Page 64 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

And she was no man.

“Magnus…” She went to him amid the increasing noise of Turner’s hammer striking the parlor wall. “If his arthritis is indeed bothering him⁠—”

“Turner doesn’t suffer from ill health,” Magnus said. “He suffers from terminal laziness.”

She briefly crouched to give Chance a reassuring stroke on the head. “Even if that were true, you must allow that his reasoning is sound. Curious as I am to explore the conservatory, there’s little point in me searching a room made of glass. Not if all it contains are empty pots.”

“There are plants as well.” Magnus gave her a bleak look. “Were plants.”

“And no possible hiding place, I assume? With glass walls and a stone floor?” She regarded him with a thoughtful frown. “If you’d prefer I not go into the small parlor, you need only say so.”

“It’s not that.” He stopped. “Or rather, it is, but⁠—”

She rose from petting Chance. “I could just as easily go upstairs.”

Magnus’s countenance darkened at the suggestion. “I already told you⁠—”

“I’d be of more use there,” she said. “Unless you have a particular objection?”

“Aside from you falling through the floor and breaking your neck?”

“Yes. Aside from that.”

Magnus pushed his fingers through his hair. “Are you determined to court ruin, Charlotte?”

A fleeting smile tipped her mouth.

His brows lowered. “You find that amusing?”

“Not at all,” she said. “Only—to employ a naval euphemism—I thought we’d agreed that that ship had already sailed?”

Magnus’s usually inscrutable expression betrayed a flare of masculine shock. “I never agreed to anything of the sort.”

“Not in those precise terms, no. But near enough.” She recollected the day that Constable Reeves had visited the manor, insisting that Mrs. Kitteridge be left as Charlotte’s chaperone until such time as Lucy could be summoned. “‘The damage is already done.’ Isn’t that what you said to the constable? ‘A few more hours will make no difference.’”

Magnus looked at her as though she’d taken leave of her senses. “It wasn’t permission to throw caution to the wind! To risk even greater harm⁠—”

“Greater harm than spending the night here? Drivel.” She gazed past him to the main staircase with its splintering steps and dust-covered banister. “If you’re worried about me having another mishap, don’t be. I shall stick to the room I’m familiar with. You haven’t yet searched the master bedchamber, have you?”

“The master bedchamber?”

Something in his eyes made Charlotte’s pulse stutter. “It makes the most sense.”

“Oh yes. Bloody perfect sense.” He stalked away, muttering something to himself.

“What’s that?”

Magnus turned back to her. “I said, I already searched the master bedroom.”

Charlotte’s spirits dimmed. “Oh. Well, in that case…” She glanced to the door of the small parlor. Another strike of Turner’s hammer made the doorframe tremble.

“Charlotte…” Magnus shook his head.

“You did say I could help,” she reminded him.

There was an endless pause.

At length, his hand fell from his hair. “Very well,” he said. “Search it if you like.”