Midnight in Austenland
Page 41

“Or the lives of others,” said Eddie.
“So he proposed we lock him up till he sobered up.”
“On the second floor?” Charlotte asked.
Eddie nodded. “In an uninhabited bedroom. But in the morning the door was unlocked and he was gone.”
“Don’t take it personally, Grey,” said Colonel Andrews. “Perhaps he did not particularly enjoy that jab to the jaw.”
Eddie rubbed his face.
The colonel laughed and said, “The old man would not shut up, speaking nastily about his wife, and your brother, here, decided a fist to the face was just the remedy.”
“Did any of you stay with him?” she asked.
“No,” said Eddie, looking at her curiously. “We locked him up and left. There was a bed in the room and a pitcher of water—”
“And a chamber pot,” the colonel added.
“So how did he get out of the room?”
Colonel Andrews shrugged. “I suppose Mrs. Wattlesbrook let him out. Why? Have you seen the gentleman about?”
“No,” she said significantly. “Is that strange?”
The colonel shrugged again, and Eddie did not answer.
Neville entered and began to clean up.
The butler’s got a thing for the missus, Charlotte thought. But enough to motivate him to murder her husband? He didn’t seem guilty.
Then again, neither had James.
Charlotte joined the gentlemen and ladies for a walk around the gardens and wondered who else might want Mr. Wattlesbrook dead. He’d signed away Windy Nook and Bertram Hall and burned down Pembrook Cottage. Perhaps someone feared Pembrook Park was next.
“What a lovely day!” Miss Charming declared, her face strained, as if desperate for it to be true.
Why so desperate? Charlotte observed her all morning. Between the “halloos” and “what-whats,” before the giggles and after the gusty sighs, Charlotte detected fear.
She followed Miss Charming to her room before lunch and sat on her bed, waiting till she emerged from her bathroom.
“Charlotte! You made me jump out of my skin.”
“Lizzy, I’ve noticed that you seem to be … well, afraid. Of something.”
Miss Charming began to blink rapidly. She looked behind her at the open door, as if checking for eavesdroppers.
“It’s all right, Lizzy,” Charlotte whispered, patting the bed beside her, an invitation. “You can tell me.”
Miss Charming sat, squeezed her eyes shut, and nodded. She whispered wetly, “It’s my Bobby.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“My Bobby. And that toothpick.”
Charlotte wasn’t sure how a toothpick was involved—as a murder weapon?
Miss Charming began to talk like an erupting volcano. “Bobby and me’d been together since grade school. We were king and queen of the prom! And then thirty—er, a few years later, I catch him on a mattress sample with that toothpick of a girl. We sold mattresses, you know. Thousands of them. Eighteen stores in the tristate area, best bargains east of the Mississippi. ‘The Mattress Shack has got your back!’ ” she sang. “I came up with that jingle. I was the brains, he was the brawn, till I found him on a mattress sample with an assistant salesclerk named Heather. What kind of name is ‘Heather’ anyway? Sounds like a disease.”
This was not the course Charlotte had been expecting.
“So, you were afraid?” Charlotte prompted.
“I took the alimony and ran—cruises and resorts, till I found Pembrook Park. And I don’t want to leave, ever. ’Cause back home I’ll be the fat girl Bobby Murdock dumped, and our stores aren’t mine anymore, and at least here no one can dump me again.”
A burbling sound started inside Miss Charming that soon changed into sobs.
“You’ve been a guest at Pembrook Park for how long?” asked Charlotte.
“Well … I started on last fall, but they close up for December and January, and so I went on a cruise to the Mediterranean. And Greece is snazzy, honey lamb, and the food in Italy was bushel baskets better than here, but I got lonely. I came back again in March, and now everything’s great!” She smiled with big, white teeth, her cheeks trembling a little to hold it.
“How can you afford to just stay here, session after session?”
“Oh, I got loads.” She blew her nose. “I guess that’s all I got.”
Charlotte rubbed Miss Charming’s arm. She knew from experience how little such a gesture could do to relieve that stabbing heart pain.
So she said, “My husband left me for a woman named ‘Justice.’ ”
“Seriously? ‘Justice’? That’s worse than ‘Heather’!” Miss Charming put her arms around Charlotte and squeezed her like a favorite teddy bear. “I’m so glad you’ve been dumped too.”
Charlotte guessed that wasn’t exactly what Miss Charming meant, so she hugged her back.
“We’re not supposed to talk about our other lives,” Miss Charming whispered.
“I won’t tell. Were you serious before, when you said you can tell fakes from real?”
“Lifelong talent. I should’ve seen Bobby’s affair from a mile off, but it’s hard to get a good look at someone when he’s breathing in your ear.”
“Don’t I know it. What do you think about the other Pembrook folk. Fake or real?”
“Lemme see … Colonel Andrews is real in a way, but just because his phoniness really is him. Mr. Grey seems real, but I’m not sure. Miss Gardenside is as fake as they come. Mr. Mallery and Mrs. Wattlesbrook are real as real.”
“And me?”
“You’re solid gold, weighed and minted.” Miss Charming gave Charlotte a big wet kiss on the cheek, sniffed deeply, and smiled despite her red eyes.
Charlotte left feeling determined. Miss Charming was not the murderer, but someone was. Charlotte wanted to cross a line, ford the Rubicon, commit herself to solving this whodunit so she could put it behind her and get ready to fall in love with Mr. Mallery at the ball. Her vacation was almost over, and there hadn’t been enough vacationing going on.
She marched downstairs, peeking into rooms until she found Eddie in the library. He’d asked her to include him in her investigations, after all. And he really had the most innocent face.