My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand & Brodi Ashton & Jodi Meadows

Author:Cynthia Hand & Brodi Ashton & Jodi Meadows [Hand, Cynthia & Ashton, Brodi & Meadows, Jodi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperTeen
Published: 2018-06-26T04:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

Alexander

Getting kicked out wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.

The pros were that Alexander could finally put on his mask again (at last!), and . . . well, maybe that was it.

The list of cons was a little bigger.

Firstly, he’d obviously lost Miss Eyre.

Secondly (we love to follow firstlies with secondlies), Rochester. He was the murderer, Alexander was (mostly) certain of it. But he needed more proof than just the letter, and now he’d been removed from Thornfield and all the proof that might be hiding in there.

However, there was still Mr. Mason.

(That might count as a pro of getting thrown out, but it was really hard to say at this point. Alexander was quite conflicted about the whole thing.)

Mr. Mason definitely knew something about Rochester, and if Alexander could question him, all his suspicions about Rochester would be vindicated. But they’d gone to the doctor and Mason hadn’t been there. The rumor about town (which Miss Brontë had collected in all of five minutes, of course) was that Mason was returning home to the West Indies.

So that meant Alexander and the Brontës needed to overtake Mason on the road, question him, and then they could all return to Thornfield and arrest Rochester. Surely, once it was known that Rochester was the most vile sort of villain, Miss Eyre would consider other job opportunities.

As the carriage bumped down the road—with Branwell narrating everything he saw out the window and Miss Brontë writing in her notebook—Alexander closed his eyes and turned his thoughts inward.

The letter burned a hole in his pocket. It was somewhat alarming. What did save the Society and bring this travesty to an end mean? And what about the mysterious “AW” they wanted to do something about? That could be Arthur Wellesley.

But Wellington would never do anything to harm the Society. He was a war hero. Why, Beethoven had composed a fifteen-minute piece in commemoration. (Called “Wellington’s Victory.” Look it up.) So what did it mean if his father wanted to do something about the leader of the Society?

Surely his father hadn’t betrayed them.

“You’re brooding,” Miss Brontë commented. She watched him, glasses raised, and tapped her pencil against her notebook. A frown turned her mouth downward.

“I don’t brood. I was just closing my eyes. I didn’t sleep last night.”

“I know brooding when I see it, Mr. Blackwood. Don’t deny it.”

“Go home, Miss Brontë.”

She snorted.

But he didn’t want her to go home. She was smart and thoughtful and truly had all the makings of a proper Society agent. (Arguably, that was the highest praise Alexander knew how to give.) He was glad for her presence and her level head.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to persuade Jane to our cause,” she said after a few moments.

“It isn’t your fault. Rochester is to blame.”

It was Rochester who was the real problem in all this. Whatever the letter had meant about problems in the Society—Rochester was probably to blame for those, too.

“I know,” Miss Brontë said, “but I promised I could do it and I haven’t.

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