Page 23 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

“Watch me,” Magnus replied. His shovel thudded hard as he drove it back into the earth.

Charlotte drew nearer, pushing another snarl of rosebush branches out of her way. She could see them now. Magnus’s head was bent over the hole as he dug, his shoulders taut and his brow set in what she was beginning to recognize as its perpetual scowl. The collar of his black linen shirt was open at his throat and his sleeves were rolled up, baring a daring expanse of his leanly muscled forearms.

Turner was perched on a broken stump nearby, his own shovel loose in his hand as he watched his master’s labors. “Could an old fella have dug so deep on his own?” he asked.

“My father was capable of anything,” Magnus said.

“Don’t know ’bout that,” Turner mused. “More likely it’s in a bank in London or Southampton. Someplace civilized. Happen we should travel there?”

“It’s here,” Magnus growled, still digging. “I know it’s here.”

A twig snapped under Charlotte’s foot.

Both men’s heads jerked in her direction. Turner’s brows shot up. He directed a significant glance at Magnus.

Magnus straightened and set down his shovel. His expression when he looked at Charlotte was anything but welcoming. “What the devil are you doing out of your bed?”

“Getting some air.” Charlotte took an uneven step forward. “Is that a grave you’re digging, perchance?”

Magnus and Turner stared at her as if she’d just spoken to them in an as yet undiscovered language.

She peered into the hole. “My grave?”

Magnus’s scowl deepened. “What in blazes gave you that idea?”

“I’m the only one here who might be accused of being close to death.” Her gaze lifted to his. “I’m not, by the way. I’m quite hale and hearty, as you see.”

Another wave of dizziness chose that unfortunate moment to roll over her. She swayed on her feet.

Magnus was at her side in an instant. “Get away from the edge, you little fool,” he said harshly, catching her by the arm. “Do you want to fall in?”

She permitted him to pull her back. “I did venture a trifle too far, I fear,” she said with a breathless laugh. “I’m a little unsteady.”

He moved to put an arm around her. Not just around her back, she comprehended, but under her legs as well. A flash of memory made her start.

“Oh no!” She stepped out of his reach. “You needn’t carry me again!”

Magnus’s gaze sharpened. “You remember that I carried you once before?”

Charlotte went still. “I must, but…I don’t know. I can’t…” She shook her head.

It was something about being here in the garden, among this wild tangle. To smell the rotting leaves and to feel the thorns tugging at her skirts. And for him to bark at her that way! What the devil are you doing? he’d demanded. So startlingly familiar. As if he’d said it all before. And then to attempt to pick her up. It called to mind⁠—

But she couldn’t bring the disparate parts together in her confused head. It was as fleeting as air, slipping through her fingers before she could grasp it.

Magnus regarded her with a brooding frown. His hand remained a reassuring weight on her back, holding her steady without confining her.

Charlotte cast her eyes about the garden. Tension coiled in her breast. The memory was near, so close she could almost touch it. “Was it here I fell?”

“Not far from here,” Magnus said.

“Will you show me?” she asked.

He exhaled. She was interrupting whatever it was he was doing. Grave digging, she supposed. Or searching for something, if Turner’s remarks could be made sense of. “That depends,” he said.

“On what?”

“On whether I can persuade you to take my arm.”