Midnight in Austenland (Austenland 2)

“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.