned the next morning at eight o’clock precisely, almost a full twenty-four hours after Magnus’s shocking confession about his past. She’d had plenty of time to think it over.
She was still thinking it over.
It didn’t follow that she must refrain from action in the meanwhile. Indeed, it had occurred to her last night, during the many sleepless hours she’d spent tossing and turning in her bed, that the only way to know more of Magnus was to see more of Magnus.
Having come to that decision, on waking, she’d wasted no time in washing, dressing, and setting out at a brisk pace for Moorcross Manor.
Magnus opened the kitchen door to her rather more promptly than he had the previous day.
A knotted tie graced his neck and his thick black hair was combed into meticulous order.
He appeared neither surprised nor dismayed to see her again so soon.
He merely admitted her and, true to his word, enlisted her in his service.
And yet…
There was a solicitousness in his manner—a certain gruff gentleness, Charlotte felt—that hadn’t been evident yesterday.
It was enough to make her heart lose its rhythm in the most delicious way.
Responsible for me, ha! she thought as she followed him and Chance up the servants’ stair from the kitchen. That kiss on the hand Magnus had bestowed on her had been no act of responsibility. It had been no mere kindness, either. The truth was, he had grown fond of her.
Perchance just as fond as she had grown of him.
“I presume you and Turner are searching the house for something,” she said as they entered the main hall.
Magnus motioned for her to precede him. Chance remained at his side, still attached to the end of his rope lead. “You presume correctly.”
Turner was just entering the hall from one of its adjacent receiving rooms, a claw hammer dangling from his hand.
He pulled the door shut behind him, but not before Charlotte caught a brief glimpse of the dark little antechamber, with its faded, moth-eaten carpet and cramped arrangement of austere, old-fashioned furnishings.
Her pulse quickened. Was that the small parlor? The very room where Miss Farr had met her tragic end?
“My lord?” Turner cast a wary eye from Charlotte to Magnus.
“Miss Beresford will be joining us in our efforts this morning,” Magnus informed him.
The valet’s jaw slackened. “Joining us, sir?”
Magnus’s mouth pressed into a grim line. “As I said.”
Chance sank into a sitting position next to him. Lifting a scraggly hind paw, he proceeded to scratch himself beneath his chin.
Charlotte removed her hat and stripped off her gloves. Magnus stepped forward to take them from her. “It would help if I knew what we were looking for,” she said.
For a taut moment, the only sound in the entry hall was the steady thump-thump of Chance’s back foot beating against the floor. And then—
“Bank notes,” Magnus replied brusquely. “Or bags of coin.”
“Several bags of coin,” Turner added.
Charlotte looked between the two of them, her nerve endings fairly vibrating with curiosity. “You’re searching for money?”
“My inheritance,” Magnus said. “Hidden somewhere here at the Manor.”
Charlotte stopped where she stood. “I knew it!” she breathed.
Magnus grimaced. “Charlotte—”
“Or at least I suspected it,” she continued in a rush of excitement. “I thought it must be something like a casket of jewels, a secret will, or—”
“The will is no secret,” Magnus cut her off.
“It’s in the hands of a solicitor in Dover, all legal and aboveboard, and clearly stating that I’m the sole heir to my father’s fortune.
All that remains is to find it.” He placed her hat and gloves on a rectangular wooden table by the wall, disturbing a heavy layer of dust. “Which is exactly what we’ve been trying to do since our arrival. ”
“Bound to be here somewhere, ain’t it?” Turner remarked with ill-disguised cynicism. “That’s what his lordship keeps telling me.”
Magnus shot his valet a quelling glance. “As far as a casket of jewels—”
“There really are missing jewels?” Charlotte asked eagerly.
“My mother’s,” Magnus said. “They’re likely to be hidden here too.”
Beside him, Chance determinedly continued his scratching. He contorted his small body to better accommodate his efforts.
“But not buried in the garden,” Charlotte concluded.
“We began there,” Magnus said. “The fortune is sizeable, as was my mother’s jewel box. The hiding place would need to be large enough to accommodate it. I assumed it would be somewhere out of doors. At the time, I couldn’t imagine my father would stoop to destroying the house.”
Charlotte refrained from remarking that the house was arguably already destroyed, if only from neglect.
Magnus gave a wry tilt of his mouth, seeming to read her mind. “I’ve since reconsidered my view.”
Charlotte recalled the furious splintering of boards she’d overheard when she’d come yesterday morning. “You’re searching behind the wall paneling?”
“The floorboards as well,” Magnus said. “We’ve had no luck yet.”
“There’s a great many panelings left,” Turner said. “And I’m not a young fellow, am I? Not with my arthritis.”
Magnus ignored his servant’s complaints. “I don’t expect you to wield a hammer,” he said to Charlotte. “Simply look for suspicious seams in the walls and the flooring. You can shout out when you find them. We’ll do the rest.”
“That sounds easy enough.” She clasped her hands in front of her. “Where shall I start?”
Magnus was silent several seconds before seeming to come a decision. “Confine yourself to this level. There’s less rot in the floorboards. You won’t be in danger of falling through.”
“Happen she could try the small parlor,” Turner ventured. “I’ve not yet begun—”
“Not the parlor,” Magnus said immediately.
“It’d have to be,” Turner said. “We’ve already finished most of the other rooms on this floor.”
“There’s still the conservatory,” Magnus told Charlotte. “You’ll be safer there.”
Turner made a disparaging noise. “A room made of glass? With stone floors and some broken pots? What good is her searching—”
Something changed in Magnus’s manner, as subtle as it was powerful. “Enough with your insolence.”
Turner’s mouth instantly clamped shut. Even Chance came to attention, at last ceasing his scratching.
Magnus neither looked at his servant, nor raised his voice. His tone was one of perilous quiet. “I gave you an order.”
Chance’s liquid brown eyes flicked from Magnus to Turner.
The valet’s shoulders drooped. “Apologies, your lordship.” With a sullen bob of his head, he retreated back into the small parlor. The sound of half-hearted hammering soon followed.
Charlotte bit her lip. In that moment, she could easily see how Magnus could have captained a warship in Her Majesty’s navy. There was iron in his voice, and in his commanding, broad-shouldered frame. It permitted neither disobedience nor dissent. Not from the men who served him, at any rate.
But Charlotte was no sailor or servant.
And she was no man.
“Magnus…” She went to him amid the increasing noise of Turner’s hammer striking the parlor wall. “If his arthritis is indeed bothering him—”
“Turner doesn’t suffer from ill health,” Magnus said. “He suffers from terminal laziness.”
She briefly crouched to give Chance a reassuring stroke on the head. “Even if that were true, you must allow that his reasoning is sound. Curious as I am to explore the conservatory, there’s little point in me searching a room made of glass. Not if all it contains are empty pots.”
“There are plants as well.” Magnus gave her a bleak look. “Were plants.”
“And no possible hiding place, I assume? With glass walls and a stone floor?” She regarded him with a thoughtful frown. “If you’d prefer I not go into the small parlor, you need only say so.”
“It’s not that.” He stopped. “Or rather, it is, but—”
She rose from petting Chance. “I could just as easily go upstairs.”
Magnus’s countenance darkened at the suggestion. “I already told you—”
“I’d be of more use there,” she said. “Unless you have a particular objection?”
“Aside from you falling through the floor and breaking your neck?”
“Yes. Aside from that.”
Magnus pushed his fingers through his hair. “Are you determined to court ruin, Charlotte?”
A fleeting smile tipped her mouth.
His brows lowered. “You find that amusing?”
“Not at all,” she said. “Only—to employ a naval euphemism—I thought we’d agreed that that ship had already sailed?”
Magnus’s usually inscrutable expression betrayed a flare of masculine shock. “I never agreed to anything of the sort.”
“Not in those precise terms, no. But near enough.” She recollected the day that Constable Reeves had visited the manor, insisting that Mrs. Kitteridge be left as Charlotte’s chaperone until such time as Lucy could be summoned.
“‘The damage is already done.’ Isn’t that what you said to the constable?
‘A few more hours will make no difference.’”
Magnus looked at her as though she’d taken leave of her senses. “It wasn’t permission to throw caution to the wind! To risk even greater harm—”
“Greater harm than spending the night here? Drivel.” She gazed past him to the main staircase with its splintering steps and dust-covered banister.
“If you’re worried about me having another mishap, don’t be.
I shall stick to the room I’m familiar with.
You haven’t yet searched the master bedchamber, have you? ”
“The master bedchamber?”
Something in his eyes made Charlotte’s pulse stutter. “It makes the most sense.”
“Oh yes. Bloody perfect sense.” He stalked away, muttering something to himself.
“What’s that?”
Magnus turned back to her. “I said, I already searched the master bedroom.”
Charlotte’s spirits dimmed. “Oh. Well, in that case…” She glanced to the door of the small parlor. Another strike of Turner’s hammer made the doorframe tremble.
“Charlotte…” Magnus shook his head.
“You did say I could help,” she reminded him.
There was an endless pause.
At length, his hand fell from his hair. “Very well,” he said. “Search it if you like.”
Charlotte’s spirits soared. She didn’t let them fly too high. This wasn’t a treasure hunt in a sensation novel. It was a real-life search with real-life consequences. “With impunity?” she asked.
“Tear it apart,” he answered. “Nothing is sacred here, as you see.”
There was a thread of fatalism in the words. Of a man without hope. One who was—and who had been for a long while—resigned to his fate.
Some of Charlotte’s excitement dissipated to hear it. But only a little. “I’d best get started,” she said. “Miss Champion will be expecting me back soon. I can’t stay above two hours.”
Magnus strode across the hall, Chance close at his heels. He jerked open the door of the parlor.
Turner promptly stopped hammering.
“Miss Beresford will be taking this room,” Magnus told him.
“Thank the Gods,” the valet said. “I’m needing a cup of tea.”
“You’ve had your tea.”
“But sir—”
“The upstairs guest chambers need searching. Start with the east wing. I’ll join you there presently.”
Turner gave an inaudible reply. It was followed by a more clearly enunciated: “Yes, my lord.”
Charlotte entered the shadowy parlor just as the grumbling valet was exiting it. An odd smell assailed her nostrils. A disconcerting pungency, redolent of decaying plaster, rotting paper hangings, and the acrid tang of…metal? Or was it blood?
An icy shiver traced down Charlotte’s spine.
Could the smell of blood linger this long?
Charlotte didn’t know. She could only feel.
And what she felt as she advanced into the confines of the small parlor was foreboding.
If the rest of the house was a tomb, this suffocating antechamber was something worse.
A dark and forsaken place. As though it had been shut after the tragedy and never opened again.
The wall by the door bore evidence of Turner’s aborted efforts in the form of torn paper-hangings and partially cracked wood.
It was the only sign that the room had been touched in an age.
Everything else appeared just as Charlotte imagined it must have when Mr. Farr and his sister had confronted Magnus here so long ago.
There was a plain mahogany settee, with neither seat cushions nor upholstery, arranged in front of the fireplace in company with a pair of equally unwelcoming hardback chairs.
A simple, slant-front writing desk stood under the sole window opposite.
Another hard chair was near to hand. It was the sum total of the room’s furnishings.
None were designed for comfort. Indeed, it appeared that all had been expressly chosen to discourage unwelcome visitors from staying too long.
“One of the servants admitted him into the small parlor,” Magnus had told her yesterday. “Another slight, Jeremiah believed, which only made things worse.”
Charlotte didn’t wonder at Mr. Farr’s assumption. This was not a place where a guest would be at ease. It was a mere waiting area.
Her gaze fell to the carpet, landing on a discolored patch near the hearth. It was difficult to tell the difference between rot, wear, and any other kind of damage. Even so…
Was it her imagination, or was that a scorch mark?
She glanced back at Magnus. He hadn’t followed her into the room. He remained in the doorway with Chance, giving no sign he intended to enter. “You haven’t searched in here at all yet?” she inquired.
“I have not,” he said.
Charlotte returned to the door. “Is there a particular reason?” She winced. “Aside from the obvious, I mean.”
“My father never entered this room afterward. It was kept locked until the inquest. It remained locked.”
“Forever?” Charlotte stopped in front of him. “You can’t know that.”
“I know him.”
Her chest tightened on an ache of sympathy. “Oh, Magnus. I can’t imagine—”
“Don’t,” he said gruffly. “And don’t attempt to start prying off the paneling yourself. If you find a likely hiding place—”
“Shout out for you or Turner,” she finished for him. “Yes, I remember.”
He gave her a stiff nod. “I leave you to it, then.” With that, he and Chance took their leave, crossing the entry hall and mounting the curving stairs.
Charlotte watched them go from the small parlor’s doorway, a pensive frown notching her brows.
And then she closed the door.