My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)(77)

Everyone in the church gasped.

“I assure you, I have a very good explanation for all of this!” Rochester exclaimed, but then he gave a sudden roar and lurched toward Mr. Mason like his solution to this rather insurmountable impediment to his nuptials was to do away with the witness. Mr. Mason blanched and then promptly slumped to the floor in a dead faint. Mr. Blackwood and the clerk of the church moved to restrain Mr. Rochester.

Charlotte rushed to Jane. “Oh, Jane, I’m so sorry to be the bearer of this news. I truly am. But thank goodness we arrived here in time to stop you.”

“Stop me? Who are you?” Jane said coldly, grasping Charlotte by the shoulders. “This is your doing, isn’t it? I was supposed to be free, at last. Alive again. With the love I thought I’d lost. But now you’ve spoiled everything.”

“Well, it wasn’t all my doing,” Charlotte deferred. “Although I was the one who located Mr. Mason. It’s kind of a funny story, actually. . . .”

Then Jane’s small hands were around Charlotte’s throat, and she stopped believing it to be so funny. “Jane,” she gasped out. “If I said something to offend you, I do apologize. But surely you see that it’s better now not to marry Mr. Rochest—”

She couldn’t get the last syllable out. She had no air. Jane was surprisingly strong for a girl of her diminutive size. And everybody in this quite crowded room was looking at Mr. Rochester, who was struggling with Mr. Blackwood, or at Mr. Mason, out cold on the floor.

“Jane,” Charlotte croaked.

Jane squeezed harder. Dark spots swam before Charlotte’s eyes. The world was fading. She gave one last desperate push at her attacker . . . and her fingers caught the pearl necklace around Jane’s slender neck. She pulled, and the necklace broke free.

Pearls tumbled down all around them. Jane’s hands dropped, and suddenly Charlotte could breathe again. Then Jane’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she crumpled unceremoniously to the floor.





TWENTY-SIX


Jane

There was a fog in front of Jane’s eyes. A dense fog that prevented her from seeing anything, or hearing anyone. Voices would speak to her, but before the sounds could coalesce into words, the fog would capture them and wrap them up in cottony nothingness, stripping them of all meaning.

The head cloud stayed for days and days, and then all at once, it was gone and Jane was flat on her back on a hard, cold surface, looking up at several faces.

Mr. Blackwood. Charlotte. Rochester. Mr. Mason? And a man in white robes holding a bible?

“Charlotte?” Jane said. “Where am I?”

“Oh, dear,” Charlotte croaked and then coughed. “Do you not remember anything?”

“No,” Jane said. “I must have hit my head. Oh, no. Did I hit my head? Is that it?”

Mr. Blackwood crouched by her. “Maybe we should help her up.”

“Maybe we should tell her what happened before she . . . stands all the way up.” Charlotte said.

After further discussion, it was decided that they would help Jane to a chair, where she should sit—definitely not stand—to hear what happened. The whole thing made Jane very nervous, but not as nervous as the very next moment when she discovered what she was wearing.

“Why am I all dressed up?” Jane asked, smoothing her hand down the softest silk she’d ever felt in her life. “I didn’t steal it.” She felt the need to clarify that fact upfront.

Rochester paced on the other side of the room defensively.

“Somebody please tell me what happened,” Jane insisted.

“Well,” Charlotte said. “To put it as succinctly as possible . . . You were possessed by a ghost, who then, using your body, agreed to marry Mr. Rochester, who, it turns out, has a secret wife locked away in the attic, and just as you were about to say your vows, we rushed in and stopped the wedding and I tore off your pearls, which seemed to be the talisman for your ghost, and then you collapsed, and . . . well . . . here we are.”

“Yes, aren’t we, though,” Rochester grumbled.

Mr. Blackwood clenched his fists. “You, sir, have no right to say anything.”

Charlotte went to his side. “We should call for the authorities.”

“And tell them what?” Rochester smirked.

“Wait,” Jane said, rubbing her forehead. “Wait.”

“I know, I know,” Charlotte said, returning to Jane. “Being possessed by a ghost cannot be a pleasant experience.”

Jane shrugged Charlotte’s hand away and stood. “Rochester’s married? You’re married?”

Rochester’s gaze darted nervously from face to face. “It’s not what you think.” His voice cracked.

“Oh, is that right? Because what I think is that you are married and you tried to get engaged to a woman who was not your wife and then had her possessed!”

“Well, I guess in that regard, it is what you think. But I can explain.”

Jane folded her arms, and then next to her, Charlotte folded her arms, and at that point, Jane noticed someone missing.

“Where’s Helen?” Jane said.

“Who’s Helen?” Rochester said.

“Here I am,” Helen said, flying into the room. “When you were possessed, and I realized even I couldn’t get through to you, I thought I would go to find help. But I didn’t know where to go, or what to do without my Jane. I decided the task was going to take a lot of thinking, so I wandered Thornfield estate, thinking. Until I saw the carriages racing here today. For the wedding.”