My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)(32)

He sighed. “Very well. I’ll tell you what’s going on, but you must swear to keep it to yourself.”

“And my notes,” she said, lifting her pen again. “Go on, Mr. Blackwood. If that is your real name.”

“Of course it’s my real name! Why wouldn’t it be?”

She blinked at him. “I was only joking.”

“Right.” Alexander leaned back in his seat. “Earlier this year, His Majesty decided to balance the royal budget.”

“He kept Meals on Wheels and the National Endowment for the Arts,” Branwell said, “because we aren’t animals, for pity’s sake. But the Society . . .”

“The Society had to go,” Alexander said. “Arthur Wellesley fought hard to keep the program funded. But King William doesn’t believe in ghosts, or the need for our services. He cut the program, saying that Wellington could find alternative funding for the Society if he wished. He suggested we ask France to pay for it.”

“What did France say?” Miss Bront?’s pen skittered across the page.

“They said no,” Alexander said. “That’s when we started charging for our services, but I still believe ghost relocation should be free for everyone, not just the wealthy.”

“So what you’re saying,” Miss Bront? said, “is that the Society can’t pay assistants well, but it does pay some.”

How was this the main thing she’d managed to take away from the Society’s money problems? “Wellington has sworn he’ll do whatever it takes to keep the Society running,” Alexander said. “No matter the cost. But it may be futile if we can’t recruit more seers.”

Miss Bront? lifted her glasses and studied him with that keen gaze of hers. Then she made a few more notes and shut her notebook.

“What are you working on?” Alexander asked. “The story about murder from before?”

“Not this time.” She patted the leather cover. “This one is about ghosts and the people who bust them.”

“I don’t want to be a character in a novel,” he said.

“Of course not.” She smiled slyly. “The hero of this novel is taller.”





TEN


Charlotte

They arrived in a town called Bakewell, where Mr. Blackwood paid for three rooms for the night. Charlotte could tell that he had every intention of sending her back to school in the morning. She, of course, was determined not to go. But now she had no choice except to disclose Jane’s whereabouts at the nearby estate called Thornfield Hall.

After an afternoon of snooping about town and speaking with the locals, Charlotte discovered the master of the house was a man by the name of Mr. Rochester. With that information in hand, Mr. Blackwood’s first order of business was to send a letter.

The communication between Mr. Blackwood and Mr. Rochester went as follows: Dear Mr. Rochester, I’m writing to inquire about the governess you recently hired, a certain Miss Eyre. I believe she may be of great importance to the RWS Society, and I would appreciate the opportunity to speak with her.

Sincerely,

A. Black

A reply was delivered rather quickly:

Dear Mr. Black,

No.

Edward Rochester

Mr. Blackwood would not be deterred so easily, so naturally he tried again: Dear Mr. Rochester,

Please. It’s important.

A. Black

Only one word came in return:

No.

What this meant was that they needed a plan.

Not just any plan, but a good plan. A smart plan. A plan that would guarantee success and end happily for everyone. Mr. Blackwood clearly needed one of Charlotte’s plans.

“You must get into Thornfield Hall,” she mused, turning this last one-word response over in her hand. “But the master of the house has denied you.”

“Twice,” Bran added.

Mr. Blackwood sighed. “How very observant of you.” They were all sitting in a sectioned-off space of the inn’s dining room, where they could speak privately, but still in public so that no one would think anything untoward was happening, given the two masked men sitting with a young lady. Mr. Blackwood, Charlotte was coming to learn, was quite the stickler for such things.

“Perhaps Charlotte could write Jane a letter?” Bran suggested.

Charlotte tapped her pen on the edge of the table. “Who’s to say she would get it, especially since Mr. Blackwood has been asking about her? It’d be suspicious. And clearly we can’t just stroll up to the house and call on her. We’ll have to be smarter. Sneakier.”

Both men were looking at her, and finally Bran said, “You have a plan, don’t you, Charlie?”

“Branwell. Dear. I have asked you repeatedly not to call me Charlie. Please try to remember.” She turned back to Mr. Blackwood and infused her voice with confidence. He would see her value. He would. She lifted her glasses and found the part of her notes she was searching for. “Ah, yes, here it is. There is a lady currently residing in the Leas, a Miss Blanche Ingram, who is said to be a possible match for Mr. Rochester.”

“A possible match?”

“Everyone in town is talking about how the two of them—Mr. Rochester and Miss Ingram”—she enunciated carefully—“are probably going to be married. It is likely that, within a fortnight, they say, she will go to Thornfield Hall to pass the time with him and to see if he will, indeed, ask for her hand—that much is well known in the village.”