Midnight in Austenland (Austenland 2)

“Excuse me,” Mary said shakily and shut the door on her way out.

Charlotte was trying to wrench open one of the windows when she heard a skin-crawling rasp behind her. Mallery had pushed a highboy to block the door. He considered his knife before putting it away. Maybe he wouldn’t hurt her after all! Maybe he just wanted to chat about stuff.

Or maybe he just preferred to kill her without a lot of blood.

“Hold still,” he said, sounding so reasonable. He came at her, and his hands looked as dangerous as any knife.

Charlotte dodged, putting furniture between her and those hands. He followed. He didn’t say anything. He was focused on catching her. And then what?

Charlotte didn’t think about what James’s reaction would be when he heard she was murdered. She only gave her children a passing thought before her mind fled in white-hot panic from the idea that she could be taken from them. Instead, she thought of Eddie, and how she very much wanted him to save her. Yes, if she could choose any man in the world to save her, it would be Eddie. But he wouldn’t, would he? Because no one knew she was here, except Mary, who’d been mesmerized into submission by the predator. Charlotte was starting to suspect that Mary was seriously messed up.

Stupid Charlotte, she screamed at herself. You believed you were clever, and that made you more vulnerable.

When the chase drew her near the window, she plucked a naked lamp from the debris and slammed it against a pane, hoping to break the window but only managing a few cracks.

“Help!” she screamed.

“You do not need to do that,” he said.

Mallery and his hands were coming at her. She ran from the window, weaving through clutter and broken furniture, trying to keep that man as far away as possible. But he kept following.

Stupid Charlotte, she screamed at herself again. Two minutes ago you considered falling in love with him!

Those fluttery feelings of new love—those lung-tickling, heart-kicking, squealing sensations of hot and cold and pulses snapping and lips wetting—they were as false as cravats and corsets. They were merely sensations, like the wrenching drop on a roller coaster that warned of impending death. She wasn’t really going to die on a roller coaster (probably not, though some were pretty scary). And just because she felt tangled up and swoony with a man didn’t mean she was in love or could be happy with him ever after.

Duh, Charlotte. Duh. You’re not going to die on a roller coaster, but you are going to die in this room.

“Help!” she yelled again.

Mallery lunged and missed. He would get her sooner or later. It would probably take several minutes to die by strangulation, his hands around her neck, her lungs burning like they had when she’d spent too much time underwater, her eyes wide open with the awareness that she was almost gone.

A sob punched her throat. Imagining how she was going to die wasn’t exactly helping her morale.

“Listen, listen,” she said, angling to keep a broken sofa and a stack of boxes between her and Mallery. “I don’t want to die, so you have a lot of bargaining power.”

He came around the side. She fled again, kicking up dust on her way to the stack of chairs. She could see him through the cage of legs.

“You write up something, I sign it. A promise that I never speak a word about my suspicions. I know Mr. Wattlesbrook was an unpleasant man, clumsy with fire and sherry and probably very gassy …” What was she saying? Focus, Charlotte, don’t be a ninny. “You don’t hurt me, and I let you get away with murder. You see? We all win!”

She tried to smile. Still, he didn’t speak.

Nice try, said her Inner Thoughts. He already knows you’re too moral to do that.

Help me or shut up! she yelled back.

His hands flexed. Charlotte ran again.

The cat-and-mouse might have gone on much longer, but Charlotte stepped on her hem. It occurred to her, the split second before she hit the floor, that men invent fashion. Men who want women in ridiculously long skirts so just in case they murder someone and a woman figures it out, she’ll be so hampered by her ridiculously long skirts that she can be killed too.

She scrambled backward and blurted desperately, “I have kids. Two kids. Beckett and Lu.”

Mallery didn’t slow. He came at her like a man at work, his hands the tool to get the job done. He really was going to do her in. A small part of herself had been hoping she was wrong, but nope. Pessimism wins again.

Killing her would hurt her kids too. She knew this with the pain of a wound. It didn’t matter that Lu hadn’t wanted to talk to her on the phone or that Beckett had called Justice “Mom.” They would suffer if she died. They would cry and ache and need years of therapy, and would James pay for it? Probably not. So they’d have to submit to school counselors who might not be properly trained because of budget cuts, and what if that wasn’t enough and the grief sent them into drugs and alcohol and depression and

meaningless sex and regrettable tattoo choices and petty crime leading up to serious crime and jail and shock therapy? What if lobotomies came back into vogue? And the surgeon messed up and they died?

And it would all be James’s fault. Wait … and Mallery’s too! It was as if Mallery had cornered not just Charlotte but also Lu and Beckett, as if he was coming at them with dangerous hands and intent to strangle, and they were scooting back and pleading for mercy, but he had none. No mercy for her children? That was so not okay.