Chapter 29 #2
“You don’t believe this, do you?” she asked.
“Which part?”
“It’s all of it wrongheaded,” she said. “You didn’t sin, for a start, and you’ve no need to redeem your past. Not to mention that he shouldn’t be congratulating himself.
Your success has nothing to do with him.
Even less than you imagined, it seems, since he all but admits that he didn’t exercise his influence on your behalf.
” She handed the letter back to him. “And he’s wrong about the pantry, by the way.
It’s not always a woman’s purview. Sometimes it’s the butler’s. ”
“He was a product of his generation,” Magnus said. “And he wasn’t in his right mind. Not by that time.”
“He was unkind,” Charlotte replied. “He misjudged you awfully.”
“I don’t care about him,” Magnus said. “I care about you.”
She stilled, caught by the blazing intensity in his gaze.
“From the start, you’ve only seen the best in me,” he said. “You saw it long before I could acknowledge its existence for myself. It was you who read the letters I wrote to my father. You who made me face the past. Made me forgive myself in some small measure for the actions of my youth.”
Charlotte vaguely realized that she was holding her breath. Magnus had never spoken to her so earnestly. There were no more scowls. No more beastly defenses. He was, for the first time, making himself fully vulnerable to her.
“You’re the only one who has ever seen me, Charlotte,” he said. “Not for my past, or for my present deficiencies, but for the man I am.” He paused. “You must know I’ve fallen in love with you.”
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. She could only look at him, riveted, as her heart pounded and emotion tightened her throat.
“I came here, six months to the day since you left me in Yorkshire, to ask if you love me too,” he said. “I don’t require it. It would be enough to know that you care for me sufficiently to—”
“Of course it wouldn’t be enough!” Charlotte burst out. She set her hands on his chest in reprimand, giving him a scolding shove. “Why would you even suggest it? To settle for something less than what we both deserve?”
Magnus reached for her. “Charlotte—”
“I do love you,” she said “I’ve loved you since that day in the small parlor. I told you then that I—”
His mouth caught hers before she could finish. He kissed her fiercely, passionately, his arms coming around her in a crushing embrace.
Charlotte’s hands slid to his shoulders as she kissed back with half-parted lips. She was bolder than she’d been in the small parlor. And with good reason. There was no more cause for uncertainty about his feelings. No more reason to doubt. He loved her. He loved her!
“I’m sorry you didn’t find your fortune,” she said breathlessly when they at last broke apart. “And I wish you hadn’t sold your house in town. My inheritance truly is more than adequate for us to live on.”
Magnus drew back to look at her. His mouth hitched in a lopsided smile. “Who says I didn’t find my fortune?”
Magnus couldn’t recall ever having seen Charlotte’s eyes go quite so wide. She stared up at him, her kiss-swollen lips parted in shock. “You don’t mean—”
“I didn’t give up after finding my father’s letter,” he said. “Naturally, I tore out the rest of the pantry wall.”
Her face shone with amazement. “And you found it?”
“I did,” he said.
It had been stacked inside the sawn-timber frame of the wall in various bags and boxes. The coins. The banknotes.
The jewels.
“Which brings me to the point of my visit.” Reaching into his pocket again, Magnus extracted a small, cylindrical Morocco leather box.
He opened the small hinged lid, revealing the enormous sparkling diamond solitaire nested within.
It was the same priceless ring his mother had worn for her official portrait.
“I’ve already received permission from your father,” he said. “All that remains—"
Charlotte’s robin’s egg blue eyes inexplicably filled with tears. She raised her hands to cover her face.
A jolt of alarm went through him. “Charlotte—”
“It’s too much,” she replied, choking back a sudden sob.
Magnus’s heart clenched with love for her. “Nothing is too much for you, sweetheart,” he said. “You deserve it all, every jewel, every luxury, every happiness. I can give it to you now. You need only consent to be my wife.”
She slid her hands from her tear-damp eyes. They remained at her lips, half covering another sob. “But I don’t require any of those things. I only ever needed you.”
“You have me, whatever your answer,” he said. “All the rest just happens to come with the title of Countess of Eversleigh.”
She laughed through her tears. They were happy tears, he believed. Her hands fell from her face. “And Papa has already agreed?”
“He has.”
“He knows about your fortune?”
“He does.”
“It must be a very great one.”
It was, Magnus thought with some satisfaction. A staggering sum. Magnus had put it all safely back in the bank, except for the amount he’d used to arrange the staffing and restoration of both Moorcross Manor and the London house, and the small amount he’d spent on refurbishing himself.
“You will have everything your heart desires, my love,” he promised her. “And a few things you haven’t dreamed of yet.”
Charlotte gave another sobbing laugh. “Yes, then,” she said. “Yes. I will marry you, Magnus.” She held out her hand for him to slip the diamond ring on her finger. “But I caution you. I’ve dreamed of a great deal.”
The ring slid on easily, a perfect fit, as though it had been destined for her.
Just as she had been destined for him.
He raised her hand to his lips, pressing a reverent kiss to her knuckles. “I never dared dream at all until I met you,” he confessed huskily.
She lifted her fingertip to stroke the edge of his jaw. “I daresay I’ve dreamed enough for the both of us.”
He took her in his arms.
She came to him with a smile, encircling his neck. “And this dream came true, Magnus,” she said. “Our story has a happy ending after all.”
Magnus captured her mouth with his, kissing her softly once more. Above them, the looming rain clouds parted. Sunlight shown through the trees in a glow of golden light.
The curse had been lifted, if it ever existed to begin with. Magnus’s fortune was restored. So was his good name, mainly through Charlotte’s efforts. She’d championed it in Bead’s Hollow at every opportunity, aligning herself—and her family—with his cause.
She had seen him from the beginning. Had known who he was at his core. But she was wrong in one respect.
“This isn’t the end of our story,” Magnus vowed. “It’s only the beginning.”