Midnight in Austenland (Austenland 2)

“I know, but I don’t want to complain. I worry she has enough to juggle.”

“Mrs. Wattlesbrook is a very capable woman.”

Aha! His face lit up, his hands clasping earnestly in front of his body. Oh yes, Neville felt quite the opposite about the woman Wattlesbrook.

“She’s the best,” said Charlotte, dangling the hook.

“I am happy you see her truly, madam.”

She smiled at the butler and made again to leave, but asked on her way out, “Oh, by the way, how did Mr. Wattlesbrook arrive here?”

“He generally comes in his own … vehicle.”

Of course he would drive a car. This was not a man who cared about keeping up Regency appearances. “And is that ‘vehicle’ still around? I just don’t want to see it, if you know what I mean. I’m trying to be immersive!” she added gamely.

“I noticed it gone, madam. That is why I am certain the gentleman is gone as well.”

Charlotte thanked him and went upstairs to investigate Mrs. Hatchet’s room. The drawers and wardrobes were empty, but there was an ominous-looking trunk at the foot of the bed.

A dead body could fit inside there, she thought.

But it was empty too. She wished Colonel Andrews would be more obvious with his mystery. She left the room just as Miss Gardenside was entering her own.

“Charlotte! What were you doing in my—in Mrs. Hatchet’s room?”

“I was looking for clues to Colonel Andrews’s mystery.”

“The Mary Francis affair? In Mrs. Hatchet’s room?”

“Yes. Well, Mrs. Hatchet did disappear, and I thought maybe it was just a hoax.”

Complete bafflement registered on Miss Gardenside’s face.

“She went home,” Miss Gardenside said.

“Okay. I guess I just got carried away.” Charlotte made her halfhearted smile.

“Why would you think my mother would be involved?

“Mother?”

“Did I say ‘mother’? Odd, I don’t know what I meant.”

Miss Gardenside shrugged prettily and went through her door.

Charlotte remembered her mentioning that her mother bore scars on her knuckles from nuns’ rulers, which must mean she’d attended a Catholic school. And once she’d seen Mrs. Hatchet cross herself—forehead, heart, shoulder, shoulder—an unconscious gesture, the reflex of a lifelong Catholic. Mrs. Hatchet was pale and blonde, but Miss Gardenside could have a dark-skinned father or be adopted. So, Mrs. Hatchet was her mother. And she had sent her away. Or something.

In the safety of her own room, Charlotte started to dress for dinner, but the excitement of the mystery made her too antsy to do up the hooks, and she didn’t want to ring for Mary. Mary—she had the same name as Mary Francis. Maybe that was a clue?

Stop it, Charlotte! She lay on her bed and tried to thrust the crumbling abbey and Mr. Wattlesbrook’s car from her thoughts. Obviously she was getting way more into this than Miss Gardenside and Miss Charming were.

You’re doing that thing you do whenever you’re supposed to relax, she told herself. Hunting out any old problem just so you can solve it.

Yeah, you totally do that, added her Inner Thoughts. So why didn’t you figure out the million clues pointing to James’s affair? How can you be so hawkeyed and yet so dense?

Her Inner Thoughts could be a real downer. Charlotte put her arm over her eyes. No more unraveling just to avoid leisure. She exhaled slowly and cleansed her mind of this Gothic mystery. Done.

Other thoughts promptly swooshed in to take their place: