Page 12 of Euphoria
“Ten years.”
“Ten years.” He seemed aghast. “I can only imagine, but perhaps it explains a great deal about this.” He waved a hand at me, and I frowned, not wanting to be told a harsh truth about what I already knew.
“Don’t look so sour, Miss Doe,” Mr. Rochester went on. “When I almost ran you down on the road last night, I thought I’d come across some otherworldly being. You have a rigidness about you, but your face says there is more. Your eyes…” He snorted, turning his gaze to the fireplace.
What a curious man…
“And who were your parents?” he asked. “Where are they now?”
“They died when I was a baby,” I replied. “I have no family.”
“No brothers or sisters?”
“None.”
“Any family at all? Distant relatives?”
“Some but they don’t wish to know me, and I don’t wish to know them. They are family only by marriage. If I have any other living blood relation, I was never told.”
“Then who sent you to Lowood?” he asked. “Was it the state?”
“No, sir. My aunt sent me when I was eight years old.”
“Why?”
“Because she disliked me. I was forced upon her, and she held me in contempt.”
“And what did you do to deserve it?” he asked, looking me over with a keen eye. “You look the part.”
“The part of what? A degenerate?” I challenged him. “Outward appearance doesn’t always match the inner.”
He narrowed his eyes at my story, neither relaying compassion nor contempt. “With a name like Jane Doe…”
“A name means nothing,” I said simply. It was of no consequence where I came from, not to me. All that mattered was the path into the future.
Mr. Rochester didn’t like this revelation, and his disapproval was written all over his face. He had a very expressive way about him. Passionate and angry. I began to understand the things Alice had told me about him now that I had experienced some of it.
“Who were you waiting for on the road last night?” he asked, turning the conversation on its head.
He was very abrupt, and his changefulness threw me off balance. “Who would I wait for?”
“Your people,” he said. “Fairies, elves, or perhaps, thieves, and con artists. You laid a trap with your ice and woeful eyes.”
He was mad! “I have told you nothing but the truth, sir. I have no people. I’m alone.”
He leaned back on the couch and grunted. I assumed he had a little too much to drink, scattering his mind.
There was a knock at the door, and he called out for them to enter, his gaze never leaving mine.
Alice entered, carrying a tray with a crystal decanter full of brown liquor and a single glass to match.
“Who hired you?” he asked me as she set the tray down on the table beside my discarded proposal. “I suppose it was Alice.”
“Yes, I did,” Alice said as she began unloading the burden from the tray. “Jane has been a breath of fresh air around here. Her insights have been invaluable to the hotel.”
“Did I ask you for your opinion?” he barked at the poor woman, and she almost dropped the decanter as she placed it on the table. “Don’t bother to give the girl a character. I can decide for myself.”
Alice glanced at me, her cheeks turning pink.
