My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)(112)

It was a bit of a convoluted story, but this was the gist of it: Jane was a cousin to the Bront?s. And now she was apparently loaded.

Well, that had changed things for everyone.

You’d think that Jane would have been overjoyed about the money. It was twenty thousand pounds. But Jane hadn’t cared about the money. In fact, she’d immediately shared her inheritance with the Bront?s, as she felt they stood to receive a portion of the duke’s money equally. What had mattered to Jane, what had always been what mattered to Jane, it turned out, was that now she had family. She had actual blood relations, and she delighted in every new member of her familial circle—Charlotte and Bran, of course, and Emily and little Anne, who they’d brought home immediately from school. They’d all settled down at Haworth together, and spent their days writing stories and drawing pictures and painting and generally having the very best time imaginable.

Which brings us back to Jane and Charlotte in the garden, Charlotte reading to Jane a complete draft of what was going to become one of the most famous novels ever written.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to write it as it really happened?” Charlotte asked Jane.

Jane shook her head, her expression thoughtful. “No. Your Jane Eyre should end up with Mr. Rochester, I think.”

Mr. Rochester, they knew, had taken his wife and little Adele to the South of France, where they were, as far as the Bront? clan was aware, living in blissful obscurity and recovering from years of abuse and separation. But Jane still thought about Mr. Rochester from time to time. And it pained her. Charlotte could tell.

She sighed. “The truth was ever so much more exciting.”

“But who’d believe it?” Jane argued. “Ghosts and possessions and people who trap the wayward spirits of the dead? What a tall tale, indeed. Besides, we’ve all agreed that the Society should be a secret. Now that Mr. Blackwood is running things. No, it’s my story, in a way, my name anyway, and I want it to be a love story.”

Charlotte nodded. It was Jane’s story, and Charlotte had felt privileged to be allowed to write any part of it at all. But at the same time what she’d written made her feel sad for Jane. Jane had not actually been allowed to be part of any great love story. It was like she’d been robbed of her own well-deserved happy ending.

But Jane claimed that she was content with her life. She turned back to her painting, which was turning out to be the best she’d ever attempted. She stretched her arms and gazed out on the hillside before them, where the spring-green grasses of the moors swayed in the breeze. But Jane was not painting the moors. She was not painting a young woman with golden hair in a white dress, either. Today Jane was working in all reds and oranges, reconstructing the vision of a fire—the House of Lords and Commons ablaze against a night sky. When she looked at it she could still feel the heat of that fateful night, the smoke, the uncertainty and then relief of their victory over Wellington. It’d been a terrifying ordeal, but she also believed that it was the night her life had truly begun.

“There is one mystery left to be solved, however,” Charlotte said to Jane.

“What mystery?”

“Who killed Mr. Brocklehurst?”

“Oh.” Jane cringed. “That was Miss Temple.”

“The obvious choice.” Charlotte sounded disappointed.

“Well, Miss Temple gave him the tea. Miss Smith made the tea. Miss Scatcherd procured the poison.”

“Oh. Oh . . . So it was a group effort.” For once, Charlotte didn’t ask another question, because at the same time both girls heard the sound of hoofbeats on the road. Then happy squeals from Emily and Anne inside the house. And presently Alexander appeared on the garden path. His gaze locked with Charlotte’s, and she blushed, her eyes bright behind her glasses.

“Mr. Blackwood,” she murmured.

“Miss Bront?. You’re looking well.”

“To what do we owe the pleasure?” Jane asked. “Is everything all right?”

“As good as it can be, although we’re eagerly awaiting your return,” Alexander said. “We need our Beacon.”

Jane nodded. “Soon. But for now I am enjoying my time here.”

“I’ll go,” said Charlotte, and blushed again.

“We would gladly have you,” Alexander replied, smiling with his eyes. “We can always use persons of great wit, intelligence, and veracity. And I would welcome it, especially.” He straightened his cravat and cleared his throat. “But that’s not what I’ve come about. There’s been an interesting new development.”

Charlotte and Jane exchanged glances. They didn’t know how many more “interesting developments” they could handle.

“Come,” Alexander bid them. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

They followed him back into the house and into the parlor, where they found a slender, smartly dressed young man standing at the window with his hands clasped behind him.

“Edward,” Alexander said. “May I present Miss Charlotte Bront? and Miss Jane Eyre?”

The boy turned. Jane’s breath caught. It wasn’t that he was attractive—although he undoubtedly was. He was young, probably sixteen or seventeen, at most. And he was tall. Dark. Handsome. His black hair had a charming curl to it as it fell to just below his ears, which made him seem slightly wild and windblown—or it could have been because he’d just been out in the Yorkshire wind, who knows. His smile contained a hint of playfulness. His forehead, Jane thought, was the kind to inspire sculpture.