Jane Austen Made Me Do It: Original Stories Inspired by Literature's Most Astute Observer of the Human Heart by Nattress Laurel Ann

Author:Nattress, Laurel Ann [Nattress, Laurel Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Romance, Anthologies, Adult, Contemporary, Humour
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2011-10-11T06:00:00+00:00

Jane Austen Award nominee AMANDA GRANGE was born in Yorkshire, England. She spent her teenage years reading Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer while also finding time to study music at Nottingham University. She has had more than twenty books published including seven Jane Austen retellings and the phenomenal Mr. Darcy, Vampyre. Amanda Grange now lives in Cheshire, England.

www.amandagrange.com

@HRomanceUK on Twitter

England, 1964

Julie Morton pushed open the door to the staff room, bracing herself for the gust of cigarette smoke that wafted into her face. Books and handbag clutched to her chest, she made her way across the room, past the women who were not quite colleagues and certainly not friends, thankful that today was Friday and that in little over an hour she would be free for the weekend and Derek.

Ah, the wonders of the English language. Not free for Derek (she wasn’t supplementing her meager salary by becoming a part-time courtesan, something certainly not expected at Cleverton High School for Girls) and not free of Derek—although of course if she was thinking in Latin, a certain ambiguity would exist. How about by, with, or from Derek? She really wasn’t quite sure. Yes, she would be with him, and then pleasured by him, having received attentions from him—no wonder Catullus and the rest were drawn to erotic poetry. It was really the language’s fault.

And she had a whole, lovely weekend to anticipate, a special weekend, so he had promised her.

She smiled a greeting at Miss Williams, the shy History teacher whom the girls despised for her heavy Welsh accent and dark-framed glasses as much as her timidity. Julie, with the knowledge that only a few years lay between her and the girls she taught, did her best to avoid becoming the recipient of girls’ confidences and opinions on the other teachers, but their contempt for Miss Williams was plain on their faces.

“These gels,” Mrs. Henderson said. She was the only person Julie had met who pronounced the word to rhyme with “bells,” like an Oscar Wilde character.

“Oh, I know,” Miss Dickinson said.

The two of them, the queen bees of the common room, sat in their special chairs drawn close to the glowing bars of the electric fire, sipping from the china cups and saucers reserved for their exclusive use. I hope you don’t mind, dear, but that’s Mrs. Henderson’s chair … cup … Julie had been saved from certain ruin by discreet whispers of reproof on her first venture into the common room.

She helped herself to a cup of instant coffee, adding milk from the bottle that stood nearby on the counter referred to as “the kitchen,” and settled on a chair midway between Mrs. Henderson and Miss Dickinson, and the two art teachers, who maintained a quiet conversation about where they should go at half-term; the Cotswolds, maybe? Edinburgh? Rather too far, they thought.

“These gels,” Mrs. Henderson repeated. “I don’t know which is worse; first they’re all mad about horses and now it’s these young men, the ones with all the hair.

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