Page 68 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

“What can it mean?” Charlotte puzzled.

Why hadn’t Magnus’s father wanted to read Magnus’s letters? Why had he locked them away unopened? And in this room of all places?

She didn’t know the answer.

But she very much wanted to know.

She returned to the first letter in the stack. The oldest letter, it seemed. Perhaps the first one Magnus had sent to his father.

“It can’t hurt to read it, surely,” she said to herself. “Not after all this time.”

Her conscience recoiled in protest.

Charlotte deafened herself to its warnings. Breaking the envelope’s seal, she opened the first letter and quietly began to read.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Magnus descended the stairs. Chance was no longer with him. The little dog had fallen asleep on a rotting cushion in one of the guest chambers while Magnus worked. It had seemed kinder to leave him there.

Chance wasn’t alone in his slumber. Turner had remained with the snoring canine, dozing in the window embrasure himself after exerting the meagerest effort in prying off another piece of paneling.

As for Charlotte…

Magnus had heard nothing from her for more than an hour. Not an impertinent question, not a penetrating remark, certainly not a shout for assistance.

What the devil had she been doing down there all this time?

Stepping into the main hall, he discovered that the door of the small parlor had been shut. There were no sounds of activity emanating from within.

Good God. Don’t say she’d fallen asleep too?

Crossing the stone floor, Magnus opened the parlor door. He moved to enter only to stop cold on the threshold.

Charlotte was within, seated in front of his father’s antiquated bureau. A pile of unfolded letters lay before her. At least a dozen of them, and an equal number of open envelopes. Even at a distance, Magnus recognized the hand that had addressed them.

His blood went cold.

They were his letters. The ones he’d written to his father after being sent away from Yorkshire.

The ones that had never been answered.

Hearing the door creak on its hinges, Charlotte raised her head. She froze, her eyes gone wide. A letter was open in her hand.

Magnus’s voice deepened to a rasp. “I’d ask what you’re doing if the answer wasn’t already evident.”

She leapt from her chair. “I can explain!”

“No need.” He entered the room to join her, closing his mind to the sights, the smells, the memories. His attention was fixed on the letters. “They were in the desk, I presume.”

“Yes,” Charlotte said. “I…I found them in the concealed drawer.”

Magnus’s heart hardened with bitterness, understanding what his father would have meant by consigning him there. It was akin to saying that Magnus had died in this room. Gone from his father’s life the same day as the tragedy. A shameful secret to be locked away and acknowledged no more.

“I might have known he would relegate me here,” he said.

Charlotte dropped the letter she was holding. It fluttered down to join the others. “None of them had been opened.”

Magnus failed to conceal a flinch. He had thought himself impervious to pain. He’d long since accepted his father’s rejection. But to know that his father had never opened the letters at all? That he hadn’t been concerned for Magnus’s welfare in the least? Not even for the sake of Magnus’s late mother? That was a new variety of anguish.