Midnight in Austenland Read online

  “Now would be a good time for the aforementioned leave-taking.”

  Charlotte wasn’t surprised when the backpackers started off, with nervous backward glances.

  Mr. Mallery held out his arm to Charlotte. She took it.

  “You scared them,” she said.

  “They were bothering you,” he said simply.

  He walked her back toward the others. Charlotte subtly moved her hand up from his elbow to his biceps, curious how strong he was. He glanced down at her hand, as if he guessed what she was about, and she felt herself flush but didn’t move her hand. He did have mighty fine biceps.

  “There you are!” said Colonel Andrews. “I was just about to regale our young ladies with the dark and sordid history of Grey Cloaks Abbey.”

  Miss Charming was sitting on the edge of a stone, her hands dangling between her knees, her mouth open.

  “It sounds sooo spooky,” she said. Then, as if realizing she’d forgotten to apply her British accent, she added, “What-what.”

  The colonel’s voice dropped to a stage whisper. “Exactly three hundred years ago, this abbey was home to twenty-one nuns, the abbess, and one novice. Over here”—he walked to the edge of the ruins—“they worked a kitchen garden, with herbs of healing to administer to the town’s needs. They kept goats and chickens on the other side of a yew hedge. The walk from the garden to the abbey was lined with fruit trees and pines, under which shade they contemplated the marvels of the world. It was a peaceful existence, quiet and without incident … until one evening in January.

  “The sisters made their dinner as usual and sat down to eat. The abbess was getting older and not feeling well of late, so this night, after she prepared the tea and blessed the meal, she went to her chamber to lie down. She rose again an hour later to join the sisters in compline prayers, but when she entered the chapel, to her horror, she discovered all the nuns were dead.”

  “Ooh,” Miss Charming said, nose wrinkled.

  Miss Gardenside’s face was shiny with perspiration. She shut her eyes against the colonel’s story, or perhaps the pain of her illness. Charlotte sat beside her and put a hand on her arm.

  “The good abbess went through the chapel, examining each body,” the colonel continued, “praying to find someone alive. No wounds were upon their bodies, but their pulses had stopped, their breaths stilled. When hope was near extinguished, the abbess found Mary Francis, the young novice, trembling under a bench, quite alive. The abbess fainted from grief and fright.

  “In the morning, the abbess woke to find that Mary Francis had laid out all the nuns’ bodies side by side in the chapel and covered them with their blankets. She had cleaned up the dinner from the night before as well, washing each dish and tidying the kitchen. She had been up all night at this task.

  “ ‘What happened, Mary?’ the abbess asked. ‘How did the sisters die?’ Mary Francis shook her head and would not speak.”

  “Sounds suspicious, rawther,” said Miss Charming, her chin resting on her hands.

  “Exactly so,” said Colonel Andrews. “If the novice did not know, she might have said so. But why refuse to answer?”

  He left the question hanging in the air. In the distance, a crow screeched. Charlotte shivered.

  “Don’t you just love a good horror story?” Miss Gardenside whispered.

  “As long as it’s light out,” said Charlotte.

  Miss Gardenside laughed as if it was a joke. Charlotte didn’t correct her. A woman in her thirties should not be afraid of the dark. She also shouldn’t be playing dress-up.

  “No one ever hanged for the deaths in Grey Cloak Abbey,” said Colonel Andrews. “The bodies were buried in the churchyard, and the abbey was abandoned. The poor abbess moved in with a niece and rapidly succumbed to dementia. She would sit in the garden and sing hymns, sometimes suddenly shouting, ‘Either she saw who did it or she did it herself!’ ”

  “Meaning, Mary Francis,” said Charlotte.

  “No. A nun wouldn’t kill anyone,” said Miss Charming. “Nuns are nice.”

  “My mother bears scars on her knuckles from ‘nice’ nuns armed with rulers,” Miss Gardenside said.

  “No one lives who knows the truth,” said the colonel. “But there may yet be clues. You have not asked me what happened to Mary Francis.”

  “I say, what happened to Mary Francis?” asked Eddie.

  “I am glad you asked, Mr. Grey. An orphan, she had no family to take her in. She was driven from place to place by folk suspicious of her involvement in the deaths, until at last she was taken in as a maid in a grand house not far from here. There she lived but a few years—and, it must be said, uncanny things took place in the house after her arrival. Some believe her ghost still haunts the gardens on summer nights.”

  “Do tell us, old boy,” Eddie asked with a knowing smile, “what was the name of the grand house?”

  “The name?” Colonel Andrews dropped his voice low. “Why, Pembrook Park, of course.”

  Charlotte and Miss Gardenside both gasped at once, then laughed at each other.

  “But the house isn’t old enough,” said Charlotte.

  “Oh, parts are old,” said the colonel. “Parts are very old indeed. Is that not right, Mallery?”

  He nodded. “Older than the trees.”

  “You’re related to the Wattlesbrooks, aren’t you?” asked Charlotte.

  “Mr. Wattlesbrook’s father and my grandfather were brothers,” said Mr. Mallery. “Pembrook Park would have been my father’s inheritance, but Grandfather lost it to his brother in a card game.”

  Silence followed this remark. Colonel Andrews cleared his throat.

  “I propose we set about to uncover the mystery of Grey Cloaks Abbey. Pembrook’s ball is in just under a fortnight. Before that occasion, let us solve once and for all the mystery of Mary Francis and her murdered sisters.” He pulled a small leather book from his breast pocket. “I have uncovered this ancient text from the library of Pembrook Park. Each night let us read from it, learn more of the story, and follow the clues to the end … wherever they may take us.”

  Home, last December

  “James sent a package here with a Christmas gift for you,” Charlotte’s mother said on the phone.

  Lu and Beckett were gone to their father’s for the holiday, and the house felt cavernous and unpleasant. Charlotte was packing for North Carolina, where she would spend Christmas with Mom, as if she were a childless college student again. Was life moving backward?

  “He knows it’s your first Christmas without him and the kids,” said Mom. “Isn’t he thoughtful?”

  Charlotte considered other adjectives that might apply to James, but she had to agree: Sending a gift to her mother’s house was thoughtful. She felt guilty now she hadn’t sent him a thing.

  “I’d rather not unwrap it in front of everyone,” said Charlotte. “Would you open it now and just tell me what it is?”

  There was a sound of ripping paper and her mother mumbling to herself.

  “Hm … it’s some kind of … oh! It’s a vibrator.”

  The hairs on the back of Charlotte’s neck stood up.

  “What?” she said, remarkably calm.

  “It’s one of those vibrator things.”

  Charlotte took two very deep breaths, then said through clenched teeth, “Mom, I’ll call you back later.”

  She phoned James. “How dare you! How dare you mock me like that, and in front of my mom?”

  “Charlotte, nice of you to call. How are things?”

  “Please don’t insult me further by acting ignorant. I never thought … I didn’t think you were so beyond—I’m speechless.”

  “You’re going to have to explain,” he said tiredly.

  “The Christmas present, James. My mother opened it early and told me what it was.”

  “You’re angry I got you a present. Duly noted. I try to be nice—”

  “Don’t pull that crap.” Ooh, she’d never talked like this to him. Sh
e’d been conciliatory Charlotte, mending Charlotte, accommodating Charlotte. But it felt so good to fill up with righteous indignation! His “gift” had so crossed the line of politeness and trudged right on into vulgarity and maliciousness. Why hadn’t she confronted and accused him for the ever-so-slight infraction of adultery and breaking marriage vows? Well, he’d had the “love” defense then. How could Charlotte, nice Charlotte, fight back? She couldn’t blame him for not loving her anymore. She’d taken her part of the responsibility—she must have failed him somehow. A responsible adult takes responsibility even when it’s disagreeable, right?

  But the vibrator? Oh, now things were black and white. Now James was truly, grotesquely Evil. She could tell him so, and it felt great!

  “What?” he asked, all innocence. “I put a lot of thought into that gift. I know I’m not around anymore to do that for you, so I thought—”

  Charlotte gasped so hard her throat hurt. “You’re serious? You weren’t just mocking me? That would have been bad enough, but you actually thought that was a legitimate gift? That I would use that thing and maybe … maybe think of you? And you sent it to my mom’s house, where I would open it in front of my parents! You disgusting—” Then followed a string of words that she would never speak in front of her children. They were neither original nor worth repeating, and she didn’t regret a one. Yet.

  “Hey, take it easy!” said James. “Return the stupid massager, I don’t care.”

  There was a pause.

  “Mass … massager?”

  “A neck massager. What’d you think it was?”

  “Mom said … Mom said it was a, uh, a vibrator.”

  “Oh. Oohh.”

  “Those are …” Charlotte tried to swallow, but her mouth was suddenly dry. “Those are two words my mother would mix up.”

  James snorted. “Yeah, she would.”

  At that point, Old James and Old Charlotte would have laughed. The universe seemed to expect that laugh, had created a space for it, a pause to be filled. Nothing filled it. Charlotte rubbed her forehead.

  “Sorry,” she said and hung up.

  She pulled a pillow over her head and waited to die. When an hour passed and she still wasn’t dead, she got up and pruned the rosebushes.

  Austenland, day 3, cont.

  The gentlemen spread picnic blankets on the grass and servants appeared to serve a cold lunch among the scattered ruins. Charlotte kept looking at the rocks, expecting to see raw, white nun skeletons half-exposed in the dirt.

  You’re not going to run into a nun skeleton after all these years, she assured herself.

  It’s probably just a made-up story anyway, just like everything else around here, she reminded herself.

  Then again, she told herself, unexplained deaths happen all the time. How can I say what’s really real?

  Chills took fingernail-thin steps up and down her back, and she shivered and smiled. This wasn’t exactly the Austen-induced sensation she’d been hoping to re-create, but it was something, and she would enjoy it. At least, while it was still light out.

  Mr. Mallery sat beside her and offered her punch in a crystal tumbler. She almost protested at his attention, but Eddie caught her eye and nodded, so she accepted the glass and sipped.

  “Do you think Colonel Andrews is playing with us,” she asked, “or is the story true?”

  “I make it a habit never to speculate about what goes on inside our colonel’s mind.”

  “Such a peek might be enough to drive one mad?” she guessed.

  “Perhaps,” he said.

  “Or make one smile? In your case, that might be the same thing.”

  He looked at her and did smile, and though it wasn’t very sincere, was even a little goofy, it helped.

  Whew! She’d done it! Well, her comment wasn’t incredibly witty, but it was something. After all, Mr. Mallery wasn’t a blind date. Not really. He was an actor. She didn’t have to give herself a headache trying to figure out if her date was uninterested and so she should skip dessert, or if there would be an exchange of numbers, a walk to the door, a goodnight kiss, an expectation of an invitation in. No worrying here. Her obligations had been thoroughly outlined by Mrs. Wattlesbrook: be Mrs. Charlotte Cordial, live by the house rules, and at the end of two weeks, go home.

  Still, her mind would rather solve a problem than contemplate the way Mr. Mallery was looking at her, so she said, “Colonel, will you read some of that little book now?”

  “Very well,” he said, pulling it from his breast pocket. “I have perused the first few pages. It is a book of accounts kept by one Mrs. Kerchief, the housekeeper. She jotted down lists for shopping, laundry, and such, with the occasional note to herself. Here is the first mention of Mary Francis”:

  Hired a scullery maid today, as Nell has got herself in trouble by the looks of things and headed home in the night. Mary seems young enough for hard work, and desperate too. Simon told me no one in town would take her in, as she was an initiate in the cursed abbey, but I say if she is willing to work I do not care where she lived before. Superstitious lot.

  He flipped a few pages, then read again, this time his tone bending toward the ominous.

  Coal is running low. Seem to be burning more these past weeks, ever since Mary arrived. Simon said she brings the cold. Nonsense. Still, she sleeps in the room next to mine on the second floor, and many nights I hear noises what I never heard before. Wakes me up. It does make a body curious.

  Colonel Andrews shut the book and put it away. “That is enough for now, I think. I despise rushing headlong into a mystery. Much more satisfying to dip in a toe, test the waters, ease in slowly before we start to swim.”

  “Or drown,” Eddie added.

  “The second floor,” Miss Gardenside whispered.

  “You think there’s something still there?” asked Miss Charming.

  “It might be worth investigating.” Colonel Andrews looked at her significantly. “Mary Francis may have left a clue behind to tell the truth of the deaths.”

  A clue. Charlotte’s shoulders vibrated with an exhale.

  “This is fun,” she whispered.

  Mr. Mallery asked, “Because it feels dangerous?”

  “It’s better than sewing samplers.”

  “Ah, but perhaps one day the ability to sew a sampler could save your life.”

  She squinted at him. “In what possible scenario?”

  “Well …” He paused. “If there was …” He smiled. “I have not the faintest idea.”

  “Let me know if you figure it out, and on that day I’ll show you the most magnificent grouping of red and purple grapes on a field of white that you have ever dreamed of.”

  “I long for that day,” he said.

  When they finished lunch, Mr. Mallery helped Charlotte into the phaeton. By her hand. She was relieved—sort of. It’d been a long time since a man had picked her up. Or touched her much at all, to be honest.

  And now Mr. Mallery in his top hat was driving her home to the manor house and its mystery on the second floor.

  He won’t ask for a goodnight kiss, she reminded herself. Or a passionless tumble with the understanding there would be no follow-up date. That’s not Regency appropriate. And there’s no question of long-term compatibility, because we have two weeks to play and then that’s that. So, relax.

  She realized they were going home a different route, the carriage no longer following them.

  “This is a longer road, but I do not like the other,” said Mr. Mallery. “Too much …”

  Traffic, she thought. “So you’re not kidnapping me and carrying me off to your secret lair?”

  “Not today, Mrs. Cordial.” He glanced at her then back at the road. “Would you like to take a turn driving?”

  “Me? I don’t know how.”

  “It is simple enough,” he said, handing her the reins. “Keep to this lane, straight ahead. I will drive again when we come to the bend.”

  She gripped the reins, sitti
ng so straight her back hurt.

  “That is fine. Do not pull back unless you wish to stop. Give him a tap there, he is slowing. There, well done.” He leaned against the bench, angling toward her. “Now I can get a look at you.”

  She tore her gaze from the road for the barest moment and saw that he was, indeed, looking at her, and in a way that made her hands sweat on the reins.

  “Oh no, don’t do that. Stop it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you make me nervous.”

  “So you said. It becomes imperative that I determine why you have that effect on me.”

  “Come on, I don’t make anyone nervous.”

  “Apparently, I am not anyone.”

  She blew out her cheeks and tried to focus on driving. She could feel him staring at her, contemplating her, and it was such an unfamiliar sensation that she sprouted goose bumps as if she’d been tickled. Thoughts fled her head. Apparently they found the place too crazy to stick around.

  “Hm …” he said.

  Her heart beat harder. Had he noticed her brow wrinkle?

  “What is it? What are you hm-ing about?”

  “You have freckles.” He ran a fingertip along her cheekbone. “A thing I had not noticed before. Yes, this has been productive.”

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to do that,” she whispered, his finger still touching her face. She didn’t mind so much, except for how hot her face felt.

  “Mrs. Cordial,” he said gently, “you are the one with the alluring freckles. I simply observe.” But he removed his hand.

  At last the bend appeared, and she stuffed the reins into his hands, leaning back to sigh.

  “And what would you do if I stared at you now?” she asked.

  “The same as you, I suppose—grit my teeth and look elsewhere. Preferable to be the gazer than the gazed upon, is it not?”

  She did look him over since she could. His profile was significant, as if it belonged on legal tender. His jaw was delightful to contemplate, and his long hair pulled back beneath that top hat was just so manly.

  Really? her Inner Thoughts said. Are you sure ponytail plus top hat equals manly?