My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)(26)

There was a noise from the hall. She and Bran froze. Then a pair of small dark shapes appeared from around the corner. Charlotte lifted her spectacles. Drat. It was her sisters. (Normally she quite enjoyed the company of her sisters, but this news of Bran’s was just very good and she wanted to grill him about it, which she couldn’t very well do with her little sisters standing there. Double drat.)

“Bran,” the younger girl cried. “I knew I heard your voice!”

“Annie, my little mouse.” Bran dropped to his knees and opened his arms as she ran to him. He reached out a hand to Emily. “Em.”

“What are you doing here?” Emily asked, frowning deeply. “If Miss Scatcherd sees you . . .”

“Bran has been given a new employment . . . opportunity,” Charlotte explained quietly. “He was working nearby and decided to pop in to see us. Isn’t that nice of him? But now he has to go before he gets us all expelled.”

“What kind of employment opportunity?” Emily never could mind her own business. (In that way, she was entirely like Charlotte.)

Anne gazed up at Bran. “Aren’t you going to be a parson, like Father?”

“No, darling, I’m going to be—”

“Actually, he can’t tell us,” Charlotte interrupted. “He’s been sworn to—”

“I’m an agent for the SRWS,” he announced.

Charlotte sighed.

Anne’s mouth went into a little O. “The Society? However did you manage that, Bran?” Anne was precocious for a twelve-year-old. Charlotte sometimes thought Anne was smarter than all the rest of them put together.

“It’s, er, kind of a funny story,” Bran said.

“So you’re a ghost hunter, then.” Anne took her brother’s face in her small hands and looked at him with the utmost seriousness. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

“There’s no danger. Ghosts can’t harm the living,” Charlotte said. “Unless you’re the sort who’d be scared to death.”

“No, I mean, you won’t scare away Maria and Lizzie, will you?” Anne asked earnestly.

All four Bront? children fell silent. They never spoke of their older sisters. Their father couldn’t even bear to hear their names. He’d wanted to bring them all home after the Graveyard Disease had taken the two oldest and so many others at the school. But they couldn’t afford it.

“They keep me company sometimes,” Anne said. “Don’t make them go, Bran.”

“I . . . won’t,” Bran stammered. He glanced around quickly. “Have you seen them here at the school, Annie, dear?”

She smiled but said nothing.

“What do you mean, has she seen them?” Emily crossed her arms. “She can’t have seen them. They’re gone.” (Emily was the no-nonsense one of the family. She didn’t believe in ghosts. Not yet, anyway.)

“What does Father have to say about this whole Society situation?” Charlotte was suddenly keen to change the subject.

“He doesn’t know. He thinks I’m studying business in London.” Bran ruffled Anne’s hair. “You won’t tell on me, will you?”

Anne shook her head. (Unlike Bran, she was quite capable of keeping secrets.)

The clock in the hall chimed four.

“I must be off,” Bran said, extricating himself from Anne’s thin arms and rising to his feet. “But I shall return tomorrow, dear ones. If Mr. Blackwood allows me to accompany him this time, but I think he will. We’re becoming quite bonded after all we’ve been through together. So you’ll get to see me in my official Society capacity. Hard at work. I won’t be able to converse with you directly, but I will see you in the morning.”

He crossed to the window and was halfway out of it before Charlotte could process what he’d said.

“Wait!” She caught him by the arm and pulled him back into the room. “Why is Mr. Blackwood coming here tomorrow?”

“We’re recruiting a new member. Extremely confidential business, though. Don’t tell. Mr. Blackwood returned to London, but now we’ve been sent back. So I’ve got to make sure his clothes are pressed and laid out for tomorrow’s engagement with Miss—”

Charlotte clapped a hand over his mouth. “Don’t say the word ‘engagement’ so loudly around here, Bran. Especially when it has to do with Jane Eyre.”

His brown eyes widened theatrically behind his glasses. “How did you know we are seeking out Miss Eyre?”

“I’m a genius,” Charlotte said impatiently. “That, and Mr. Blackwood’s already been to see her three times. So it’s rather predictable, wouldn’t you say?”

“You’re going to press Mr. Blackwood’s clothes?” Emily, as usual, had gotten stuck on the insignificant detail. She smirked. “You know how to press clothes?”

“I’ll do whatever he asks of me,” Bran said brightly. “And if I don’t know how, I’ll learn. I think very highly of Alexander . . . Mr. Blackwood. I’d like to impress him if I can.”

“But Mr. Blackwood cannot see Miss Eyre,” Charlotte said. “It is quite impossible.”

Now it was Bran who frowned, an expression that did not come naturally to his face. “Why is it impossible?”