Page 96 of Miss Beresford and the Beast

Just as she had been destined for him.

He raised her hand to his lips, pressing a reverent kiss to her knuckles. “I never dared dream at all until I met you,” he confessed huskily.

She lifted her fingertip to stroke the edge of his jaw. “I daresay I’ve dreamed enough for the both of us.”

He took her in his arms.

She came to him with a smile, encircling his neck. “And this dream came true, Magnus,” she said. “Our story has a happy ending after all.”

Magnus captured her mouth with his, kissing her softly once more. Above them, the looming rain clouds parted. Sunlight shown through the trees in a glow of golden light.

The curse had been lifted, if it ever existed to begin with. Magnus’s fortune was restored. So was his good name, mainly through Charlotte’s efforts. She’d championed it in Bead’s Hollow at every opportunity, aligning herself—and her family—with his cause.

She had seen him from the beginning. Had known who he was at his core. But she was wrong in one respect.

“This isn’t the end of our story,” Magnus vowed. “It’s only the beginning.”

Epilogue

Heywood House was decorated for Christmas in fragrant holiday splendor. Pine boughs and garlands of greenery adorned the doorways, banisters, and windows, and a towering tree graced the corner of the drawing room. Its alum-frosted branches sparkled with shimmering ornaments, gilded fruit, glittering bows, and candles. Beneath it lay the remains of the wrapping paper and ribbons from all the gifts the family had opened earlier that morning.

Charlotte’s Heywood grandparents presided over their vast extended family from a damask settee near the crackling fire. Grandfather Arthur was looking well, despite his advanced age and incipient frailty. Though his hair had gone completely silver, and he more heavily relied on his cane, he still had the proud, upright bearing of a soldier. He’d been a cavalry officer in the Peninsular Wars. A man of profound honor and dignity whose stern exterior belied a depth of warmth and affection that only his family were privileged to see.

Grandmother Phyllida was seated next to him on the settee, wearing a bustled gown of mazarine velvet. Her gentle-featured face was aglow, her mismatched eyes shining, and her upswept auburn tresses liberally streaked with gray. Several large dogs of indeterminate ancestry dozed at her feet.

Charlotte’s own parents, James and Hannah, were close by. So were two of her uncles, Charles Heywood and Jack Beresford.

Magnus was seated in a chair among them, engaged in conversation with Charlotte’s grandfather and uncles. About their mutual services to the Crown, Charlotte guessed. Uncle Charles was a former naval officer, and Uncle Jack had once served as a colonel in Her Majesty’s army.

Charlotte’s father had his arm around her mother’s waist, his fingers idly playing at the ribbon tie of her rose-pink silk gown. Mama was radiant beside him, her face and figure practically a mirror image of Charlotte’s own. She leaned forward in her seat holding Grandmother’s hand as the two of them exchanged smiling words.

Across the room, Charlotte’s cousin, Felicity, was perched in front of the rosewood piano pounding out an exuberant rendition of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen as her sister, Delphia, turned the pages for her. Their youngest cousins, Uncle Jack and Aunt Bea’s boy, John, and Uncle Ivo and Aunt Meg’s boy, Henry, stood with them, joining Felicity and Delphia in song.

Charlotte’s brothers, Arthur and Nick, were at a table by the window, where they’d set up a boisterous card game with Aldrick and Oscar, two other of Charlotte’s cousins. Her remaining relations—Aunt Kate, Aunt Bea, Aunt Meg and Uncle Ivo—were scattered about them, talking, laughing, and indulging in chocolate, tea, fresh oranges, and iced gingerbread.

Even Charlotte’s Beresford grandparents, Lord and Lady Allendale, had come to celebrate. The aged dears were disposed on a green velvet sofa, not far from the fireplace. Grandmother Margaret’s head rested against Grandfather’s shoulder as they talked only to each other. They remained very much in love, Papa had often explained, and—despite their affection for their family—still vastly preferred their own company to that of anyone else.

“Even to you and your brothers and sister?” Charlotte had often asked him in dismay.

“Yes,” Papa would unfailingly reply. “Even to us.”

Charlotte didn’t wonder that her own romantic aspirations had been so excessively high. Both her Beresford and Heywood grandparents had set a lofty ideal. So too had her parents, and her aunts and uncles.

And now Charlotte had achieved that ideal for herself.

Strolling the perimeter of the drawing room, arm and arm with her sister, her gaze once again came to rest on Magnus. Warmth suffused her breast.

“I suppose I should be jealous,” Agatha said. “The youngest daughter isn’t meant to be the first to wed. And to an earl no less. One whose fortune is as great as Papa’s.”

Charlotte flashed her sister a look. “Rubbish. You’re not jealous. You don’t even wish to marry.”

Agatha was conspicuously silent.

Charlotte looked at her again, more narrowly this time. “Do you?”

The skirts of Agatha’s elegantly tailored slate dress rustled against the elaborately flounced skirts of Charlotte’s raspberry silk gown as they walked. She was shorter than Charlotte by several inches. Slightly fuller of figure, too, in a fetching manner that put Charlotte in mind of a renaissance painting of a goddess or lesser deity.

If that goddess were inclined to wear spectacles, that is. And if she were more disposed to be sensible than seductive.