Being in a hidden room with Mallery again—her heart doing that manic tickety-tack, tickety-tack—felt so familiar.
Mallery whispered, “Do you promise to stay quiet?” she nodded under his hand.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said, letting go.
“I don’t believe you.” She hadn’t meant to keep her promise. She’d planned on screaming bloody murder to alert Eddie, but it was hard to talk at all. She felt as if she were underwater, her lungs tight, the pressure of the pond pushing her head down.
Mallery guided her to a small sofa in the dark and invited her to take a seat. Her head brushed a ceiling that slanted down, and she realized they were in the space under the stairs. This scarcely qualified as a secret room—more of a secret hole, or nook, or niche even, perhaps a cavity or alcove …
Come up with synonyms all you want, said her Inner Thoughts. It’s not distracting me from the fact that you’re stupid.
“I am happy you came to me, Charlotte,” Mallery said, sitting beside her.
Uh-huh. “Eddie is out there. And he’s … he’s armed. And the police are on their way.”
Mallery ignored this, but the calm in his voice was forced, fraying at the edges. “I would not have done what I did if there had been another way. Wattlesbrook did not deserve to live. He had no respect for women or ancient edifices.”
She had a sudden image of Mallery the night Pembrook Cottage was burning, running to the pond for water and racing back to the fire, tossing bucket after useless bucket on the growing flames. He must have been mad with frustration. The fire had burned fast, the firefighters had come too late, and the pond water had done nothing. Not that night. But he’d returned to the pond two days later, and then its waters had been very effective at swallowing a car with a body in the trunk. That is, until Charlotte had taken an afternoon plunge.
“You know it’s not really 1816, right?” she said. “You’re not delusional. Pembrook Park was never your grandfather’s, and killing Mr. Wattlesbrook to protect your workplace seems extreme. So, why?”
He didn’t answer.
“Wattlesbrook burned down the cottage, lost Windy Nook and Bertram Hall because of his incompetence, and planned to divorce his wife and sell off Pembrook Park. Why do you, the real you, care so much? Is it because you belong here, as Neville said? I can believe that. You know it’s fantasy, but it’s as real as you can get to being where you feel you belong. Maybe killing him seemed like a necessity. You were protecting yourself, as you saw it anyway. It was practically self-defense.”
His voice was a raw whisper. “Self-defense of the most sublime nature.”
“But you tried to kill me, and that wasn’t self-defense.”
No response.
“One thing I admire about this era that you love so much is the civility. Etiquette is observed, respect maintained. Whatever your reasons, strangling me in the storage room was pretty darn uncivil, and I’d like a real apology.”
“I am sorry I tried to kill you. I am, Charlotte. I am seared with regret. At the time … I … I saw no other way.”
His voice did sound sincere, and that, for some reason, made her spitting mad.
“What you’re doing to Mary is cruel, you know. You don’t really love her.”
“She has desires that don’t fit in her world. I help her realize them.”
“She covered up your deeds. She attacked me. She’ll probably go to jail for a long time.”
“I am sorry she was captured, but all she did was her choice.”
Charlotte felt his finger touch her cheek.
“Charlotte?” she heard Eddie call. He sounded far away.
“You killed a man.” She couldn’t help trying to make him feel some regret for the murder. “He was alive and you killed him. Whether or not he was pond scum, that wasn’t your choice to make.”
“But it was,” he said, his whisper so low now there was no tone in it. “He was worth less than the damage he did. It was within my power to stop him, and so it became my responsibility.”
“You could be hundreds of miles away by now,” she whispered. “Why did you stay? What are you really afraid of, Mallery?”
He put a hand on the back of her neck and pressed his forehead against her temple. She could feel the breath from his whisper on her cheek.
“I do not know where else in this world I can exist.”
He sure sounds delusional, her Inner Thoughts said.
Charlotte wondered if she would have recognized the crazy much earlier if he looked more like Steve Buscemi than Mr. Medieval Hotness. She was about to, in appropriately ladylike terms, ask him to get his hands off her, when his lips were on hers. It was so surprising she didn’t move.
He withdrew his lips but left his fingertips on her face. “I know why you made me nervous, Mrs. Cordial. To yearn for you, and yet be forbidden to touch you.”
“Your character was scripted to love me,” she whispered, almost feeling sorry for him. He sounded heartfelt. “None of that is real.”
“It is all real, Mrs. Cordial. All.”
“Charlotte?” Eddie called, his voice still faint but perhaps closer.
Charlotte saw a flicker of light. There must be a small hole in the bookcase for spying out, she thought. Eddie was probably in the sitting room, for the moment anyway.
“Eddie—” Charlotte breathed.
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.