My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)(43)

“I make a decent salary.”

“But—”

“No, Charlotte. I’m sorry you had to travel all this way. But my answer is still no. I want nothing to do with the Society.”

“But why?”

“They make it their business to imprison defenseless ghosts, ghosts who’ve done nothing wrong but express themselves perhaps a little more enthusiastically than they should. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

“At the Tully Pub?” Charlotte guessed. “What exactly did you see at the Tully Pub?”

“Enough to understand that the Society is evil.”

“The Society is not evil. Why, my own brother is an agent!”

“It is evil.”

“It is not.”

“Is too.”

“Is not.”

“What if you could see for yourself?” Charlotte changed tactics. “Come with us, inspect the Society and its headquarters, meet the Duke of Wellington, judge by fact, and not one fleeting encounter that you must have misunderstood.”

Jane frowned. “So are you an agent of the Society now?”

Charlotte’s chin lifted. “I expect to be. Any day.” Depending on Jane’s answer.

“But I thought you wanted to be a writer.”

“I can be both,” Charlotte pressed on. “You’re wrong about the Society. They need you, Jane. Really and truly need you. How often is someone like us actually needed? Won’t you at least give it a chance?”

Jane’s mouth was pressed into a line, but she didn’t say no again. That was something.

“Please, Jane,” Charlotte added. “At least say you’ll consider the offer. Give it time. We’re going to be here for three more days, I believe. At the end of the three days, you can give your final answer.”

“Very well. But don’t get your hopes up.” Jane cocked her head to one side as if she could hear something Charlotte did not. “They’re looking for you. You’d better go.”

“So we’re agreed, then?”

Jane squeezed her hand. “We’re agreed. I will tell you no again in three days.”

“Or you’ll tell me yes.” Charlotte stepped out from behind the curtain. Then she thought of one last thing she wanted to say. She stuck her head back in.

“I’m really sorry about earlier. I’ve missed you.”

She was gone before Jane could reply.

“Ah, there you are,” said Mr. Blackwood when she rejoined the party. “We were beginning to worry.” He leaned close to whisper. “So? Did you speak with Miss Eyre?”

“I went for a brief walk in the garden, dear cousin,” she said, then whispered back: “She is considering the offer. She said she would give us her answer in three days.” Although what they could do to convince Jane in three days, she had no idea. Jane seemed to have absolutely made up her mind. Charlotte definitely needed some time to rethink her approach. “How was your conversation with the dead?” she asked Mr. Blackwood more loudly.

He blinked for a few seconds before he caught on that she was referring to the talking board. “Oh, very interesting. As a man of science, I find the idea of communing with the deceased unlikely. But amusing, to say the least.”

“You’re playing this part very well,” she whispered.

A smile touched his lips. “Thank you,” he whispered back. “You’re not bad, yourself.”

She felt herself blushing, and for a moment became uncharacteristically tongue-tied. Then she remembered that it was her job to be reporting on Jane. “She also said something about an evil pocket watch?”

He looked puzzled. “An evil . . . Oh, the talisman. From the Tully Pub. I’ll tell you about it later.”

“Oh, I am most eager to hear about what transpired in the Tully Pub,” Charlotte exclaimed.

A high, fake laugh tinkled from across the room. Charlotte and Mr. Blackwood turned to see Miss Ingram practically draped over Mr. Rochester’s shoulder. Then they watched as Bran tripped over the edge of the carpet and doused his face with his own cup of punch, which got nearly everybody in the room laughing at her poor dear little brother. Mr. Blackwood didn’t laugh at him, though, which Charlotte was grateful for. He was still staring at Mr. Rochester, his eyebrows drawn together.

“There is something very off about that man,” he said, almost to himself.

“What do you mean?”

He turned back to her. “Nothing. Just a feeling. So tell me more about your conversation with Miss Eyre. Did she at least seem amenable to the idea of joining us?”

Us, he’d said. She gave a little sigh. Us, as in, part of the collective we. As if Charlotte were already a member of the Society.

“Well . . . no,” she admitted, glancing at the floor. “I told her there would be a salary, and the mask, and her own lodging, but she did not seem impressed. She seemed . . .” Charlotte stopped. How had Jane seemed? Different, somehow. Something had changed in the few weeks since Jane had left Lowood. Like she had grown up from a little girl into a woman in the space of a month, not as thin or homely, either, with more confidence, more bearing. And there’d been something else about her, too. A kind of glow.

Her cheeks had been rosy, Charlotte realized. Jane was happy here at Thornfield.