Page 77 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

“At a house party my Beresford grandparents were hosting at Beasley Park,” Charlotte answered. “My mother’s older brother attended and brought her along with him. She was very shy then. Even more than she is now. Papa says he lost his heart to her the moment he saw her.”

“I can’t imagine your father losing his heart to anyone,” Lucy said. “Nor my father. They neither of them seem romantic sort of men. Perhaps no man really is.”

Charlotte didn’t offer an opinion on the subject. She was too busy recalling the moment when Magnus had kissed her.

That had certainly been romantic.

But not like a romance in a novel. It was no Byronic ravishment. No chaste, knightly tribute either. Indeed, there was nothing much with which Charlotte could easily compare it. The feelings had been so warm. So new.

She wondered how soon she might experience them again.

The gig gave another uncomfortable jolt as Mr. Frog turned up the narrow lane that led to Sowerby Hall. “Who’s this now?” he grumbled. “You ain’t expecting any callers are you, young misses?”

“What is it, Frog?” Lucy stretched up in her seat to peer around him. “Has someone come?”

Charlotte sat up taller too. The Hall loomed ahead of them. A large coach-and-four was stopped in front of the entrance. It was too big and far too fine to belong to anyone in the village.

A pulse of anxiety went through Charlotte as she realized what it must mean. “Can it be your mother?”

“I expect it is.” Relief suffused Lucy’s face. “At last!”

Charlotte’s own spirits sank in contrast. Much as Mrs. Champion’s absence had worried Lucy, Charlotte would have preferred if her friend’s mother had stayed away even longer. Now she had returned, her chaperonage would resume. Charlotte’s daily visits to Moorcross Manor would be vastly curtailed. Or perhaps ended altogether.

Frog brought the gig to a halt behind the coach so that both girls could get down. “The missus will be eager to take the house in hand,” he complained. “Asking questions and ordering me about. And me with the gig to put away and the horse to look after.”

Lucy disembarked first this time. She turned to help Charlotte out. “Go on with you, Frog,” she said. “I shall tell Mama that you’re otherwise engaged.”

The instant Charlotte stepped down, Mr. Frog slapped the ribbons against the old bay’s rump and the gig rolled away.

Lucy hooked her hand in Charlotte’s arm as the two of them ascended the front steps. “I confess, I’ve been beside myself since my mother left. It should never have fallen to me to make decisions when you disappeared. You know how apt I am to overreact.”

“Indeed, I do,” Charlotte said.

Together they entered the house. They’d no sooner set foot inside than Mrs. Goodenough flew into the hall to meet them.

The housekeeper’s face was flushed, her hands wringing in front of her. “There you are!” she cried. “It’s been nigh on two hours since I told him you’d be back!”

Charlotte and Lucy stopped on the threshold, their thoughts immediately as one. “Him?” they repeated in unison.

“Aye, that’s what I said.” Mrs. Goodenough hastily divested them of their hats and gloves. “He’s in the drawing room.”

“But…I thought my mother had returned,” Lucy said.

“It ain’t Mrs. Champion,” Mrs. Goodenough replied, urging them toward the staircase. “Would that it were!”

Charlotte’s thoughts immediately turned to Magnus. Her heart leapt with anticipation. “Then who⁠—”

“Why, it’s your father, miss,” Mrs. Goodenough said. “It’s the Viscount St. Clare himself!”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Charlotte raced into the drawing room ahead of the others. She found her father standing in front of the fireplace. His blond head was bent, his spine straight, and his hands clasped at his back.

He was a tall, well-made gentleman, and still quite striking in appearance, though he was in his middle fifties. But it wasn’t that which made him so intimidating to those who didn’t know him. It was something in his posture, and in the coolness of his gaze. Something in the way he had of remaining silent when others felt compelled to speak.

Charlotte sensed it now just as surely as a stranger might. That unnerving self-control her father possessed when confronting a difficult situation. It was enough to send a jolt of apprehension through her.

“Papa?” she queried anxiously.