“You don’t recognize him?” I asked in surprise. “He seemed so familiar with Mr. Rochester that I assumed you knew him.”
“No, I’ve never seen him before. Did he tell you his name?”
“Richard Mason,” I replied.
“Mason?” Her cheeks paled, and her eyes widened slightly, but it was so brief I wasn’t sure I’d witnessed the change.
“Do you know him after all?” I prodded, hoping for some scrap of information.
She shrugged and waved her hand. “The name sounds familiar somehow. I’m sure he’s just one of Rocky’s business partners.”
“He mentioned they were old friends,” I offered.
“Old friends?” She contemplated this, then shrugged. “Perhaps they went to school together. Or they know one another from his travels around Europe. What a mystery!” Gathering herself, she closed down the computer and turned the telephone onto the answering machine. “Now how about dinner, Jane? I’m starving like you wouldn’t believe. I forgot lunch today!”
Making a note of Alice’s hasty dismissal, I turned off my own computer and followed her toward the dining room.
Now that all the guests had departed, the room was reopened to host our nightly staff dinnertime. Sitting in my usual corner, I looked at Mason as he devoured his plate of food and attempted to decipher a little of the mysterious stranger’s being.
His eye wandered, and there was no meaning to it at all. It gave him a very odd look. There was no power in his stature, no firmness in his expression, and no command in his blank brown eyes.
He’d mentioned he and Edward were old friends, and it struck me as a curious relationship. They seemed to be cut from two very different pieces of cloth—two extremes meeting in the middle. It was often said that opposites attract, but in this case, it was outrageous to my mind.
The sound of a car outside demanded my attention, and I stood.
“Where are you off to?” Alice asked. “Your plate is still three-quarters full!”
“There is a car outside,” I replied. “If it’s Mr. Rochester, he will want to know Mr. Mason is here. I shan’t be long.”
“Don’t be too long, then. The roast beef is particularly delicious this evening. Shame to have some go missing from your plate.”
Smiling at Alice’s humor, I went out into the main gallery just as the grand oak door was opening. When it let in Edward and a gust of cold air, I shivered.
“Jane,” he said. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your greeting?”
“There is a man here to see you,” I replied, keeping my tone formal even though I wished to smooth down his hair and kiss his lips. “A Mr. Richard Mason. I’ve set him down to dinner in the dining room…”
I trailed off as Edward’s expression began to change, the fearful man I’d first met rushing unhindered to the surface.
“Has he spoken to anyone?” he asked harshly. “Has he spoken to you?”
Confusion washed over me, and I shook my head. “No, not much. He mentioned you were old friends, and he wished to wait for your return. He seemed to have some urgent business.” I gestured to the dining room. “He’s at dinner and very much preoccupied with the roast beef, sir.”
His expression twisted even further, and a sharp jolt of fear flowed through my veins. His ire had risen to heights I’d never witnessed before, and as he strode past me, I followed hastily as he burst into the dining room. The staff glanced up at his sudden appearance, the air stilling as if it perched on a precipice of a cliff.
Such a look of anger passed across Edward’s face as he beheld Mason, and it startled me, my blood beginning to run cold thinking I’d done wrong to offer the man hospitality. Glancing at Alice, she looked just as dumbfounded as I felt and came to stand beside me.
“A storm is brewing, Jane,” she murmured as Edward practically manhandled Mason out of the dining room. “The good times were never meant to last around here. Not at Thornfield.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, glancing at her. What a strange thing to say.
“You’ve not seen Rocky in a temper,” she replied. “Not a real one. The waters have been calm these past months. It’s unusual, but now things seem to be returning to the status quo.”
My stomach churned as I contemplated what appeared to be the true nature of the man who’d stolen my heart. Was it a kindness when he’d removed me from his bed the previous night, then? I had not once seen the face of the man who had just now all but dragged another from the room by the scruff of his neck. I’d seen a great number of masks in his collection, but this one had been hidden carefully.
Anger was an ugly emotion. It was fearful and unstable. I didn’t like it at all.
At that moment, I felt the string that bound Edward and I together begin to fray, its strands spinning as it unfurled. I thought I’d seen all the parts of him that mattered, but in truth, he was a labyrinth full of unexplored corners. I feared I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did…and to my fragile heart, it was dangerous.
What was I supposed to do?
Even as I asked myself the question, I knew the answer to my dilemma. Nothing. I was to do nothing unless commanded to. It was none of my concern, but how I wished to help him!
I’d always felt things more keenly than others, and in this, I was no different. Every hurt that passed across Edward’s face I bore with him, even if he knew it or not. Every sorrow I wished to share in an attempt to remove some of his pain, but he wouldn’t allow me. There wasn’t even any interest in the things that made me who I was, either.
Perhaps I was just his secret mistress after all.