My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)(39)

She lifted her gaze to him and raised an eyebrow.

It probably wasn’t proper to notice how well she looked today.

“Just eager to get through this.” He ducked his face to hide the creeping blush. Without his mask, he felt all his thoughts were plain on his face, evident for anyone to see. But especially Miss Bront?. Even without her glasses, he knew she missed nothing.

Ahead, the other families entered the house, greeted by a dark figure within. Rochester. A man most protective of his governess.

Miss Bront? touched Alexander’s shoulder. “We will persuade her,” she said. After a week in Millcote together, he was rather coming to appreciate her presence. Even Branwell’s, to a point.

The feeling of being watched tugged his attention, and he glanced up.

Two faces peered out a second-story window. One was a young girl, with little ringlets framing her angelic face. The other was Jane Eyre.

“Don’t look,” he murmured to Miss Bront?, “but your friend is up there.”

“I’m sure she’ll be shocked to see me.”

It must have been difficult for her not to look. Miss Eyre surely wouldn’t recognize Alexander—not in this different context and not without his mask—but he still needed to be careful. He had to give Miss Bront? plenty of time to talk with Miss Eyre and persuade her to their cause, and then help arrange a graceful exit.

Just before Alexander dropped his eyes to the door again, he caught a hint of someone behind the two girls in the window. A third girl, perhaps four or five years younger than him, and there was something off about her. She wasn’t exactly . . . solid.

A ghost.

Then Miss Bront? and Branwell passed through the front door, and Alexander had to follow behind them.

And again there was Mr. Rochester, standing on the far side of the room, greeting his guests. There was something familiar about him, though Alexander couldn’t place it. Certainly he hadn’t encountered the man recently, but . . .

A flash of memory struck: this man sitting across the table from Alexander’s father, laughing at one of those jokes his father always told. Had always told.

Had they been friends?

Ahead, Rochester clasped Lady Lynn’s hands, and they kissed each other’s cheeks. Then Colonel Dent greeted him, followed by Miss Blanche Ingram, who fluttered her eyelashes in his direction, as if he wasn’t twenty years her senior.

The man himself was tall. Too tall, some might say. (No one, in fact, would say this. As we’ve mentioned before, exceedingly tall was considered attractive in this day, and Alexander was quite aware that he was of average height.) In addition to a vertical advantage, Rochester had dark, dark eyes. Those eyes now turned toward Alexander, and he waited for some spark of recognition, considering all his life he’d been told he was the spitting image of his father.

But there was nothing.

Then Lady Ingram introduced him, Miss Bront?, and Branwell as the Eshton family, and Alexander smiled. “Good evening,” he said, and extended his hand. “A pleasure to meet you, sir.”

Rochester took the offered hand and shook, and that was that. They had gained entrance to Thornfield. Miss Bront?’s plan had worked. Now she just needed a moment with Miss Eyre.

That afternoon, the entire party went out on horseback, which made it impossible for Miss Bront? to get away from the group and locate Miss Eyre.

It wasn’t until dinnertime that they returned to the house, but Miss Eyre—naturally—was not at the table.

After dinner, the group moved into the drawing room. “Oh, what a love of a child!” cried one of the ladies when she saw a little girl—the child Miss Eyre had come to teach.

Alexander took a seat toward the center of the room, where he could appear to be part of every conversation, but actually be involved in none. He preferred to observe the group. But even before everyone had come in, the space had been occupied by three girls, two living and one dead.

Miss Eyre sat next to a ghost in the window seat, the possessor of a fine view of the room, but also out of the way. She seemed unusually subdued tonight. Not that he really knew her well enough to make that kind of observation, but his memory of her popping out from behind the bar in Oxenhope was still very vivid. Given what he knew of her, though, the grand surroundings and even grander company might have something to do with it.

Still, her hair was plaited and she’d donned a much nicer dress than he’d seen her wearing in the Tully Pub and Lowood school.

Then both girl and ghost saw Miss Bront?.

“It’s Charlotte! It’s Charlotte!” The ghost clasped her hands and hopped. “Let’s go say hello!”

For Miss Eyre’s part, she looked surprised to see Miss Bront?, but then she shushed the ghost and muttered, “Yes, it’s Charlotte, but she obviously disguised herself for a reason. Just sit.”

The ghost dropped to the floor.

Alexander forced his expression into blankness. Miss Eyre and the ghost were friends? That complicated things.

The last thing Alexander needed was for Branwell to have seen that exchange and start up a conversation with the ghost, which, as we all know, would end in disaster.

But Alexander didn’t have to worry about Branwell. The redhead was fully occupied by a discussion of flower arrangements with Mary Ingram and Mrs. Dent.

“Texture,” he was saying. “It’s so important to have a variety of textures in order to add visual interest.”