by Amity Cross
The silence was broken up by the crackle of the fire and the swirling rain as the wind threw it against the windowpane outside.
Mr. Rochester didn’t seem so gloomy tonight, even though he’d caught me trespassing again. His eyes had a spark in them, which had been absent the scant few times I’d been in his presence. There was a smile on his lips, changing his entire outward appearance for the better, though he still had an air of danger about him. Best to be on my guard lest he trick me.
He had been staring into the fire the entire time I studied his features, and when he finally turned to look at me, I glanced away.
“Were you examining me, Miss Doe?” he asked. “Do you like what you see? Many women do.”
I should’ve replied with something vague, but my temper at his arrogance allowed something else to slip forth. “No.”
“There is something strange about you,” he said. “You’re a well-spoken, polite, and meek little thing, but other times, you allow your ire to burst forth, and a little of the real Jane Doe presents herself. What do you mean by it?”
“I was too abrupt,” I said, beginning to apologize. “I should have said that tastes differ and that beauty is of little consequence…or something like it.”
“You think nothing of beauty?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you value intelligence?”
“I suppose I do.”
He stared at me, his gaze intensifying, and I turned mine to my hands.
“Tell me, Miss Doe,” he began, his tone turning sharp. “What fault do you find with me? All my limbs are intact, and I have strength and endowment.”
I understood what he meant entirely. “Mr. Rochester, pardon my earlier answer. It was only a slip of the tongue.”
He laughed, a peculiar sound I was sure he was incapable of until then, and said, “No, you shall be answerable for it. Am I a fool?”
“Far from it,” I replied. “Would you think me rude if I asked if you were vain? If you required the attentions of beautiful women to feel complete, sir?”
“There,” he exclaimed, pointing at me. “Another thrust with your barbed knife.” He reached for his glass and lifted it to his lips, taking a draft of liquor. “No, I would disagree with your question and say I enjoy the company of beautiful women. They are pleasing in the physical sense, but mentally? Not at all.”
I began to tremble slightly, and I shifted to a more comfortable position. Talking about casual sex with my arrogant yet attractive employer! I’d never been so forward in my life, but it was as he’d implied. Pleasure and mental stimulation had always been exclusive concepts for me.
“You’ve never experienced both at the same time?” I asked, daring to keep the conversation going on its dangerous path.
“I once had tenderness,” he replied, nursing his glass. “Though I was beaten down by it, and now I’m a hard man, Miss Doe.”
I inclined my head. “A common tale of woe?”
Mr. Rochester laughed again, a full sound, which had me inching closer. “Yes, there is something underneath that mask, Miss Doe.”
“I would say the same to you.”
“Do you think I have hope, then?”
I tilted my head to the side. “Hope of what, sir?”
“That I can be transformed from stone back into flesh?”
He’s drunk, I thought to myself. The conversation was becoming quite inappropriate, and I hardly dared to think he was interested in me for more than the duel of words we’d enjoyed thus far. I was attracted to him, there was no doubt, but I was plain little Jane Doe. I had no name, no family, and no wealth. I was no match for Edward Rochester.
“You look distraught,” he said. “Your changing emotions are not so different from mine, yes? On that can we agree?”
“I haven’t disagreed with you, sir. I merely don’t know how to reply to make you feel better.”
At this, he rose quite abruptly and leaned against the mantle over the fire. The light shone upon his face, and he did not try to hide it from me as he deliberated.
“I like it when you call me sir,” he murmured, his voice holding a cryptic note to it. “But please, do not refer to me as Mr. Rochester. It suits me not. The term makes me feel like an old man. Like my father, perhaps.”
“What would you have me call you, then?” I inquired.
“Edward,” he said. “That is my name.”
“But you are my employer…”
“Miss Doe, you misunderstand me,” he said, turning to face me. “I would not treat you as an inferior. You have been good enough to sit here and talk with me, and I do not want you to think that here, right now, I am your employer and you are my subordinate.”
I was struck dumb at his declaration. He held his cards very close to his chest, and I still didn’t know how to proceed.
“What is it?” he asked, lowering his head and peering at me. “Are you dumb? No, I’m quite certain you are not. Is it stubbornness, then?”
“Not at all,” I replied. “If I’d known I was free to leave at any time, I would’ve left you once I returned the book.” I glanced at the carpet, hiding the flush that had risen in my cheeks. “But…”
“But?” he pressed.
“I fear I’m no match for you.”
“She answers plainly, yet everything about it is evasive,” he said to himself, his voice lowering to a husky rasp. “You hide, Miss Doe.”
Yes, I suppose I did hide on occasion, but only when I was out of my depth as I was now. Here was a man of the world with no hindrance to his exploration. He had the looks and the wealth to do as he pleased, and I had all sorts of barriers forbidding me from taking what I desired. In all honestly, I wasn’t sure exactly what it was I wanted in the grand scheme of things.
I hid lest I drown.
“You forget you pay me to be here,” I said.
“Most people would submit to anything for money,” he returned.
“Then they are not decent people, for anything comes with a terrible price. Money is not everything.”
“Don’t people have the right to get pleasure out of life?” he asked, looming over me. “I will get it, cost what it may.”
“Then the cost is too great,” I said sharply. “I could not be bought.”
“How moral of you. Do you have the right to preach to me?”
“You were the one who said you did not want to treat me as a mere employee, sir,” I said, turning his words back onto him. “I may not have the same wealth or experience as you, but I’m entitled to my free opinion. It is my truth, and as an equal, I’m allowed to give it.”
Edward glowered, his power and tantalization seeming to grow the more I stirred his anger.
“Then, equal, what shall we speak of?”
“My name is Jane,” I said, taking his words and using them for my own. “Ask me a question, and I will do my best to answer it, but I don’t like talking in riddles. You say I’m fond of my mask, yet yours is stuck to your face with no sign of removing itself. Speak plainly, sir.”
He returned to his seat, and upon settling, he poured himself another glass of whiskey, which he devoured just as quickly.
“Yours is the most stimulating presence I have felt for a long time, Jane,” he said mysteriously. “You anger me, yet you calm me. How am I to take that?”
I watched him pour another glass. “I don’t know, sir.”
“And you? How do you take me?”
I glanced at him, feeling confident enough to match his gaze. “Truthfully?”
“Yes, truthfully. I won’t hold it against you or your employment here.”
Very well.
“I don’t understand you at all,” I replied. “You speak in riddles and are very arrogant, and I should, by all means, find you extremely unlikable.”
He sipped at his liquor, his eyes shining. “You do not tell me much of what I don’t already know, Jane. But if I’m not unlikeable to you, then what am I?”
I was struck dumb
once more, the conversation back to paving the road to hell with erotic suggestions, and I didn’t know how to handle it. I’d asked him to speak plainly, but it seemed plain was beyond his grasp.
“I’m trying to draw you out,” he explained. “To decide on your intentions.”
“What intentions would I have?”
“Pleasurable ones.”
My heart leapt, and my body began to hum in a way I’d never felt before. I was experienced. I was far from a virgin, but at this moment, I was renewed. I was drawn to his anger and his arrogance, knowing it was a mask for some past pain, and he’d not yet allowed himself to heal. I imagined his touch, his lips, mouth, and body consuming mine, and I felt as if I would melt under the intensity of his stare.
“You think I come here to…” I was aghast because it had not crossed my mind once.
He leaned forward. “Do you?”
I shook my head no.
“I see I have offended you. You shouldn’t be offended for presuming I think you want pleasure, Jane.”
“From you?” I asked, the words slipping from my tongue before I could hold them in.
“Why not? I’m capable.”
Why not?
“You seem to doubt me, Jane.”
I turned my gaze to my hands. “I do, sir.”
“You are right to do so,” he said, turning away and forever using mystery to mask his true intent.
The fire within began to die, knowing there was little hope of the man before me quenching it.
I rose to my feet, closing off the disappointment and schooling myself into a picture of coolness. “Then I shall leave you to doubt in silence. Goodnight.”
“You are afraid of me,” he said, studying the fire instead of me.
“I’m not.”
“Then why do you leave me so abruptly?”
“It is late,” I said hastily. “And the conversation is going around in circles. I have no more desire to talk nonsense.”
“You are very controlled,” he muttered. “Your upbringing at that school has tainted you. One day, you will learn to feel true pleasure, Jane, and what a day it will be.” He waved a hand, dismissing me from his presence. “Go, et j’y tiens.”
As I left the library, the sound of those three little French words lingering in the air behind me, I took deep breaths to try to calm my quivering self. He was a complex book, and I’d only scraped the surface of the introduction. I’d better be careful lest he lead me down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.
Truthfully, I was more confused than anything.
When I finally closed myself in my room, the darkness my only friend and confidant, he still would not leave me. I was embarrassed and thrilled that his words had triggered need inside of me—a physical yearning for the harsh touch of Edward Rochester.
Closing my eyes, I allowed my fingers to trace where I wished he’d placed his own. Between my legs and within. Then I experienced a dangerous force as I came.
One day, you will learn true pleasure, Jane Doe.
8
I didn’t dare return to the library.
I wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment or disappointment that drove me to separate myself from Edward, but I didn’t return, and he didn’t send for me. To think the master of Thornfield would lower himself for me! It was absurd. Poor plain Jane Doe.
Still, I held our encounter close and had begun to think of it fondly. I wasn’t rash enough to call him Edward in front of Alice or the other staff, so I was careful when mention of him came up in the general gossiping of the hotel. Our conversation in the library had been perplexing at best and had a sacredness about it I wanted to hold close. He bade me to call him by his given name at that time and in that place, so only then he would be Edward, and outside of my own mind and that room, he would remain Mr. Rochester.
For three nights since, I have fallen asleep in the aftermath of self-relief, my body coming apart like it had never been uncoiled before. All because of—
A knock at the door saved me from my inappropriate daydream. Looking up, I saw a man wearing a yellow high visibility vest lingering at the door.
“I’ve got a delivery for…Jane Doe?” He raised an eyebrow at the name but didn’t say anything about it, just held out a clunky PDA and waited for me to sign my name with the stylus.
Once he had my signature, he went outside to a small lorry that was parked in the driveway. When he returned, he wheeled in two large boxes on a trolley, both emblazoned with the Apple logo, and placed them in the center of the room. There wasn’t anywhere else to leave them, but he didn’t seem to mind. Once he’d unloaded, he went back out and brought in two more boxes. Lastly, he gave me a large orange envelope, and I took it blindly, my head still spinning.
Weeks ago, I’d asked for a few things I thought would be instrumental in rounding out the operations of Thornfield, but I had expected some refurbished equipment or at least a budget allocated so I could arrange delivery myself. I’d resigned myself to thinking we’d been overlooked when Edward had dismissed my proposal for the artist’s retreat, but here was the best of the best sitting in the middle of the chaos of the front office. Just like that.
This was… It was too grand. More money sat in front of me than I could ever imagine. The most I’d ever had at one time was a thousand pounds, and saving it had been a stretch, indeed.
“What did you do, Jane?” Alice asked, looking just as startled as I felt.
Staring at the boxes as the deliveryman left us to our surprised gaping, I was dumbfounded. “I don’t know.”
“There’s got to be thousands of pounds worth of computer equipment here.” She lifted the smallest box onto the desk and picked at the tape holding it closed. “This is… Wow. We’ve never gotten anything like this for the hotel, and I’ve been asking for years. You must’ve done something.”
“Why me?” I muttered, more to myself than her, but she answered anyway.
“You’re the only new person who’s been hired for a long time,” she said, opening the box. “And you’ve thrown yourself into this place like it were your own. Rocky likes that, I think.” She gasped and began pulling out white packages from within the brown shipping box. “There are like five iPads in here! One for the dining room staff, one for the office, one for the chef, one for housekeeping…here. This one has your name on it.”
“My name?” I reached out for the box Alice offered me and found it had a sticker with my name printed on it. For Jane Doe.
She peered at me curiously and asked, “Has no one ever given you a gift before?”
A gift? Surely this was for work, not… No, no one had ever given me a gift. Not that I could remember. Birthdays were nonevents, and forget about Christmas. It was an opportunity for penalty wages waitressing fancy dinners.
“Jane, open it, and turn it on!” Alice laughed at my expression, finding great pleasure in my shocked state.
Feeling uncomfortable at the thought Edward bought me something for personal use, I set the box aside and said, “Later. I think we should sort this lot out first.”
Alice nodded in agreement. “What’s in the envelope?”
Realizing I was still holding it, I quickly broke the seal and pulled out a swath of papers.
“Warranty information,” I said, flipping through the stack. “A manual and directions for included software. There’s a program which should help us with our bookings.”
“Amazing!” Alice declared. “Maybe we can get the hotel up on more online booking sites now we have all this.”
“That would make visibility a great deal easier.”
Setting the envelope aside with the elephant in the room, the mysterious iPad, we set about unboxing the computers and clearing space for them on the desks. We chattered happily, turning on the radio and listening to some rock music as we worked. I was so engrossed in our task I didn’t see him at first. Not until he had to declare his presence.
“Jane.”
Even though I’d only sp
oken with him twice at length, I would know his voice anywhere, and I stilled.
I was sitting among a pile of Styrofoam and cardboard on the floor, hardly looking the picture of professionalism for my position, and I rose to my feet so fast my head began to spin.
“Sir,” I declared as Alice quickly switched off the radio.
He was dressed in a fine slate gray suit, the fabric fitting his broad shoulders just so, and his white shirt and black herringbone tie matched accordingly. He was a perfect picture of refinement, apart from his hastily shaven beard, while I was the exact opposite. Chaos surrounded me, my hair was wild and thrown over my shoulder, my shirt was slightly crumpled, and my trousers were dirty at the knees from kneeling on the floor. For the first time since childhood, I felt ashamed of my appearance.
Edward glowered at me, no doubt making up his own mind as to my state, and finally offered me a folder. When I hesitated, he shook it at me, his brow creasing deeper in annoyance. Reaching out, I plucked it from his fingers.
“For your venture,” he said.
“My…” The artist retreat! I glanced down at the contents, and when I saw the check he’d slipped among the papers, my heart did a turn in my chest. “But this is too much.”
“Your budget was too modest,” he said, glancing briefly over my shoulder at Alice. “You need to readjust your expectations.”
Higher? Usually, I had to cut them to a quarter of what they were or at most half. Edward had just doubled them with a flick of his wrist.
“Thank you,” I said quickly, in case he changed his mind.
“Your proposal has merit, Jane,” he said. “Good luck with it.”
As he turned and began walking away, I stepped forward to watch his departure across the main gallery. Realizing I hadn’t thanked him for the computers he’d caught us unpacking, I called out to him, surprised at my confidence. Something had shifted inside me since his arrival, awakening a part of my soul I never knew existed. It was a curious thing not to censor oneself before acting. I wasn’t sure what exactly had triggered the metamorphosis, and a transformation it was, no matter how small it appeared.