Midnight in Austenland (19 page)

Mr. Mallery's frown deepened. He took a step toward her. She took a step back.

“I wish I knew I could trust you,” he said. “But are you as you seem? Or are you someone else entirely? So many secrets in this place. So many falsehoods.”

She heard a slick scrape as he pulled a knife from his belt. She barely processed the silver flicker of the blade before she turned and ran for the door.

Her finger slipped on the hidden knob, but on her second press, it opened. She leapt away from the swinging door and heard it collide with Mr. Mallery behind her.

Mary peered out her door and blinked at Charlotte, as if she had been expecting to see someone else.

“Run for help,” Charlotte pleaded. “Mallery killed Wattlesbrook.”

Charlotte barely got out the words when he grabbed her from behind and pulled her back into the room with such force that she tumbled across the floor.

She looked up to see Mary not running for help but holding open the door and staring at Mallery. Even in her thoughts, Charlotte could no longer muster up a “mister” title for him.

“Do you have need of me, sir?” Mary asked, her voice mostly breath.

“Mary, you've always been a very good girl,” he said. His hair had pulled free of its restraint and hung loose around his face. He looked wild.

“Mary, hurry!” Charlotte shouted.

Mallery approached Mary leisurely, and the girl held still, waiting for him, faintly trembling, a mouse caught in a cobra's gaze. He moved Mary's hair behind her shoulder and ran a finger along her long, white neck in a way that seemed practiced. Mary's faint trembling escalated to a full-body shiver. She gazed at Mallery with wet eyes.

Oh no, Charlotte thought. Mary would throw herself into a volcano for him. That does not bode well.

He fingered the neck of Mary's blouse and slipped it off her shoulder. Her collarbone was tense and standing out like a skeleton's.

“Would you give us some privacy to take care of business,” he whispered into her neck. “And then I will come find you. To thank you. You have proven to me that you are the only woman I can trust.”

Mary seemed scarcely able to move, let alone speak, but she managed to nod jerkily.

“Mary, please, he'll kill me,” Charlotte said, pulling herself to her feet with a grunt. The bruises she felt forming on her hip were added to her Things Not Regency Appropriate list.

Mallery held his face close to Mary's and touched her lips with a finger. “You know how much I value your discretion.”

He kissed the corner of her mouth, a tease, the promise of more, then stepped back and nodded, as if giving her permission to depart. She took a deep, unstable breath.

“Excuse me,” Mary said shakily and shut the door on her way out.

Charlotte was trying to wrench open one of the windows when she heard a skin-crawling rasp behind her. Mallery had pushed a highboy to block the door. He considered his knife before putting it away. Maybe he wouldn't hurt her after all! Maybe he just wanted to chat about stuff.

Or maybe he just preferred to kill her without a lot of blood.

“Hold still,” he said, sounding so reasonable. He came at her, and his hands looked as dangerous as any knife.

Charlotte dodged, putting furniture between her and those hands. He followed. He didn't say anything. He was focused on catching her. And then what?

Charlotte didn't think about what James's reaction would be when he heard she was murdered. She only gave her children a passing thought before her mind fled in white-hot panic from the idea that she could be taken from them. Instead, she thought of Eddie, and how she very much wanted him to save her. Yes, if she could choose any man in the world to save her, it would be Eddie. But he wouldn't, would he? Because no one knew she was here, except Mary, who'd been mesmerized into submission by the predator. Charlotte was starting to suspect that Mary was seriously messed up.

Stupid Charlotte, she screamed at herself. You believed you were clever, and that made you more vulnerable.

When the chase drew her near the window, she plucked a naked lamp from the debris and slammed it against a pane, hoping to break the window but only managing a few cracks.

“Help!” she screamed.

“You do not need to do that,” he said.

Mallery and his hands were coming at her. She ran from the window, weaving through clutter and broken furniture, trying to keep that man as far away as possible. But he kept following.

Stupid Charlotte, she screamed at herself again. Two minutes ago you considered falling in love with him!

Those fluttery feelings of new love—those lung-tickling, heart-kicking, squealing sensations of hot and cold and pulses snapping and lips wetting—they were as false as cravats and corsets. They were merely sensations, like the wrenching drop on a roller coaster that warned of impending death. She wasn't really going to die on a roller coaster (probably not, though some were pretty scary). And just because she felt tangled up and swoony with a man didn't mean she was in love or could be happy with him ever after.

Duh, Charlotte. Duh. You're not going to die on a roller coaster, but you are going to die in this room.

“Help!” she yelled again.

Mallery lunged and missed. He would get her sooner or later. It would probably take several minutes to die by strangulation, his hands around her neck, her lungs burning like they had when she'd spent too much time underwater, her eyes wide open with the awareness that she was almost gone.

A sob punched her throat. Imagining how she was going to die wasn't exactly helping her morale.

“Listen, listen,” she said, angling to keep a broken sofa and a stack of boxes between her and Mallery. “I don't want to die, so you have a lot of bargaining power.”

He came around the side. She fled again, kicking up dust on her way to the stack of chairs. She could see him through the cage of legs.

“You write up something, I sign it. A promise that I never speak a word about my suspicions. I know Mr. Wattlesbrook was an unpleasant man, clumsy with fire and sherry and probably very gassy …” What was she saying? Focus, Charlotte, don't be a ninny. “You don't hurt me, and I let you get away with murder. You see? We all win!”

She tried to smile. Still, he didn't speak.

Nice try, said her Inner Thoughts. He already knows you're too moral to do that.

Help me or shut up! she yelled back.

His hands flexed. Charlotte ran again.

The cat-and-mouse might have gone on much longer, but Charlotte stepped on her hem. It occurred to her, the split second before she hit the floor, that men invent fashion. Men who want women in ridiculously long skirts so just in case they murder someone and a woman figures it out, she'll be so hampered by her ridiculously long skirts that she can be killed too.

She scrambled backward and blurted desperately, “I have kids. Two kids. Beckett and Lu.”

Mallery didn't slow. He came at her like a man at work, his hands the tool to get the job done. He really was going to do her in. A small part of herself had been hoping she was wrong, but nope. Pessimism wins again.

Killing her would hurt her kids too. She knew this with the pain of a wound. It didn't matter that Lu hadn't wanted to talk to her on the phone or that Beckett had called Justice “Mom.” They would suffer if she died. They would cry and ache and need years of therapy, and would James pay for it? Probably not. So they'd have to submit to school counselors who might not be properly trained because of budget cuts, and what if that wasn't enough and the grief sent them into drugs and alcohol and depression and meaningless sex and regrettable tattoo choices and petty crime leading up to serious crime and jail and shock therapy? What if lobotomies came back into vogue? And the surgeon messed up and they died?

And it would all be James's fault. Wait … and Mallery's too! It was as if Mallery had cornered not just Charlotte but also Lu and Beckett, as if he was coming at them with dangerous hands and intent to strangle, and they were scooting back and pleading for mercy, but he had none. No mercy for her children? That was
so
not okay.

In the old stories, this was the part when the heroine, overcome with terror, would faint, and the dastardly bastard would throttle her alabaster neck and leave her body for the wolves. Right?

No.

This was the part where Charlotte, heroine, remembered she was a twenty-first-century woman and a mother. This was Charlotte saying, Hell no!

Charlotte screamed.

But this wasn't a scream for help. This wasn't a plea, a panicked, earsplitting supplication for immediate rescue. Charlotte screamed the cry of attack.

Clearly, Mallery did not recognize the subtle difference. Showing no alarm, he was still on offense, and he knelt over her, his hands on her throat. That hurt, but her body, with or without her mind's help, had a plan. She'd sat in on enough of Beckett's martial arts classes to learn a few self-defense moves. When an attacker is strangling from the front, his hands are occupied, leaving every part of him open. Charlotte formed her fingers into spearhead shape and jammed them as hard as she could into his throat. He choked and his grip lessened. She took a deep breath and kicked him in the 'nads, as Beckett would say.

He was on the ground, and she stood up, but she didn't stop kicking. A spare chair leg lay nearby, practically begging to be used as a club. Charlotte complied.

“You're the ninny!” She hit him again. “You hear me? YOU'RE THE NINNY!” She hit him again and again. “No one just
falls
in love, you idiot. You
chose
to not love me anymore. You
chose
to leave me. You
chose
to leave the kids. One weekend a month and one month a year—that's parenthood? You don't go to marriage counseling, you don't give me a chance to fight back. No, you sneak around. You sleep with Justice for weeks and come home to me all smug with yourself. You sick, sick, sick son of a—”

Charlotte gasped. She was solving more than one mystery. “It wasn't just weeks, was it? That's why you had me put your name on my accounts. You were already affairing around and preparing to dump me! You duplicitous, conniving, hardhearted, not-nice nincompoop. And you never even apologized!”

“Sorry,” Mallery mumbled desperately, one arm protecting his head, the other over his pummeled manhood.

“Not you, you idiot! Though you're a ninny too.”

He made a scramble to get upright, and she cracked the chair leg on the back of his head. He crumpled with a groan. For an inherently dangerous man, he sure didn't seem accustomed to getting beat up. She shoved over the tower of chairs, pinning him to the floor.

It took her a minute to push the highboy far enough from the wall to open the door and squeeze out.

“Help!” she screamed, running for the spiral stairs. “Bloody murder! Bloody, bloody murder! I'm on the second floor, and there's been some seriously bloody murder up here!”

She was halfway down the stairs when Eddie reached her, followed by Colonel Andrews, Miss Charming, Miss Gardenside, and Mrs. Wattlesbrook.

“Are you all right?” Eddie asked.

“Mallery did it,” she said quickly. “He killed Mr. Wattlesbrook.”

“I say, Mrs. Cordial,” said the colonel, “you are spoiling the ending. We were supposed to go on this murderer hunt together, and I had prepared my own things to look remarkably guilty.”

Where had all the oxygen gone? Was she underwater? She looked to Eddie like a buoy in mid-ocean.

“He tried to kill me, Eddie. He's in the secret room.” The air in her lungs seemed to be tied to a string and yanked out of her. She tried to grab hold of the end of that string, but it was getting so hard to see.

“I've got you,” she heard Eddie say before she straight-up passed out. And she wasn't even wearing her corset.

Well, Charlotte, that was done like a true romantic heroine. You are on your way.

Home, six months before

Charlotte's sister-in-law was responsible for Charlotte's eighth postdivorce blind date, with a dentist called Ernie (a family name). They met at the bar of a restaurant for drinks and appetizers. They conversed easily, their sentences fitting together like one long monologue instead of disjointed back-and-forth. He looked at her more than at his drink.

Charlotte got a little light-headed and tickly-chested, though her drink was just a soda. Maybe she wasn't quite as numb as she thought. Maybe she could thaw just a tad, just enough to know this Ernie, to dip her toes in this possibility. As they left the restaurant, Ernie asked her out to dinner. She said she'd like that, and that's when he leaned in to kiss her.

Charlotte would replay the next few moments over and over again for months to come, usually while she held a pillow over her head:

• His lips touched hers.

• She recoiled.

• She said, “Ew.”

Had his breath smelled of calamari? Had his mouth been hot and dry like a shedding lizard's skin? No. Nothing was wrong. Ernie kissed in a very reasonable and appropriate manner. But Charlotte felt repulsed—not by him, but by herself. It was disgusting, she'd thought as he leaned in, disgusting for a married woman to kiss another man. She'd felt like a dirty, horrid cheater.

But Ernie, ignorant of her tortured internal monologue, only heard “ew.” He nodded, turned, and walked away.

Did Charlotte call Ernie and explain? No, it'd been too humiliating. Besides, what business does a woman who still feels married months after her divorce have going on a date with anyone?

She reopened her arms to numbness and let that cold void settle deeper into her chest, as deep as night.

Austenland, day 11, cont.

Charlotte was only out for a moment. She knew Eddie was carrying her because she recognized his smell. She hadn't realized her brain had stored that information, but she tucked her head against his neck and breathed in.

He placed her on her bed, then he and Colonel Andrews rushed out again. Things got confusing, with ladies and servants coming and going, Charlotte shouting warnings about Mallery and Mary.

“You are certain?” asked Mrs. Wattlesbrook from the doorway.

Charlotte nodded. “I'm sorry. Mallery admitted he … he killed your husband. And I saw his BMW submerged in the pond.”

Mrs. Wattlesbrook nodded. For a moment Charlotte thought the proprietress might cry, but instead she said, “Let us adjourn to the drawing room. Mrs. Cordial's bedchamber is inappropriate for a gathering.”

As if all that matters anymore, Charlotte thought.

But it mattered to Mrs. Wattlesbrook. Eddie was back by then and eager to carry Charlotte again. She protested at first but gave in, curious to see what it felt like in his arms now that she was more awake. Perhaps that dreamy, delicious sensation that had filled her hadn't been his nearness but just the remnants of a fainting dream.

It wasn't.

“I wanted you to save me,” she said as he brought her into the drawing room and set her on a chaise longue.

“I wish I had.” His face was grim.

“It's okay. I didn't die.”

He told her that Mallery was tied and locked in one of the second-floor spare rooms, and that Justin, the most robust of Neville's lads, stood guard. Charlotte could only think of him as “Mallery” now. But why had he done it? She couldn't quite reason it out. Mallery the character would want to protect his family's estates and perhaps even kill to do so. But why had the actor crossed over? Was he simply crazy?

Eddie said Mallery gave him very little fight since she'd already beaten the life out of him.

“I just wanted to be sure,” she said. “In movies you think the bad guy is done in, then he rises again.”

“Yes, I think you made certain there would be no unexpected rising.”

Maids came in to report that Mary was missing, and they plopped down on the abundant settees, the illusion of the classes cracking under the pressure. Neville gazed over the scene, disapproving but not speaking. Mrs. Wattlesbrook was not present. Surely she was at the inn calling the police.

“Neville, you knew Mary from Windy Nook?” Charlotte asked while the maids chattered away about how Mary liked to personally wash Mallery's breeches.

“Yes. I am alarmed by this outcome.”

“But not surprised,” said Charlotte.

“No, I suppose not.” He stared at his interlaced fingers. “She was raised by her grandmother, who had been in service herself. As a child, Mary would run errands between the village and Windy Nook, and I could tell she hungered for what that house represented. I'm the one who hired her as a maid when she came of age.” He sighed. “She started in the kitchen, but since she had spent years taking care of her grandmother, Mrs. Wattlesbrook thought she would excel as a lady's maid. Mary's behavior was eccentric, and Mrs. Wattlesbrook wasn't going to transfer her here when Windy Nook closed. But I … I intervened. Mary's grandmother had died and there was nowhere else she felt at home. Perhaps my pity was misplaced.”

“Mrs. Wattlesbrook brought you to Pembrook Park as well. Clearly she trusts you more than any other, and she's a smart lady.”

His eyes shone.

“And you could see that Mary was enamored of Mallery?” Charlotte asked.

“Well, yes. He stood apart. When the guests weren't around, the actors relaxed, you know. Became themselves. Mr. Mallery never relaxed. I suppose he was himself.”

“He was himself,” Charlotte repeated softly.

Miss Charming plonked down beside Charlotte.

“You figured it all out.” Miss Charming didn't bother with her British accent even though the men were present. “Wow. You're like Jessica Fletcher.”

“I am in shock,” said Eddie. “Andrews, you and I were most likely the last to see him alive.”

“Mallery must have returned to Wattlesbrook right after dinner, and then joined us in the drawing room as cool as anything,” Colonel Andrews said. “Perhaps he'd only intended to give him a talking-to?”

“Gave him a talking-to, all right,” Eddie said.

“I guess Mary saw him with Mr. Wattlesbrook,” said Charlotte.

“She played our garden ghost, you know,” said Colonel Andrews. “I told the lads I'd need a helper for my charade, and Mallery suggested Mary. He said she'd do anything for him.”

That's proving true, Charlotte thought.

If she were in an Agatha Christie novel, she supposed, this would be when the story would end, with the murderer caught. But she still had three more days in Austenland. Speculation and chatter continued, and Charlotte's head felt too muddled to be indoors. As soon as she could, she slipped outside.

It was dark already, the sky firmly black. The air was pleasantly cool, but she shivered.

I wonder if I'm going to have a nervous breakdown, she thought calmly.

“Charlotte?” Eddie called.

“I just need some fresh air,” she said without turning. She wasn't surprised he'd followed. It felt right. “I don't want four walls around me. I thought I was going to die in that secret room.”

She held out her hand without thinking, and he took it. They walked to the side of the house, out of sight of the road where the police would shortly be coming. She didn't want to see anyone right then, except Eddie.

They leaned against the house and looked at the stars.

“So you really did find a body in that room,” he said.

“I guess I did.”

“Here you've been, a spider in the corner, observing, weaving Charlotte's web of mystery.”

“Or stumbling around, confused and pathetic.”

“I'm sorry I didn't believe—” he started to say, then snorted with a laugh. “It is kind of ridiculous.”

“Yeah.” She snorted too.

He laughed again.

Then the dam broke. Charlotte leaned over and laughed so hard her stomach strained, laughed till she wept, then the weeping took over, and she cry-laughed and laugh-cried. Eddie held on to her, and she put her head on his shoulder and ached with crying and laughing.

“He was trying to kill me for real,” she said. “He really was.”

“That must be surreal.”

“It is. That's just the word for it. Maybe I'm going crazy?”

“Going?”

“Oh man, he lied to me, lied a lot.”

“Mallery lied to all of us.”

“Not Mallery—I mean, James, my ex. Mallery just wanted to kill me, which should top the list of relationship enders, but what James did feels even worse. Still, the whole attempted murder is not going to help me much long-term, is it? I mean, my ability to trust in men has got to be permanently damaged, right? Eddie, tell me truthfully, are all men—” She stopped.

“Are all men despicable scoundrels?”

“I don't really believe it. Because you're not. Though there was a moment I thought you were the murderer and were going to kill me.”

“Really?” His eyes seemed happy. “That's kind of you. I like the idea of seeming dangerous. But …” He lifted his hands as if to say, I am who I am.

“No, you're not dangerous. You feel safe. And that's nicer.” She smiled at him. “I like you, Eddie. I like you lots.”

Charlotte had to stop talking, because Eddie was looking at her. And he was quite a bit nearer than was normal for an acquaintance or a brother or anything. His face was in her personal space, but it didn't feel invasive. He was gazing at her curiously. He lifted his hand to touch her jaw with his thumb, as if he just wanted to feel her. Her head lightened with that touch. She felt as sharp as a star. She held still and hoped he was touching her because he, Eddie, the real Eddie, wanted to. Because that was what she wanted.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Attempting to woo you.” He kept glancing at her lips. “Is it working at all? It's been a long time since I sincerely wooed anyone, and I can't remember how. All I know is I want to look at you.”

She was afraid to move, afraid even the slight nod of her head would move his hand and he would give up and go away. She couldn't seem to form words, so she hoped he could see the yes in her eyes.

Say yes, she screamed at her eyes. Sparkle or something! Come on, babies, twinkle for Mama!

And he kissed her. His arms went around her and he was kissing her really well. And her only clear thought was that Eddie was wonderfully tall. James had been just her height, and for the sake of his vanity, she could never wear heels.

Eddie withdrew enough to look at her face. “That seemed to work?”

Charlotte didn't answer. She hadn't caught her breath, or her equilibrium. The kiss had shifted the whole world forty-five degrees, and she was still falling. Except that his arms were around her, so maybe they were falling together.

“Um …” she said, and touched his lips with her fingertips. It was all the language she could muster at the moment, like Caveman for “Kiss me again, please.”

And he did. He kissed her and she kissed him, and he held her so tight she felt safe from the whole world. It was wonderful to feel really safe again, and glorious to be kissed. The world kept tipping, and maybe she was upside down now, blood rushing to her head, feet in the stars.

With warm cheeks and starry feet, she realized that she'd been yearning to be this close to Eddie all along but had resisted for some reason. Why had she? Oh yeah, because he was—

“Wait!” she said.

He stopped, alarm in his eyes.

“It needs to be said that we're not really brother and sister.”

He nodded sagely. “Yes, it does. It needs to be said.”

“Because I want to kiss
you
, not that character. I don't have any incest fantasies, thank you, and I don't want to be involved in anyone else's. So … you're not really my brother; I'm not really your sister. We're not related in any way.”

He was holding her hands, rubbing her fingers against his chin. “Not a whit.”

“And my name's not ‘Charlotte Cordial' when I'm kissing you. I'm still ‘Charlotte,' just not the ‘Cordial' part.”

“Understood. And the name's not ‘Grey,' nor ‘Edmund' either. It's ‘Reginald.' ”

“What!” Charlotte recoiled. “Don't be serious. ‘Reginald'? Really?”

Reginald shrugged. “Family name.”

“Family curse.”

“But ‘Eddie' will do. I rather fancy being ‘Eddie,' when you say it.” Eddie smiled. He kissed her fingers. “Tell me something else. Something true.”

“I'm a mom of two kids, and my ex-husband found me less interesting than a woman named ‘Justice' who keeps reading one book over and over again called
A Fragment of My Heart
, and it's about a man who is in love with his neighbor for sixty years and does nothing about it and she doesn't find out until he dies and she discovers his journal, and Justice sent me a copy and harassed me via e-mail until I read it, and you're supposed to weep at the end but I laughed, and I judge her for that.”

“Tell me something true about you.”

“Okay …” She mentally rifled through birthplace (Portland, Oregon), college major (sociology), astrological sign (Virgo), favorite movie (
The Apple Dumpling Gang
—don't judge), until she hit a fact that wasn't completely mundane. “One of my favorite things in the world are those charity events where everyone buys a rubber ducky with a number and the first person's duck to get down the river wins.”

“Why?”

“I like seeing the river teeming with all those outrageously yellow and orange ducks. It's so friendly. And I love the hope of it. Even though it doesn't matter if you win, because all that wonderful, candy-colored money is going to something really important like a free clinic downtown or cleft palate operations for children in India, you still have that playful hope that you
will
win. You run alongside the stream, not knowing which is your duck but imagining the lead one is yours.”