My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)(107)

“What is it, Miss Poole?” Wellesley said. “Why are you shaking the box?”

“I’m not shaking it,” she said.

Jane stole a glance at Bertha, who was staring at Jane with a subtle smile. Jane raised her eyebrows and Bertha nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Miss Poole, stop shaking the box,” Wellesley demanded.

“I’m not,” she insisted.

With Wellesley’s attention on the box, Jane and Bertha took the opportunity. They scrambled toward each other, and clasped hands.

And that was when the entire room began to convulse with rattling talismans.

“What is happening?” the duke said. The guards glanced nervously at one another. A glass cup flew off a shelf and struck one of them in the head. He crumpled to the floor. The rest of the guards (there were only three left) abandoned their posts and bolted for the door.

They were definitely not getting paid enough for this.

Wellington’s alarmed gaze fell on Jane and Bertha, and then down at their clasped hands. “Stop this!”

He lunged toward them but before he could separate them, a hairbrush flew off a shelf and hit him on the head.

“No possessing!” Bertha shouted to any ghosts who could hear her from inside the talismans.

“Right,” Jane said. Beacons couldn’t control a ghost who was possessing a human. It would be chaos.

Blackwood and Mr. Rochester watched the two women in amazement. “Get down!” Jane commanded them.

Jane could feel the energy swirling between herself and Bertha. At the same time, she could feel it draining as the room continued to shudder. They would not be able to keep it up for long.

The flying hairbrush had stunned the duke enough for him to drop his gun, but only momentarily. He reached down and grabbed it and swung it toward Mr. Rochester, but a shoe hit his hand, flinging the gun across the room.

The women were focused on Wellington, since he was the one with the gun, so they did not notice Grace Poole sneaking up on them.

The servant lunged toward Bertha and tackled her to the ground, breaking the physical connection.

The room went still.

Mr. Blackwood and the duke both turned toward the gun and dove for it. Each of them got a hand on it, and they struggled to gain control. Mr. Rochester flew to Blackwood’s aid, but the guard who had been hit with the glass cup had regained consciousness and he tackled Mr. Rochester before he got very far.

Grace Poole was on top of Bertha, and the sheer girth of her was enough to hold her down. She put her hands around Bertha’s throat.

“I’ve dreamed of doing this,” she said. “I wanted to kill you from the start. But they just couldn’t get rid of a Beacon.”

Jane jumped on Grace Poole’s back and put her arms around her throat but the woman’s neck was as thick and sturdy as a tree trunk. Jane’s slight build wasn’t going to be enough.

Bertha scratched and clawed at the hands around her throat, all the while making terrible choking sounds.

Jane looked frantically around, but the talismans were annoyingly small. She grabbed a perfume bottle and struck Grace Poole’s head as hard as she could.

But the woman was a beast.

Bertha’s eyes fluttered shut.

Mr. Rochester was subdued by the guard.

The duke and Mr. Blackwood continued their struggle, but the duke was gaining the upper hand. Several shots went off in the commotion.

Jane thought fast.

She laid down next to Bertha and grabbed her hand. The force between them was not as strong, as Bertha was near the point of passing out.

Jane closed her eyes and focused all of her strength and energy on the nearest shelves of talismans. She used everything she had inside of her. Every strike of her face at the hand of her abusive aunt Reed. Every gurgling sound her stomach had made through years of starvation. Every friend she’d lost to the Graveyard Disease. Every chill she’d felt in her bones due to years of nearly freezing to death. Every fear she’d felt in the Red Room.

She used it all.

The room began to shake once again.

Jane opened her eyes in time to see a string of talismans striking Grace Poole. They flew with such speed that they appeared only as streaks in the air.

Bertha opened her eyes and used her free hand to shove Grace off her.

The two Beacons stood, luminous and glowing, their clasped hands high in the air.

More talismans flew off shelves and struck the duke and the guard.

The duke was quickly subdued, and within moments, Alexander was standing over him with the gun.

Bertha and Jane finally released their hands, and both women dropped to the ground in complete exhaustion.

“You would not kill me, my boy,” the duke said in a weak whisper.

“I am not your boy,” Mr. Blackwood said.

The smell of smoke reached Jane’s nostrils, and it was followed quickly by the sight of flames licking up the wall on the other side of the room. During the fight, candles must have been knocked over. The group would have to escape the room, and soon.

Mr. Blackwood focused on the duke as the women tried to catch their breath.

A faint voice came from the doorway. “Mr. Blackwood?”

The group turned toward the sound just in time to see Charlotte there, clutching her chest. Then she collapsed.

“Miss Bront?!” Mr. Blackwood shoved the gun into Mr. Rochester’s hand and raced across the room. He crouched down and gathered Charlotte in his arms. Jane’s heart fell at the sight.