Midnight in Austenland (Austenland 2)

There was silence. The room was absolutely dark after the departure of that single light. Charlotte didn’t dare move for fear of touching people unexpectedly, and maybe in unexpected places, which would so not be Regency appropriate.

“Should we sit down?” Miss Gardenside whispered.

“I fear I would sit on you rather than the sofa,” Eddie whispered back.

“Why are we whispering?” Miss Charming whispered.

“Well, we are in a dark room with a murderer,” said Charlotte. “No need to alert him to our presence.”

“Ho hum, poor me,” Mr. Mallery said somewhere to her left. “A murderer, all alone, and no one to murder. If only a potential victim would speak up and alert me to her presence.”

Miss Gardenside giggled.

“Got you!” Eddie said suddenly, seizing the lady’s arm.

Miss Gardenside screamed. So did Charlotte. Stupid brothers.

“What? Wait! Do not start without me,” Colonel Andrews said, rushing back in, the candle flame bobbing. He placed the candle in a holder on the mantel. “We are safe. The servants absconded, and the house is ours. Go on, Mallery. W

e will give you till fifty.”

Charlotte stood close to the candle and watched their elected murderer leave the room, his expression decidedly sneaky. Charlotte put her arm through Miss Charming’s.

“Want to be hiding buddies?” she whispered.

“Don’t be silly,” Miss Charming whispered back. “If we’re together, it makes cornering a gentleman and accidentally kissing him on the mouth a lot harder.”

“Oh. Right, of course …”

Colonel Andrews took care of the counting. “Fifty” came quickly. Charlotte could see the indistinct figures of Miss Charming and Miss Gardenside bobbing with excitement as they ventured off into the inky house. The colonel and Eddie both wore dark jackets, and the blackness swallowed them up at once.

Stop it, Charlotte. This is just a children’s game. And you aren’t a child. You’re fine.

Her heart beat like a fleeing rabbit’s, but she left the safety of the drawing room and its single spark of light. She could hear the creak of steps and hurried breaths of the others, and she tried to make for the sounds, hoping for any companion in the dark. She thought she was on the trail of Colonel Andrews, but when she caught up with him, instead she found her own face in a mirror guarding the dining room.

“Hello?” she whispered in the black. “Hello? Anyone there?”

A rustle from the corner. Was it Mr. Mallery? He wasn’t really a murderer, of course. Nothing to fear. And if it was Mr. Mallery, she could yell “bloody murder” and get this game over with.

She reached out, feeling cloth. Her breath caught. His jacket? No, it felt like velvet. The drapes.

The sound of running feet upstairs sent her spinning, looking for danger. The drawing room and the safety of its candle felt way too far away. She started to run and slammed her leg into a chair. A cry escaped her lips, and she might have fallen, but hands caught her. She couldn’t scream—her breath was already gone. But the hands were warm and righted her, one holding her hand, one steadying her back.

“Are you hurt?” Mr. Mallery whispered. She could hear his distinct tone in that whisper, even if she couldn’t make out his face. “Your heart is thumping like a beast.”

She wasn’t surprised he could feel her heartbeat through her back. She could feel it in her fingernails and eyelashes.

“You scared me,” she said.

“Isn’t that the purpose of the game?” he asked. “Truly, I am not certain, so perhaps you could enlighten me.”

“I’m as much in the dark as you are,” she said, then laughed.

He didn’t laugh, but his hand moved on her back, a comforting kind of pat. It was so small a gesture but felt like fire on her skin, and instead of calming, the pounding of her chest magnified. A man was holding her in the dark. She sighed at her own pathetic heart.

“I believe you are obliged to yell ‘bloody murder,’ ” he said.

“I don’t really want to.” She wanted to stay still. For the briefest moment, the dark felt like a good place to be.