His smile took her in, approving. His admiration, combined with her acute embarrassment, made her feel as if she’d downed a jug of beer in one breath. She licked her lips, her head giddy, and began to talk faster.
“Maybe that’s why you’re so steady-minded, so unaffected. Maybe novels really do fill your head with fluff, like the characters in Northanger Abbey who don’t read books seem to believe. Reading too much makes a house seem full of ghosts when it’s just the creak of wood; it makes thunder seem like a metaphor instead of just the weather; it makes heart-throbbing romance seem possible, when it’s not.”
He took a step closer to her, his approving smile suggesting something even more, something that made her swallow and look away and talk faster.
“I know I’m making an even bigger idiot of myself,” she said with a laugh. “But I can’t seem to shut myself up.”
“Please don’t. You are so charming.”
“No, I’m not. I’m really not.” She twisted her hands and asked softly, “Am I?”
“You are charming when you speak like a sparrow in the morning. You are charming when you are silent.” He took her hand, felt it between his fingers. “You are even charming when you think me a murderer.”
She gave a little laugh at that. He smiled with fondness.
“You have charmed me.” He nodded, as if surprised he’d spoken the words. “You have indeed. I do not know if I fully realized just how much until this moment. Mrs. Cordial … Charlotte …”
He paused as if afraid of speaking more, and pressed her fingers against his lips to stop his words. Charlotte’s heart was frantic.
It’s a game. It’s all a game, she told herself.
The murder mystery wasn’t real, and neither was Mr. Mallery’s affection. But did it matter? A man was looking at her in that scrumptious way, as if he wanted to kiss her. Not really, of course, but he was a real man and he was really looking at her. Good grief, but was she lonely.
“Charlotte …” he breathed. He opened her hand and rubbed a thumb across her palm. “I feel as if I have been dead, and your eyes have awakened me.”
So this was it. She’d assumed that each guest would be the recipient of a fake but well-spoken proposal of marriage, since all of Austen’s heroines were so lucky. But she hadn’t imagined it happening in a dark, dusty room where she’d once run into a dead body. Or thought she had.
Her own body didn’t mind the macabre environs. Her heart was rattling out a rhumba; her stomach felt all fluttery and wonderful. Even when her mind clamped down, getting stubborn and practical, her body still relished the farce. Her body floated.
“I knew from the first that you were a formidable woman. I thought I could keep my heart safe, but your honest looks and gestures leave me defenseless, your beauty undoes me.” He ran his thumb lightly over her freckles. “I knew you were a dangerous woman, but I did not care.”
Wait, was the actor speaking or Mr. Mallery the character?
“Let’s not play chase any longer—let’s not play anything. I am impatient to leave pretense behind. Please, Charlotte, tell me I do not love you in vain. Please assure me of your own attachment, or I know I will die.”
He had to be acting, right? And couldn’t she just pretend for a time? Couldn’t she stop inventing murders and mayhem and problems to fix and simply enjoy the story? Yes, she could! She was about to assure him of her attachment, and to use archaic verb formations in the process just to get into the mood, when he reached out and smoothed a strand of her hair off her forehead, tucking it behind her ear. Exactly as James used to do, back when he loved her.
Charlotte reacted as if she’d been zapped with electricity. Mr. Mallery was like James was like Mr. Mallery was touching her, alone with her, seemingly adoring her. She stumbled away, her mind screaming, This is crazy! How do I process? I can’t process! Her hip knocked a little table, and the black Chinese vase and its coy little lid tipped and fell on the ground with a crack. Something tumbled out of its previously empty interior.
A key. The key was attached to a big fat key ring, like the kind that came from the dealer, branded with the car’s make. A circle divided into fourths, white and blue. The BMW logo.
That vase had been empty. Mr. Mallery had put the key in there. Why? Because she’d suggested a room search, and the key ring was too big to flush down the toilet. The night after Bloody Murder, Mr. Mallery had returned to this room, dumped the body out the window, gone downstairs and carried it to the trunk of Mr. Wattlesbrook’s car, then driven the car into the pond to hide it. But perhaps out of habit, he’d locked the doors and pocketed the key. And now, threatened with exposure, he’d naturally returned to the room where he’d hidden Mr. Wattlesbrook, a room that most people did not know existed. As far as he knew, Charlotte had accidentally stumbled into it the night of Bloody Murder and never gone back. So Mr. Mallery had concealed the clue of the key in his favorite hiding spot until he could dispose of it permanently. And he did all that because he’d murdered Mr. Wattlesbrook.
Charlotte saw the key, processed the murder, and had one second to react. Time seemed to slow. She could try to play innocent. But Mr. Mallery already knew: Charlotte was clever. She could not undo such a thing as proven cleverness.
How inconvenient clever women must be to men like Mr. Mallery. If only she’d been frivolous, light-minded, vapid even. Generally speaking, when a man is a murderer and a woman uncovers the unmistakable clue pointing to him, it would be so much easier if that woman were dull-witted. A clever woman can get herself killed.
The second passed, and clever Charlotte had no clever plan. She looked from the key to Mr. Mallery. He looked back. His expression was no longer alluring.
“Oops. Do you think Mrs. Wattlesbrook will be angry I broke the vase?” Charlotte said, adding a desperate bat of her eyelashes. “I hope it wasn’t valuable.”
Mr. Mallery did not blink. He said, “I wish you had not seen that.”
She nodded. Her rush of words was gone, the giddiness in her head emptying like a tipped goldfish bowl.
“You’ve made things much more difficult, Mrs. Cordial.”
“Sorry,” she said.
Yes, she apologized to a murderer for uncovering his bloody crime. Even in this moment, about to be killed, Charlotte was aware enough to cringe at herself.