My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies, #2)

by Cynthia Hand

For everyone who’s ever fallen for the wrong person, even though we agree that Mr. Darcy looks good on paper . . . and in a wet shirt.

Charlotte had always known Jane to be a kind, thoughtful sort of person. Even when she was committing murder, she was thinking of others.

Jane pressed a hand to her forehead as if she was suddenly feeling faint. Which didn’t alarm Charlotte, as young women of this time period felt faint regularly. Because corsets.

“You’re so lovely that the master of the house wouldn’t be able to help falling in love with you,” Helen explained. “It would be a terrible scandal.” Jane didn’t think that sounded so terrible. “I could handle it.”

“And what have you concluded?” “That it’s generally agreed upon that we’re better off now that Mr. Brocklehurst is gone, so who cares who did it?” “I’m standing right here!” cried Mr. Brocklehurst.

Jane sighed. “You’ve been around ghosts your whole life—er—afterlife. What are you afraid of?” Helen shook her head. “I think it might be haunted by the living.” “If that were the case, every house would be haunted.” “Every house is haunted.”

Jane rubbed her forehead. “Grace Poole is probably on night watch. And the sound could have been a wolf,” she said mid-yawn. “And I might be the Queen of England,” Helen said.

“This is going so well,” Jane said. “We’re all going to die,” said Helen.

Things had been going wrong for Alexander since the mysterious Miss Eyre had rejected him at Lowood. First, his bumbling new assistant had contracted a man cold (which in pre-Victorian England they believed to be far worse than a lady cold). Then Mr. Branwell had proceeded to share said cold with Alexander. His nose was still red. And it hurt. He resented this.

Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do, she wrote, her pen flying across the page. They suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.

Charlotte’s chin lifted. “I would always rather be happy than dignified,” she said, her cheerful tone returning, and out she went.

He dropped his clothes back into his suitcase and looked up to find Branwell throwing his arms around a young woman in the corridor. And worse, she returned the embrace. Beneath his mask, his face flushed. A young lady was hugging his apprentice. Of all people. Such a blatant display of affection! At this hour! In the hallway!! (In pre-Victorian times, and also Victorian times, and for quite some time later, even hugging was considered Too Much. And yes, Hallway Hugging definitely deserved two exclamation points.)

“You’re definitely not coming with us,” Alexander said. “Not a chance.” Reader, Miss Brontë definitely went with them.

She threw the door open, propriety be darned. But right before she did, she made sure her nightgown was buttoned all the way up, because propriety shouldn’t be totally darned.

Not now, Jane thought. For the first time in her life, she was having a Moment! For the first time since meeting Helen, she wished to be alone. Not alone alone, of course. Alone with Mr. Rochester. Obviously. Sure, this might not be the Moment she’d dreamt about, what with the fire, the strange laugh, the frightening noises, the lingering odor of smoke, the fear for her life, and the strange need Mr. Rochester felt to lift her feet onto the stool as if she couldn’t do it herself. But it was a Moment, nonetheless, and she wanted to enjoy it.

“No.” Jane wanted to add that she was reluctant to be apart from him, in particular, but that would have more than pushed the boundaries of propriety. That would have broken them. Or, more accurately, lit them on fire and burned them to the ground.

As a general rule, Alexander found everything suspicious. Like, why didn’t women’s clothes have pockets? And why did most mammals walk on four legs while humans used only two? And especially why did we see only one side of the moon? What was the other side trying to hide?

Charlotte sat back and stretched her arms, feeling pleased with herself. (But she was a writer, so while she did get this moment of thinking herself somewhat brilliant, it would soon be offset by a crippling doubt that she had a gift of words at all. Such is the way with all writers. Trust us.) She liked what she’d written because it felt true. Better that a boy not be overtly handsome, she thought, if one was plain. Better that there were simply individual parts of said boy to admire. Like the shape of his hands. Or a smile. Or . . .

Helen’s mouth fell open. “What. Is. Wrong. With. The. Living?!”

“So. That’s that. I’ll go home. You’ll go back to school. And things will return to normal.” “I don’t like normal,” she said. “Neither do I,” Bran said. “I detest normal.” “I abhor it,” he agreed. “I simply loathe normal,” she said, and Bran gave a weak laugh. And then they got up and made some tea.

Alexander countered Rochester’s attack with an Artist’s Curse. “My name is Alexander Blackwood. You killed my father. Prepare to—”

She took a shuddering breath. Crying, she told herself sternly, does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.

Within the first ten days of Wellington controlling the King of England, Mr. Mitten (as the king) issued several royal proclamations. The first was that everyone should recognize that his coronation had been the most-attended coronation of all time. Period. (Even though it had been four years ago, and really, who even cares?) The second decree dismissed Parliament and appointed Wellington as prime minister.

“We require that one ring,” Mr. Blackwood said. “It’s my ring,” said the king. “It’s my precious.

It was not a magical book (although we would argue, dear reader, that all books are slightly magical), but it was certainly useful.

A radiant girl with red hair caught Charlotte’s eye. She was dressed in a gorgeous embroidered, jewel-encrusted gown and an Elizabethan headdress. In her hand she held a book. She smiled sweetly at Jane, and reached for the man beside her, who, to Charlotte’s total astonishment, suddenly turned into a horse.