Page 28 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

At least, she had been respectable when he’d found her.

But not anymore.

Now she was ruined.

Chapter Nine

“No wonder you won’t answer to your name,” Charlotte said to the little dog. “It’s not your name at all, is it?”

The dog’s feathery black paws were just visible from beneath the wardrobe. His small muzzle rested upon them—revealing the dampness of his nose and the curl of his snaggled lip.

Charlotte counted it as progress. He was coming to trust her, if only a tiny amount.

“What is your name, then?” she asked him. “I’ve scoured my head and I still can’t recall it.”

Her muddled head.

Yet not so muddled any longer that she couldn’t recall a tabby cat named Mr. Aloysius.

Or a sister.

“Agatha,” Charlotte murmured to herself as she paced to the bedroom window. “My older sister, if I’m not mistaken. And very dear to me.”

Drawing back the curtain, she peered through the murky glass. There was no longer any sign of Magnus below. He must have moved on to another part of the garden, digging up the earth as he looked for⁠—

Whatever it was he was looking for.

Charlotte sighed. “Oh, why can’t I remember anything else?” She let the curtain fall closed again. “Why must it come back to me in these unsatisfying drips and drabs?” Returning to her bed, she directed a look at her dog. “If only you could talk, my friend. I daresay you would be able to tell me all.”

The dog made a snuffling sound.

Charlotte sank down on the edge of the mattress. She was so entrenched in her own thoughts, she didn’t hear the approaching footsteps outside her door. The knock, when it came, startled her.

“Er…Yes?” she called out uncertainly.

“May I come in?” Magnus asked.

Charlotte frowned. Her husband had never knocked before. Nor why should he? This was his room too, after all. “Of course,” she said.

Magnus entered. He was no longer in his shirtsleeves. He had put on a black wool coat and tie. His posture was more rigid than usual, and his countenance sterner. Granted, Charlotte had never felt they’d really known or cared for each other before, but now…

He looked entirely like a stranger.

The little dog retreated farther under the wardrobe, concealing himself from Magnus’s view.

“You’re not in bed,” Magnus observed, shutting the door behind him.

“I was for a time,” Charlotte said. “I grew too restless.”

“Your head is better?”

“A little. It still aches, but…” She trailed off as he approached, forgetting what she’d been saying.

He’d told her yesterday that she could call him Lord Eversleigh, or Captain Sterling, or Magnus. The significance of the second option hadn’t occurred to her then. She’d had far too many other concerns on her mind. But now…

As Magnus came toward her, he looked every inch an officer. Straight-backed, decisive, deeply intimidating.

Is that how he’d earned his scar? In some battle or another?