Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Magnus descended the stairs. Chance was no longer with him. The little dog had fallen asleep on a rotting cushion in one of the guest chambers while Magnus worked. It had seemed kinder to leave him there.
Chance wasn’t alone in his slumber. Turner had remained with the snoring canine, dozing in the window embrasure himself after exerting the meagerest effort in prying off another piece of paneling.
As for Charlotte…
Magnus had heard nothing from her for more than an hour. Not an impertinent question, not a penetrating remark, certainly not a shout for assistance.
What the devil had she been doing down there all this time?
Stepping into the main hall, he discovered that the door of the small parlor had been shut. There were no sounds of activity emanating from within.
Good God. Don’t say she’d fallen asleep too?
Crossing the stone floor, Magnus opened the parlor door. He moved to enter only to stop cold on the threshold.
Charlotte was within, seated in front of his father’s antiquated bureau. A pile of unfolded letters lay before her. At least a dozen of them, and an equal number of open envelopes. Even at a distance, Magnus recognized the hand that had addressed them.
His blood went cold.
They were his letters. The ones he’d written to his father after being sent away from Yorkshire.
The ones that had never been answered.
Hearing the door creak on its hinges, Charlotte raised her head. She froze, her eyes gone wide. A letter was open in her hand.
Magnus’s voice deepened to a rasp. “I’d ask what you’re doing if the answer wasn’t already evident.”
She leapt from her chair. “I can explain!”
“No need.” He entered the room to join her, closing his mind to the sights, the smells, the memories. His attention was fixed on the letters. “They were in the desk, I presume.”
“Yes,” Charlotte said. “I…I found them in the concealed drawer.”
Magnus’s heart hardened with bitterness, understanding what his father would have meant by consigning him there. It was akin to saying that Magnus had died in this room. Gone from his father’s life the same day as the tragedy. A shameful secret to be locked away and acknowledged no more.
“I might have known he would relegate me here,” he said.
Charlotte dropped the letter she was holding. It fluttered down to join the others. “None of them had been opened.”
Magnus failed to conceal a flinch. He had thought himself impervious to pain.
He’d long since accepted his father’s rejection.
But to know that his father had never opened the letters at all?
That he hadn’t been concerned for Magnus’s welfare in the least?
Not even for the sake of Magnus’s late mother? That was a new variety of anguish.
“I thought that if I could read just one, I might better understand you,” Charlotte said.
He directed a dubious look over the pile of letters that covered the bureau’s writing surface.
She followed his gaze. Guilt washed over her face. “Oh no. I didn’t realize…” Her face flamed. “Did I really read them all?”
“It appears so.”
“I must have lost myself.” Her blush deepened to crimson. “I’m so sorry, Magnus.”
He picked up one of the letters from the desk, scanning the faded writing. The long-ago words sank into his soul, conjuring every feeling he’d felt when he’d written them. The loneliness. The despair. The deep sense of injustice.
I sail as a midshipman on the HMS Euryalus on Monday. We are bound for Japan. I pray that through my efforts on behalf of the Crown I may someday redeem my honor in your eyes.
Magnus tossed the letter back onto the desk with a snort of contempt. “And did it?” he asked. “Help you to understand me?”
Charlotte’s blue eyes were soft with emotion. “I don’t know. There’s still so much that puzzles me.”
Magnus’s muscles tensed at the expression in her gaze.
It was too close to compassion. “What’s the puzzle?
My father cast me out. He cared only enough for my welfare to secure a place for me in the Navy.
I was dead to him after that. Not worth a thought.
At the time, I believed it was his pride.
That when I’d proven myself, he would welcome me back.
It’s why I continued writing to him of my exploits, despite never receiving a reply. ”
“You wrote to him earlier than that,” she said.
“There’s a letter here that you sent eleven years ago, shortly after you left Yorkshire following the inquest. You explain everything to him about Miss Farr and her brother in scrupulous detail.
The account of your conduct is identical to the one you gave me yesterday. ”
He stiffened. “You assumed it would differ?”
“No,” she said. And then again, more earnestly, “No.” She stepped toward him, setting her hands on his chest. “But I was relieved all the same to have my instincts about you confirmed.”
Magnus was still as stone. It took a herculean effort to ignore the gentle press of her palms.
“Your father was wrong, Magnus,” she said. “He shouldn’t have abandoned you when you needed him most.”
“I didn’t need him.”
“Everyone needs their father. And if that father falls short—”
“I’m the one who fell short. My father’s actions make that abundantly clear.”
“But he did still care for you, despite sending you away. You said yourself that he may have been responsible for your rise through ranks.”
“He might have been.” The hateful notion had occurred to Magnus several times in the early years of his naval career as he’d swiftly risen to the rank of captain.
“Why else do you think I left the Navy? I had no right to be lauded by my superiors. Protected by my father’s wealth and title while Miss Farr and her brother lay moldering in the grave. ”
She searched his gaze. “Can’t you forgive yourself?”
His throat tightened. “I have no right to.”
“You do. It was a terrible thing to have happened. I can’t imagine how terrible. But it wasn’t your fault. It was a dreadful accident.”
“That doesn’t absolve me of blame.”
“Rubbish. Mr. Farr was as much to blame as you were. More, for he was older. You were still just a boy.”
“I was nearly seventeen. That’s hardly—”
“You deserved better,” she said.
He stared down at her, a fathomless tension coiling in his breast. So much within him wanted to believe her. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. “You don’t know what I deserve,” he said huskily.
A line etched her brow. “You think me young and na?ve, I know. Even silly, perhaps.”
“Not silly,” he said. “Inexperienced.”
“Perhaps I am. But I’m not an idiot, Magnus. I understand what the likely result is of my having stayed here with you after my fall. In the eyes of the world, I’ve been compromised.”
“Yes,” he gritted out. “By me.”
“What you don’t realize,” she continued, “is that I don’t mind it. Not because I’m inexperienced, but because I’m an excellent judge of character.”
His defenses fractured. “Charlotte—”
“I knew you before I knew you,” she said. “During that short space of time when I thought we were married. I recognized who you were even then. A kind gentleman who—”
“Kind,” he echoed the word like a curse.
She slid her hands to his shoulders, giving him a little shake. “Yes, kind! And honorable, and dear. A gentleman who makes my heart beat faster.”
Magnus would have pulled away from her if she wasn’t gripping him so tightly. He couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t accept it. “Charlotte, don’t—”
“And no gentleman has ever done that,” she continued determinedly. “I began to fear I would never experience the feeling at all. That I would end my days married to someone I merely liked, and not someone I’ve fallen in—”
“Don’t say it,” he objected hoarsely.
At last, she broke off. Her expression grew stern, though her cheeks remained very pink indeed. “Very well,” she said. “I won’t say it. I’ll speak of Chance.”
Magnus blinked. Yet again, she’d managed to take him off his guard. “Of your dog?”
“I thought he was mine,” she said. “But it’s you he loves. I couldn’t take him now if I wanted to.”
Magnus’s brows snapped together. “You had better take him,” he growled. “That was the agreement we made.”
“What do hearts know of agreements?” she retorted. “And you have Chance’s heart now without doubt. Only think of how sad he would be to leave you.”
As she spoke, her color deepened, making Magnus’s blood heat to a disconcerting simmer in return.
“I would be sad to leave you,” she said.
It was her final salvo. A whispered admission, powerful enough to make the last of Magnus’s defenses crumble.
He reached for her before he could stop himself, a scowl still on his brow. His hand came to cup her face.
Charlotte gazed up at him in trembling anticipation.
But Magnus didn’t move. Couldn’t speak. He could only look back at her steadily, feeling the inexorable pull of his own destiny. A force that had been drawing them closer, inch by perilous inch, ever since he’d first locked eyes with her as she’d balanced atop his garden wall.
“What are you doing?” she asked. Her heated cheek was smooth as silk under his palm.
Magnus bent his head to hers. He was tired of fighting it. “Sealing my fate,” he answered.
Charlotte gasped faintly as his mouth captured hers. He had given her every indication of his intentions. Yet, still his kiss had surprised her.
But not repelled her, it seemed.
Her arms twined about his neck as her lips yielded to his.
She didn’t quite kiss him back. Not yet.
She was innocent in that regard, it was evident.
But there was a melting softness in her touch.
The same softness he’d experienced when he’d held her that first night in his bed as he’d undressed her.
She trusted him.
Magnus didn’t take it lightly. Indeed, as he kissed her sweet mouth once more, he was possessed by the unshakable conviction that, even if he lived to be one hundred and ten, having earned the trust and affection of Charlotte Beresford would remain, until his dying day, the greatest honor of his life.
She slid her fingers through the hair at his nape, clenching gently. “Sealing your fate?” she murmured against his lips. “It’s not a bad fate, surely?”
Magnus’s breath hitched. There was something in the way she handled him that was distinctly proprietary.
Thrillingly proprietary.
“You might be asking yourself that question one of these days,” he said.
“Nonsense,” she replied. “I’m quite contented with the hand that fate has dealt for me.”
Magnus wished he could claim the opposite. That he could tell her it would never work between them. That he was better off as he’d been before he’d met her. Churlish, miserable, and alone.
But none of that was true. He recognized it now absolutely.
She was what he wanted. She had been almost from the first.
Whether he deserved her or not… Well. That was another question.
He drew back just enough to meet her eyes. “I have nothing to offer you, Charlotte. No fortune. No grand life in town. Only a worthless title and this ruin of an estate.”
She looked back at him tenderly. “You have yourself.”
A lump formed in his throat. He swallowed hard. “I’m a ruin too.”
She touched his face, regarding him with a smile. “Not to me.”