Chapter 27 #2
Lord St. Clare cocked a brow. “Did you not find her after she’d fallen from your garden wall?”
“I did.”
“And did you not nurse her back to consciousness?”
Magnus flinched. “I wouldn’t call it nursing.”
Lord St. Clare regarded him with a cool stare.
“I cleaned her wounds and gave her some whiskey,” Magnus said.
“I saw to it that she was safe and warm, that she ate something when she awakened, and that she came to no more harm.” He ran a hand over the back of his neck, recalling the fraught hours after Charlotte’s fall.
“I did send my valet for help. He went into the village on multiple occasions. Regrettably—”
“It wasn’t until the following day that help arrived,” Lord St. Clare finished for him. “Quite.”
There was a soft rustle of papers from across the room as Mr. Tate silently perused the documents in his briefcase.
“I won’t ask how many know of this,” Lord. St. Clare said. “It’s evident that word of the affair has already traveled far and fast.”
“I’m sorry for it,” Magnus said.
“Are you?” Lord St. Clare wondered.
Magnus’s jaw stiffened. No, he wanted to answer. How the devil could I be sorry that I met Charlotte? “I didn’t seek your daughter out, sir,” he replied instead. That much, at least, was true.
“No.” A frown worked its way over Lord St. Clare’s brow. “Yet, she has seen fit to publicly attach her name, and the names of all of her titled forbears, to you and your cause.”
“I have no cause.”
“What about your ambition? You are a man of ambition, I take it. You desire to repair your fortunes, your estate. Your good name, perhaps.”
“Until I met your daughter I desired nothing more than to be away from this place,” Magnus said. “That was the extent of my ambition.”
“And now you’ve met her?”
Magnus’s fingers curled tightly on the arm of his chair, making the warped wooden frame creak uneasily beneath them.
It went against his every instinct to expose himself in this way.
To reveal the innermost desires of one’s heart was the surest way to see them denied.
But he had no ability to dissemble. Not when it came to Charlotte.
“I hope to one day be worthy of her,” he said gruffly.
“A commendable answer,” Lord St. Clare replied, “in light of your circumstances.”
A muscle flexed in Magnus’s cheek. He’d been waiting for it to come to this. “I’ve made no secret of my circumstances.”
“Or of your past?” Lord St. Clare smiled faintly.
There was nothing of warmth in the expression.
“It’s true, I have not been idle during my short stay in Yorkshire.
My secretary has brought me a steady stream of reports about your history and your conduct.
You were named in an inquest, I learned.
Deemed responsible for two deaths, if only through misadventure. ”
Magnus’s mouth went dry. Good God. No one could accuse Charlotte’s father of beating about the bush.
The man was as blunt as a blacksmith’s hammer.
Magnus saw no reason not to be equally direct with him, no matter that the admission rubbed him on the raw.
“It has been the great shame of my life,” he said.
“One you’ve borne since the age of sixteen. And commendably, it seems.”
Magnus snorted. “I don’t know about that.”
“I know it,” Lord St. Clare said. “I have friends at the Admiralty.”
Of course he did.
“Mr. Tate brought me a wire from the Vice-Admiral only this morning. He attests to your bravery at the Battle of Kagoshima.” Lord St. Clare’s gaze flickered to Magnus’s burn scars. “You put yourself at great peril, he tells me, preserving what remained of the chain of command on your ship.”
“Others faced greater,” Magnus said.
“You left subsequently? Not long after being elevated to captain?”
“I lost my taste for battle.” And for the company of others, Magnus added silently. He had never wanted to be lauded. He had wanted to suffer. To in some way atone for his past.
“The Navy is a respectable career,” Lord St. Clare said. “Some might say a necessary one for a man who finds himself as you do.”
Magnus returned the viscount’s gaze in silence. They had addressed his reputation. It stood to reason that his financial situation would be next. A necessary indignity. And one Magnus had already endured once this morning in writing to his father’s solicitor.
It made it no more pleasant to face it again.
“My secretary informs me that you are currently without your inheritance,” Lord St. Clare said. “And that you have but a small income remaining from your time in the Navy.”
“That’s correct.”
“As for your property, I’m told that you have only this estate, and a house in London, to your name. Both entailed, are they not?”
“Not the house in London,” Magnus said.
Mr. Tate popped his head up from across the room. He exchanged a look with his employer.
“It’s in a trust,” Magnus explained to the both of them. “A complicated arrangement, set out long before I was born. There may yet be a means of breaking it.”
“You’ve made inquiries?” Lord St. Clare asked.
“I’m in the process of making them,” Magnus said. “If it works, it would supply me with sufficient funds for a comfortable enough life.” His mouth quirked bitterly. “Naturally not as comfortable as it might have been if I had my full inheritance, but be assured, your daughter will not go hungry.”
Belatedly, Magnus realized what he’d said. He’d given voice to his intentions before receiving permission to possess them.
Lord St. Clare’s cold expression betrayed a glimmer of fire. He rose from his chair. “At last, we reach the crux of the matter.”
Magnus stood. His voice roughened in apology. “Forgive my presumption.”
Lord St. Clare flashed a dark glance at Magnus as he walked away from the hearth. “My youngest daughter has spent the night with you unchaperoned, Eversleigh. We’re past the point of presumption.”
Magnus followed Charlotte’s father at a distance as he paced to the bank of drawing room windows. It was impossible to read the viscount’s mood. He was the most inscrutable man Magnus had ever encountered.
“My intentions toward your daughter are honorable, sir,” Magnus said.
Lord St. Clare stopped at the window that overlooked the gardens. “What of my daughter’s intentions?” He cast a meditative look over the wild tangle below. “She is disposed to have you.”
A prickle of heat crept up Magnus’s throat. “I don’t know about that.”
Lord St. Clare turned. “My daughter is young, but she is no fool. What many mistake in her for impulsiveness, her mother and I know to be something very different.” His gaze held Magnus’s. “It’s decisiveness.”
Magnus’s pulse accelerated. For the first time in a long while, he dared to hope.
“Those fortunate enough to call her friend will find in her a loyal and steadfast ally,” Lord St. Clare said. “As her father, my only question is whether or not you are deserving of that devotion.”
“I will endeavor to be so,” Magnus said. “Even if it should take me the whole of my life.”
Lord St. Clare smiled again with icy reserve. “You won’t have quite that long, I’m afraid.” He summoned his secretary. “Tate?”
Mr. Tate leapt from his seat. He strode to them from across the room, a bundle of papers extended in his hand. Rather than giving them to his employer, he conveyed them to Magnus.
“A gentleman’s agreement, if you will,” the secretary said. “Formalized in writing.”
Magnus accepted the papers with a frown. “I don’t understand.”
The viscount dismissed his secretary. “I’m taking Charlotte home in the morning,” he said to Magnus.
“What?”
“You’re in no position to make her a proper offer,” Lord St. Clare said. “And, if you’re as honorable as the Vice-Admiral claims, you will admit that she’s in no fit state to accept one.”
Any indignation Magnus felt at the viscount’s words was overwhelmed by an immediate surge of concern. “What do you mean she’s in no fit state? She hasn’t had any returning symptoms, or a recurrent loss of—”
“Memory?” Lord St. Clare supplied for him. His brief smile vanished. “No. She has not shown any symptoms. On the contrary, she appears very much herself.”
Relief washed over Magnus.
Recognizing it, the viscount thawed a fraction. “I’m pleased to see that her well-being is of importance to you.”
“It is,” Magnus said. “I had thought she’d recovered.”
“I’ve nevertheless made arrangements for her to be seen by a specialist in Harley Street. Her head injury was not a minor one. I must satisfy myself that she’s not suffering continued consequences from it. After that, we return to Somerset.”
Magnus was almost afraid to ask. “And I?”
“According to the terms of our agreement, you will refrain from seeing her for a time,” Lord St. Clare replied. “It will allow the scandal to die down—and any errant passions to cool.”
Magnus wanted to be offended. But he couldn’t be. Much as he hated the high-handedness of Charlotte’s father, he understood it. Charlotte was a treasure worth protecting. One worth waiting for too.
“For how long?” he asked.
“Because I love my daughter, I shall limit it to just six months,” Lord St. Clare answered.
“If you’re wise, you will use that time to get yourself, and your house, in order.
But be warned, sir. If I catch so much as a glimpse of you near Charlotte at any time before then, you will not find me half so congenial. ”