Midnight in Austenland (Austenland 2)

Mallery kissed her again, longer, his arms wrapping around her. It is such an awkward thing to be the recipient of an unsolicited kiss. She didn’t want to kiss him back, and yet she was afraid he’d feel bad.

Had she really just thought that?

She put a hand on his cheek and pushed him away. “You need to turn yourself in now.”

He pulled her to her feet and stood behind her with one arm tight across her diaphragm.

“You know how much it grieves me that I hurt you,” he whispered in her ear. “You will not put me through that again, and I will not hurt you so long as you don’t hurt me, Mrs. Cordial. I cannot stay here any longer.” His voice cracked at that. “You will accompany me off Pembrook property, and then I will set you free. Unless you wish to stay with me.”

He listened by the hole in the bookcase. All was silent.

“Now behave yourself,” he whispered and pushed the wall, opening the bookcase like a swinging door into the sitting room. The bookcase clicked closed behind them.

Behave herself, huh? Absolutely. Charlotte elbowed Mallery in the gut, right where she was pretty sure she’d previously bruised his ribs. He let go.

“Bloody murder!” she screamed.

“Halt!” Eddie shouted, rushing into the room and pointing the tip of the foil at Mallery’s chest. Charlotte leapt to the side.

Mallery eyeballed the blunt tip and knocked the blade away impatiently. Eddie whipped him with it on the top of his head.

“Ow,” said Mallery.

He took a menacing step forward, but Eddie whipped him again on the shoulder.

“Stop that!” said Mallery.

The two men stared each other down.

“I have a knife,” said Mallery, pulling one from his belt.

“Mine is longer,” said Eddie.

Boys, Charlotte thought, with an internal roll of her eyes.

He whipped Mallery’s hand, and Mallery dropped his knife. They stared again. Charlotte found it all very dramatic. Mallery faked as if to pick up the knife but ran instead, dodging Eddie to get down the hall and out the charred front door. He didn’t look quite so menacing when he ran.

Eddie and Charlotte chased after him, leaping over debris and coughing on the ash his flight kicked up. Car headlights met them outside, coming from the direction of the house. The police! Mallery swerved and made toward the wood.

“That’s him! That’s him!” Charlotte yelled.

The detective’s car left the drive and crossed the lawn, the tires churning up the grass.

“Mrs. Wattlesbrook is not going to like that,” Charlotte said.

Police scrambled forward, shouting, a couple of them pulling out guns. More guns! Weren’t they supposed to just use billy clubs in England? Where had she been getting her information? The detective’s car cut off Mallery’s route to the woods, and he stopped, hands in the air.

Eddie was beside her.

“Are you happy you got to use your foil?” she asked.

He smiled, his dimples like full moons.

“I think I owe you some kind of an apology,” she said, “about how I misjudged your prowess with a weapon and how you really are dangerous.”

His arm went around her waist.

“I am officially the happiest man alive.”