Page 71 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

Thrillingly proprietary.

“You might be asking yourself that question one of these days,” he said.

“Nonsense,” she replied. “I’m quite contented with the hand that fate has dealt for me.”

Magnus wished he could claim the opposite. That he could tell her it would never work between them. That he was better off as he’d been before he’d met her. Churlish, miserable, and alone.

But none of that was true. He recognized it now absolutely.

She was what he wanted. She had been almost from the first.

Whether he deserved her or not… Well. That was another question.

He drew back just enough to meet her eyes. “I have nothing to offer you, Charlotte. No fortune. No grand life in town. Only a worthless title and this ruin of an estate.”

She looked back at him tenderly. “You have yourself.”

A lump formed in his throat. He swallowed hard. “I’m a ruin too.”

She touched his face, regarding him with a smile. “Not to me.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“I’ve never encountered an invalid as busy as you are,” Lucy remarked to Charlotte as the Champions’ old two-seater gig bounced up the road into the village later that day.

Mr. Frog hunched in front of them on the driver’s perch, the leather reins looped in his gnarled hands. His aged face was set in the same disapproving lines it had settled into when Charlotte had first announced her intended errand.

Charlotte tilted her white lace parasol to better shield her face from the afternoon sun. It had been but a few hours since Magnus had kissed her in the small parlor at Moorcross Manor, yet the memory of it was so vivid, she could practically still feel the heat of his lips.

The whole experience had done troubling things to her constitution. Not only to her heart and to the temperature of her blood, but to the strength in her limbs as well. Indeed, the moment he’d captured her mouth, Charlotte had gone decidedly weak at the knees.

It hadn’t stopped her from being bold, she was pleased to recall. She’d touched his chest, his neck, his hair. As if he were already hers.

And she’d confessed her feelings to him.

Magnus had fallen short of doing the same. But he hadn’t given her a set down. He hadn’t pushed her away or warned her never to come back again. On the contrary. When they’d parted a short time later, he’d seemed reluctant to let her go.

Charlotte counted it a distinct success. “I’m not quite an invalid,” she informed Lucy. “Even if I was, shopping isn’t too much exertion.”

“I suppose not.” Lucy fidgeted with the buttons on her gloves. “Though I’d far prefer you remain at Sowerby Hall until Mama returns from Hampshire. Or until…” She gazed over the passing scenery with a distracted frown.

“Until what?” Charlotte asked.

Lucy’s attention returned to her, a trifle guiltily. “Oh, nothing,” she said quickly. “Only my own scattered thoughts. I can’t keep them in order lately.”

Charlotte gave her a sympathetic smile. “How vexing I must be to you.” She patted her friend’s arm. “You’re very good to indulge my whims.”

Lucy briefly averted her eyes. She had an odd look about her. “I hope you would be equally indulgent of my own if our situations were reversed. Even if you didn’t agree with them.”

“Naturally I would. What are friends for but to support each other in our various flights of fancy?”

“You may not think me a very good friend,” Lucy said. “The other girls at Mrs. Daventry’s were far more suited to your high spirits. Whereas I…” Again, she trailed off.

Charlotte took her hand. “The best friendships are composed of opposites. We balance each other’s excesses. Like light and dark, or⁠—”

“Bold and cowardly?”

“There’s nothing cowardly about possessing good common sense. I rely on your instincts to pull me back from the brink.”