And she meant, quite specifically, to damn the torpedoes and fall very much in love with Eddie, even if it was temporary, even if she didn’t quite know what she meant to him.
They weren’t alone for the rest of the day. Miss Gardenside, Colonel Andrews, and Miss Charming were always hovering nearby. Eddie didn’t say anything significant to her, such as “I love you,” or “Please stay forever,” or even “I’m going to go brush my teeth—meet me in your room in ten.” He stood near her, his attention on Miss Gardenside.
Evening drew close. Mrs. Wattlesbrook chased the last of the police away and the guests to their rooms. The ball would be starting soon, and Charlotte could hear musicians tuning and smell pastries baking. She had no expectations. That made her feel a little bit lonely, but a little bit lonely was nicer than a whole lot numb.
Eddie would be back in character and dancing with Miss Gardenside tonight. Charlotte didn’t feel much motivation to spruce up, but her ball gown lay neatly on her bed. She’d been measured for the gown on her first day, and it must have just arrived from the seamstress. Its newness seemed to make it glow, as if a magic wand had only just zapped it together from rags. She held it up. The length from high waist to low hem was longer than her everyday dresses, accentuating her height. The cream-colored organza was delicately embroidered in a pattern of flowers and curlicues and embellished with beads that winked in the window light. Seventeen years of fashion changes had rendered her wedding dress laughable, but two hundred years hadn’t hurt this style. The gown was beautiful.
Mary was no more, but Charlotte was certain that if she pulled her bell cord, some downstairs maid would come help her dress. No matter. Charlotte had been doing her best to dress herself for the past week. She could ask Miss Charming to do up the unreachable buttons and help her with her hair. Or maybe Colonel Andrews. Something told her he’d be a whiz at an updo.
There was a knock at the door. No one had ever knocked at her door besides Mary, and the last time Mary had come around, she’d been exercising the right to bear arms.
Eddie’s voice asked, “May I come in?”
“Sure,” she said.
He entered, still exercising his own right to tote a practice foil.
“Here’s my bodyguard.”
“You’ve proved to need one.”
“Do you think you’ll have another chance to use that?”
“A chap can dream.”
“It’s got a blunt tip.”
“In my dream it’s sharp as a tack. Also, I get to keep whipping Mallery’s face with it till he cries like a baby.”
“Quite a detailed dream.”
“And I haven’t even gotten to the part where I’m a racing driver.”
He stood by the door as she touched up her makeup in the bathroom and turned his back when she pulled off her robe and slid into the ball gown.
“Um … I could use some help with the doing-up,” she said.
He sighed. “Truly?”
His reluctance made her blink. “I can ask Miss Charming if you’re busy.”
He trudged over, showing unwillingness in every movement. Like a big brother annoyed with his pesky sister? She bit her lip as he fumbled with the gown’s many buttons, determined not to speak and annoy him further.
“You drive me mad.”
“Sorry, brother of mine,” she said flatly.
His hands paused. “Please don’t call me that.” She felt his fingers continue up her back. “Since our outing to the abbey, when you were concerned you were letting me down by not being clever enough, you have kept me laughing and longing too. Your kindness is genuine. Do you know how rare that is? Your presence absorbs me, and yet I’m not supposed to notice. It was hard enough to pretend indifference when you were bathing in the pond. Loosening your corset about undid me. And yet here I am again, so near you yet unable to carry you off to be my own. I must be a masochist.”
She remembered to empty her lungs, but after she could only inhale in quick, shallow breaths.
“So you’d prefer I didn’t call you ‘brother’?”
“Not in private, please.” She felt him rest his forehead against her neck, and his exhale raised goose bumps on her back. “Please. I don’t know how to have you here, when I am not me. I don’t know …”
She nodded. He put his arms around her waist, holding her from behind. She put her arms over his and they stood there in a silent embrace. Her heart was beating so hard she could see her bodice shake, yet she felt oddly calm.
This would have killed me when I was fourteen, she thought with sudden insight. I remember that much of my younger self.
The romance and awkwardness and sublime uncertainty would have broken her heart and driven her crazy. What next, what then, what should I say, what if I turned around, what will we do? But age gave her the peace, at least, to live inside that moment like a poet—to not sacrifice the beauty to the anxiety of What Next, but to just observe. The warmth of his hands under hers. His heartbeat against her back. The moment he adjusted his head to the side, as if he wanted to feel her skin against his cheek. The way his arms subtly tightened—conscious of her waist, feeling her there, enjoying her. How she felt from inside her throat down her middle toward her legs—all zingy and cold and light too. This was why she’d come here. Nothing else ever need happen again. She’d had her moment in Austenland, and even unfulfilled and uncertain, it was perfect. She leaned her head back till it touched his own, and she heard him sigh.
“I will be dancing with Miss Gardenside tonight,” he said.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.”
“It’s why you’re here. Why she’s here. It’s supposed to happen this way.”
“I wish it weren’t.”
Charlotte was about to say what she wished when her door opened. She moved out of Eddie’s embrace, and he whipped out his foil.
Miss Charming screamed, raising her hands in the air. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!”
Eddie lowered the weapon, his face flushed. “Sorry. I—sorry.”
“He’s standing guard in case there’s yet another person in this house who wants to kill me,” Charlotte said.
“Good thing I want you alive, then, so you can do up my back,” said Miss Charming. “Don’t want to ring for a maid. Don’t trust any of them anymore, crazy-eyed, trigger-happy lot.”
She turned her back to Charlotte and submitted to the buttoning, then fixed up the mismatched mess Eddie had made of Charlotte’s buttons, chatting all the while of past balls and favorite dances and the squelchy excitement she always got in her tummy whenever the music started. Her faux-British accent had taken a holiday ever since Mallery had tried to murder Charlotte.
Miss Charming volunteered to do Charlotte’s hair and dragged her to her own room. Through the open door, Charlotte could see Eddie in the hallway, holding his foil uncertainly.
“Go get dressed, Eddie,” she called out. “If any hopeful murderers attack us, Lizzy has promised to beat them with her curling iron.”
Charlotte thought it a reasonable threat, and Eddie must have agreed, for while he hesitated for a moment, he soon nodded and left.
“You really are more beautiful than you seem at first,” Miss Charming was saying, sticking a plastic Bumpit under Charlotte’s hair to add volume.
“Thanks?” said Charlotte.
“You’ve got a look that a person’s got to get used to, then after a while, voilà, you’re beautiful. My Bobby totally would have tested out a mattress sample with you.”
“Okay.”
“ ’Course, not that you woulda. You’re not one of those dangerous women, Charlotte. You’re nice.”
Charlotte heard the ball before she saw it. Music floated upstairs and lured her out to the landing. It was remarkable how different she felt in a ball gown—like someone special, someone princessy.
Miss Charming and Miss Gardenside met her on the landing. Strangers in formalwear swirled through the front d
oor, handing cloaks and hats to servants, laughing as they made their way to the great hall. Charlotte had to wonder where Mrs. Wattlesbrook found them all. A casting agency? The local YMCA? There must have been three dozen fresh bodies in Regency clothing. From this vantage, Charlotte couldn’t see the police tape on Mallery’s door or the bullet hole in the wall. Austenland was primped and pretty.
“Each time it’s like the first time,” Miss Charming whispered. “Each time, I think, This is the ball when everything changes.”
“Does it change?” Miss Gardenside asked.
“Sort of. But maybe … not quite enough.”
Colonel Andrews strode to the bottom of the stairs. Like all the men that night, he wore a black jacket and breeches, white shirt and cravat, the Regency version of the tuxedo. He put one hand behind his back and lifted the other up, an invitation.
“Do not require me to grovel, Miss Elizabeth, for you know I will. Come to me and make me the happiest man in the world, or I will grieve to the heavens of the injustice. I will tantrum until the gods take pity and strike me dead to save me the agony of a broken heart. I beg you, be my lady!”
Miss Charming pressed her gloved hands to her chest and gasped with delight, then jogged down the stairs with much roiling and shaking in her upper regions. Colonel Andrews flew up the stairs to meet her halfway, as if he could not wait another moment to touch her.
He took her hand, kissed it, then sighed to the ceiling. “She is a goddess, I say. A goddess!”
Miss Charming’s eyes sparkled, and she seemed about to cry but giggled instead as he led her away.
Before Charlotte and Miss Gardenside could descend the staircase, Eddie appeared, waiting at the bottom. He did not look at Charlotte.
“Miss Gardenside, I must speak out. I, for one, find your behavior this evening abominable.”
“I beg your pardon?” Miss Gardenside asked with mock offense.
“As you should. Think on the other ladies, Miss Gardenside. Think on their delicate natures, their wounded vanities. It is not enough for you to be merely attractive, but must you outshine your entire sex so egregiously? I say, for shame.”
“Perhaps I might powder my nose with mud or pour grease on my hair?”
“Provocative suggestions, but I think my presence at your side might dim the splendor effectively.”
Miss Gardenside took his arm and, with an affected American Southern accent, said, “Honey, you could catch a fish without a hook.”
“If my lady desires fish, my lady shall have fish.” He gestured to the ballroom and they proceeded in.
Still not meeting her eyes, Eddie said over his shoulder, “Good evening, Charlotte.”
“Hello, Eddie.”
Mrs. Wattlesbrook waved a hand to get Charlotte’s attention. She wore an extremely lacy dress and feathers wiggled in her hair. Without her marriage cap, she seemed quite festive. “Mrs. Cordial, may I present Lord Bentley, a very old friend of our family. He has expressed a desire to meet you especially. Sir Charles, Mrs. Charlotte Cordial.”
Lord Bentley was a tall man, taller than must be comfortable for everyday living. Sure, Charlotte was a tall woman, but partnering her with the Chrysler Building seemed like overkill.
“Mrs. Cordial, I daresay this is a pleasure. Am I presumptuous, are you otherwise engaged, or may I request your hand in the first two dances?”
So here she was on yet another blind date. Another man forced into it by a friend—or in this case, because he was paid. Did that make him a gigolo? Weren’t they all, then, essentially gigolos? Ugh.
Charlotte took his arm and entered the ballroom. Hundreds of candles dazzled in the chandeliers, the music dazzling right back. Couples were already dancing, and the swirl of dresses was as beautiful as a coral reef. Tables along the walls were heavy with punch bowls and pastries that emanated sweet, crunchy aromas. Charlotte gasped. Never had Austenland felt so real.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“So are you,” said Lord Bentley.
Oh gag, said her Inner Thoughts.
Charlotte danced with Lord Bentley, sometimes watching Mr. Grey dancing with Miss Gardenside. And sometimes Mr. Grey watched Mrs. Cordial dancing with Lord Bentley.
“I have heard much of you from Mrs. Wattlesbrook,” Lord Bentley said as they waited their turn to sashay down the middle.
“Have you?” Charlotte asked. Eddie and Miss Gardenside were sashaying. Charlotte wanted to laugh. It was hardly a romantic dance. Then again, he was holding her hands.
“You intrigue me,” said his lordship. “I rode in from London just to meet you.”
“That’s a long way,” she said.
“It was worth it,” he said. Then they sashayed. It was a bouncy passage down the middle, sidestepping at a skip. She hoped no one held a hidden camera. She didn’t want this to end up on YouTube to embarrass her children.
The second dance was a little less Virginia reel and had more style. Partners stood opposite, coming together then away. Lord Bentley seemed to have given up conversation in favor of smoldering looks. After having been professionally smoldered by Mallery, she found Lord Bentley’s attempt to be just sad.
At one point in the dance, ladies crossed to the gentlemen on their right. Charlotte lifted her hand. Eddie took it. All the magic and smells and dazzles surrounded her with that touch. She was no longer observing; she was inside Austenland. She was real.
“I’m sorry,” Eddie said softly.
“Don’t be.”
They crossed behind other dancers and met again.
“It’s not right,” he said.
“That’s not for me to decide,” she said. But she wished it was.
They returned to their partners. Lord Bentley was all eyebrows and brooding looks. She discovered a new appreciation for Mallery, who had probably smoldered from birth. Even his sweat had been broodish.
The dance was over. Miss Gardenside took Mr. Grey’s arm, and they walked off together.
“Excuse me, I’ve got some … lady business,” Charlotte said as awkwardly as possible, in hopes of avoiding any inquiries from her date. Lord Bentley bowed and she hurried away. Was she being dishonest? Perhaps she was just being clever. But that wasn’t likely, given that she had stalking in mind, and her stalking track record wasn’t impressive.
Charlotte followed Eddie and Miss Gardenside at a discreet distance. The couple wandered into the conservatory. Charlotte stopped at the doorway, hidden behind a fern. The air in the glassed-in room was tropically warm and felt as sweet as a sweater on her bare arms.
Mr. Grey took Miss Gardenside’s hand and spoke. This was the moment. This was the proposal, the one Charlotte would have had from murderer Mallery. It was an all-inclusive vacation, including meals, wardrobe, outings, and a marriage proposal. Right now, elsewhere in the house, Colonel Andrews was probably proposing to Miss Charming for the umpteenth time.
The couple strolled between plants, their voices low, their heads leaning toward each other. Miss Gardenside’s hand rested on his arm. His hand lay atop hers. Charlotte’s throat constricted. She was torturing herself, that was all. Would she have wanted to peer into a motel room at James and Justice? Certainly not. She started down the hall.
A moment later she was back. Eddie was holding Miss Gardenside’s hands, speaking earnestly. She seemed elated. Were they going to kiss? Yes, any moment, they would certainly kiss. The moonlight was angled in the window just so, as if propped up for this scene, and the air was heady with love and plant sap. No kissing please. Charlotte couldn’t bear that, even if it was supposed to be pretend. If Eddie kissed Miss Gardenside, it meant he wanted to, didn’t it? Alisha was so beautiful and young. Maybe Eddie was more like James than she’d thought. Charlotte’s heart bounced inside her chest, encouraging her to flee.
She put a hand over her eyes and sought after her Inner Thoughts.
What do I do?
Her Inner Thoughts skipped forward, happy to be asked. Leave ’em alone
and go get some punch. But stay away from Lord Bentley, ’cause he gives me the creepos.
But what about Eddie?
Nothing’s real here, including him. Nice people don’t mess up someone else’s expensive romantic moment, especially since you’re clearly not ready to love Eddie for real. Get out before you make an idiot of yourself or get that heart broken again. We’re still aching from the last time, thanks very much.
No, said Charlotte, surprising herself. I am ready. I’m ready to love again, and I choose him. I don’t know how, with two kids in one country and this man in another. But I can’t imagine anyone else I would want to be with besides Eddie. Is that selfish? Does that mean I’m not nice?
Yeah, said her Inner Thoughts.
Well, forget you. I’m going to be the heroine in this story.
She started into the room just as the couple, apparently concluding their conservatory business, was starting out.
“Charlotte?” he said.
“Eddie,” she said, not knowing what else to say. But she was spared the formation of words by the mercifully loquacious Miss Gardenside.
“Oh, Charlotte, is it not wonderful?” she effused, hurrying to Charlotte’s side.
“Is it?”
“Now do not tease. Though I know you will mock me for being so blind, I am not as arch as you, my dearest, sweetest friend. You can find out a murderer, but I could not see true love when it formed before my face!”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” said Charlotte. “True love can be so easily mistaken for other things—friendship, humane concern, indigestion …”
“Stop it, you delightful thing. Now that I look back over the past two weeks, I see the mark of it running through everything that happened. Mr. Grey’s gallantry, his constant attention, his reluctance to dance even. Why, I simply thought him uneasy, given it is our last night. But in truth he was harboring a secret all along! Do not think I mind for my own sake, my dear Charlotte. You are sly, but I understand, though I should scold you amazingly. Sometimes one does not mean to fall in love. Sometimes it just happens.”