Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Charlotte cast her gaze over the cramped little room. Her heart thudded in her ears. There was nothing to fear here, she told herself. It was only stale air and old furniture.
“Very stale,” she amended. “And very old.”
Crossing to the window, she briskly opened the curtains. A foul cloud of dust engulfed her, making her gasp and sneeze. “Oh bother!”
Such filth. Ugh! She could feel it on her hands—the cold, tacky grit of rot and decay.
But sunshine rewarded her efforts. It shone through the streaked panes of leaded glass, illuminating the darkened room around her, and going some small way to calming her ridiculous anxieties. It was a result well worth any temporary disgust.
Wiping her grimy hands on her skirts, she wandered across the floor.
Her eyes moved over the slant-front writing desk, the settee, the chairs.
Reaching the stark, stone-framed fireplace, she sank down to examine the scorch mark on the carpet.
But on closer inspection, it didn’t appear to be a scorch mark at all. Merely another patch of rot.
“Possibly I have been reading too many novels,” Charlotte murmured.
She nevertheless sensed that this was where the tragedy must have taken place. The three young people poised here in heated confrontation. Perhaps Miss Farr had fallen on this very spot.
“Poor Magnus.” Charlotte stood. “No wonder he didn’t wish to enter.”
This room must bring back awful memories for him. He blamed himself, it was clear. And perhaps he was to blame in some regard.
How could Charlotte know for certain? She had only Magnus’s own account to go upon. It made sense that his account would paint him in favorable terms.
Though he hadn’t made them too favorable, had he?
To be sure, the picture Charlotte had formed as she’d listened to his tale yesterday was not of an arrogant young heir to an earldom, careless of the feelings of others, but of an oblivious lad who wasn’t mature enough to understand the possible repercussions of his actions.
Of the likely result of offering a ride to an unmarried young lady in a closed carriage, piloting her rowboat at the village fete, or driving her in an open gig.
Kindness was to blame, Magnus had said.
And he had, indeed, been kind to Miss Farr. Perhaps, deep down, he had even been flattered by her attentions, just as his father had been.
Charlotte’s own brothers might well have felt the same. She didn’t know much about their dealings with local girls, but she did recall that village lasses regularly batted their eyes at Nick and Arthur. There were whispers, giggles, and blushing faces. Charlotte had often noted them.
What she hadn’t ever done was consider such attentions from her brothers’ points of view. What did it feel like to be chased after? To have young ladies set out lures for them?
She wondered if Nick or Arthur might fall into those traps as easily as Magnus had, not out of interest for the girl involved, but out of mere kindness?
“I’m glad I asked him about it,” she said to herself. “Else I’d fear he was only being kind to me.”
She didn’t think he was. Didn’t feel he was, certainly.
Why else had he allowed her back today? Why else had he taken greater pains with his appearance? He must care for her. He must.
“If I can only help him.” She crossed back to the window. “Redeem his reputation somehow.”
Or prove to herself beyond all doubt that he was deserving of the reputation he already had.
Charlotte couldn’t discount the possibility that he might be. A slim possibility, she was sure, but a possibility nonetheless.
You have only his word for anything, Agatha would doubtless counsel her. But—
Trust your heart, their mother would advise.
Papa would give different advice still. Don’t pay attention to what people tell you, Charlotte, he would say. Pay attention to what they do.
Charlotte held all of her family’s unspoken wisdom within her, heeding it with what she prayed was equal deference as she again turned to face the room. There was no point in dillydallying. She had but an hour or two alone. Possibly less. She was determined to make the most of it.
“Where to start?” she wondered aloud.
The walls and floor, Magnus had told her. They were an obvious place. He’d said the treasure was large. That it must needs be hidden somewhere that could accommodate it. But that didn’t mean that one shouldn’t investigate every nook and cranny.
“There might be some small scrap of intelligence somewhere,” she mused. “Something that directs us to the actual hiding place.”
Her eyes came to rest once more on the writing desk. Resolve stiffened her spine. “I won’t start with digging holes, removing floorboards, or tearing apart the paneling,” she said. “I shall approach this logically.”
She went to the desk and, pulling up the nearby wooden chair, took a seat in front of it. By the looks of the dust on the desk’s surface, the lid hadn’t been so much as touched in a long while, let alone opened.
“Pray God it’s not locked,” Charlotte said.
Sliding her fingers into the seam at the top, she gave the lid an experimental tug. It opened for her with an anguished screech of hinges more suited to an Irish banshee than a piece of dull furniture.
A relieved breath gusted out of her. “Well, that’s a promising start.”
The inside of the desk was somewhat less dusty than its outside.
With its collection of pigeon holes, diminutive drawers, and little doors, it was not too unlike one of the bureaus at Beasley Park.
A particular little rosewood one that resided in the morning room.
Charlotte used it frequently when she was home, keeping her pens in one compartment, bottles of ink in another, and her private correspondence in a sideways pull-out drawer that masqueraded as a piece of decorative trim.
This desk wasn’t half so beautiful as her own, but its purpose appeared the same.
She began sliding out the drawers. There were the usual stationery items within them.
Some old pens, congealed ink, and writing paper that had long since yellowed.
She focused on the small, hinged doors next, opening each one in turn to investigate the little cupboard behind.
Some held more writing paper and envelopes. Some were empty. And some—
“Oh!” Charlotte bolted up from her chair with a start as a large spider crawled swiftly from its hiding place. She backed away, pulse racing, until the creature had gone from the desk. Only then did she dare resume her seat.
“Foolish girl,” she scolded herself. “To be scared of spiders of all things! One would think you weren’t raised in the country.”
Irrational as her fear was, it was almost enough to dissuade her from checking the remaining compartments. The last thing she wanted was to encounter another spider. Or worse, several of them.
But Charlotte couldn’t leave her search unfinished.
Holding her breath, she gingerly ran her fingers along the cracks that edged the inlaid paneling around the centermost cupboard door.
If this was at all like her desk at Beasley, one of these seams would give way to another drawer.
It was a common feature in writing desks of this sort, she believed.
However, none of the pieces of trim inside this particular desk moved.
Until—
“I thought as much,” she whispered as the concealed drawer came loose from its hiding place. It wasn’t without difficulty. The wood must have warped at some point, necessitating some jiggling and a greater application of force than Charlotte was accustomed to.
“There you are,” she said when it at last slid free.
It was a narrow compartment, taller than it was wide. The perfect height and width for a person to store their letters.
And that was exactly what Charlotte found there.
A stack of letters, pressed tight together, still neatly contained in their envelopes. So many, she had to pry them loose from the drawer to remove them. Dust came along with them. Like the rest of the room, these letters hadn’t been touched in many years.
Neither had they been opened.
Charlotte removed the first envelope from the stack. It was addressed to the Earl of Eversleigh, Moorcross Manor, Yorkshire. And the sender…
She turned the envelope over. Written above the seal, in a neat, even hand, was Magnus’s name: M. Sterling.
With a deepening frown, Charlotte examined the next letter and the next. They were all of them written to the late earl. All of them from Magnus. And all of them unopened.
The return direction was the only element that changed. Some letters were posted from London. Some from France. Some from the farthest reaches of the world. Magnus’s name changed with them, from M. Sterling to Sub-Lieutenant Sterling to Lieutenant and finally to Captain.
“What can it mean?” Charlotte puzzled.
Why hadn’t Magnus’s father wanted to read Magnus’s letters? Why had he locked them away unopened? And in this room of all places?
She didn’t know the answer.
But she very much wanted to know.
She returned to the first letter in the stack. The oldest letter, it seemed. Perhaps the first one Magnus had sent to his father.
“It can’t hurt to read it, surely,” she said to herself. “Not after all this time.”
Her conscience recoiled in protest.
Charlotte deafened herself to its warnings. Breaking the envelope’s seal, she opened the first letter and quietly began to read.