My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)(31)

“I can’t afford any more delays, Miss Bront?.”

“Please stop talking, Miss Bront?.”

Nevertheless, she persisted.

She followed along as he and Branwell prepared to depart, and was about to step into the carriage when Alexander held out a hand to stop her. “Go home, Miss Bront?.”

“I don’t have a home, Mr. Blackwood,” she argued. “I mean, my place of residence is Lowood, but I’ve never considered it my true home. How could it be? It’s a place as lacking for any person with imagination as . . . well, as one can imagine. And I suppose I could consider my family’s house in Haworth as home. . . . It’s where I was born and where my father still lives. . . .”

Ah, yes. Now he could see how she and Branwell were related.

“I’m going to help you, whether you like it or not.”

“You can’t help me,” he sighed. “You’re just a girl.”

But she refused to step down from the carriage. “That makes no sense. My gender has nothing to do with my helpfulness in this situation.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “You’re only sixteen.”

“You’re eighteen,” she shot back. “And Bran is fifteen. What’s your point?”

Alexander turned sharply to Branwell. “You’re fifteen? You said you were seventeen when you were inducted.”

Branwell’s cheeks were red as his hair. “I may have exaggerated my age a bit.”

“Miss Bront? . . .” Alexander dragged his hand down the front of his face.

“Mr. Blackwood,” she returned. “I’m coming.”

“But why?”

“Because, quite simply, you need me.”

“Why would I possibly need you?” he asked wearily.

“Answer me this, Mr. Blackwood. What was your plan?”

“My plan?”

“Exactly. You don’t know where Jane is. I do.”

He frowned. “I could just go to Lowood and ask them.”

“If you do,” she said, “I shall tell everyone you’re there to arrest Miss Eyre for murder and then they’ll never tell you.”

He dragged his other hand down his face. “Miss Bront?.”

“Anyway”—Miss Bront? lifted her chin—“were you going to try recruiting her the same way you have three times already? Because none of those times have ended with success.”

“But I’ve been authorized to offer her better accommodations. A grocery budget.”

“I didn’t know those were options,” said Branwell from inside the carriage.

Miss Bront? was shaking her head. “Not to be rude, Mr. Blackwood, but what could you possibly know about a girl like Jane Eyre? Perhaps the request would be better coming from a woman who she knows has her best interests at heart.”

Alexander couldn’t really say anything to that.

“Jane is my best friend,” Miss Bront? went on. “If anyone can persuade her to accept your offer, I can.”

“So you need to go,” he said. “To persuade her.”

She nodded. “And because I’m not going to even tell you where she is unless you let me get into that carriage.”

There was a long moment while he thought about it. Then he sighed again and stepped back, leaving the door to the carriage open so she could pass. Miss Bront? bounced down onto the seat next to her brother. Alexander settled carefully across from them and called out the window.

“Where to?” asked the driver.

Alexander sent a pointed look at Miss Bront?. Maybe once she told the driver, he could stop by Lowood and deposit her back at school first.

“Head south.” And then she sent a pointed look to him. “You’d leave me behind if I said where she was.”

“Would not,” Alexander said.

“Would too,” Miss Bront? said.

“Absolutely would,” Branwell muttered.

Alexander would never admit to sulking, but that’s probably the most accurate description of what he did the first hour of the drive. Branwell had gone to sleep (not having slept yet), and Miss Bront? was happily writing in her notebook.

“I’m excited to work with such a distinguished organization,” Miss Bront? said. “I heard that decades ago, there was a gang of ghosts terrorizing the shopkeepers of London. They kept robbing the shops and singing ‘God Save the Queen’ so loudly that even normal people could hear it. Then a single Society agent chased the entire gang through the Tower of London and tricked them into being relocated. Is that true?” Her pen was poised over the paper, though how she could write in the bouncing carriage, Alexander could not begin to guess.

“It’s true,” he said. “But it’s unlikely we will ever be able to accomplish such feats again. At least now that the king has cut funding. I don’t see how we can continue for much longer unless we can persuade him of our usefulness. Our importance.”

Branwell cracked open an eye—not asleep after all—and said, “The Society is doomed.”

“I’d read that the king’s cut funding.” Miss Bront? lowered her pen. “And just as I come on as an assistant. This is terrible. Please explain.”

Alexander most certainly didn’t have to explain anything. Society agents never explained themselves. But the determination on Miss Bront?’s face was so genuine, just as real as her eagerness to work for the SRWS.