My Mr. Rochester by L. K. Rigel

“Your father must be proud.”
    To earn full citizenship and secure voting rights, a young man not joined to a Righteous Household or Estate had to serve two years in the New Judean militia. If he was lucky, he’d be garrisoned in the interior, risking nothing more than a pulled muscle while drilling for war with the United States that everyone knew would never come.
    The unlucky ones got border patrol.
    “My father didn’t want me to go,” he said. “Didn’t think it was worth it.”
    Before I could be shocked by the idea, he lifted my left foot firmly in one hand and ran the other down my calf. Oh! Butterflies flitted across my stomach…and I felt hot in other places.
    He measured my feet, the diameter of each calf, the lengths from my heels to just below the backs of my knees.
    “Perfect,” he said. “It will be a pleasure to boot you.” He wrote in his order book, still holding my foot absently in one hand. Then he closed his book and touched my knee. He ran his fingers over the top of my thigh and leaned forward. His eyes were so deep and beautiful, and against my will my lips parted.
    I trembled as he kissed me, so strong and so soft at the same time. His tongue pushed in, and I didn’t mind. Far from it. I liked the way he made me feel, even as it frightened me. I pushed him away.
    “Mr. Blackstone.”
    “Call me Gideon,” he said. “You’re so lovely.”
    He moved to kiss me again, but I regained my senses.
    “Mr. Blackstone, don’t tease me. I know I’m not pretty.”
    “Aye.” He agreed readily and sat back on his heels. I felt like a fool. “You’re no flower. But don’t sell yourself short, Miss Eyre.” He leaned close to my ear, and his voice was husky and low. “There’s a spark inside you I’d love to blow into a roaring blaze.”
    I snatched up my purse and slipped into my shoes. As I hurried away, scandalized by my own actions, Gideon Blackstone’s laugh echoed behind me. At the door the magical bells jingled as he called out, “Your boots will be ready next Thursday.”
    That was the day I woke up. Back at Lowood, it struck me: teaching there wasn’t far different from being a student. I was in a play on a never-ending run, the same actor cast in different roles. Jane Eyre as student. Jane Eyre as teacher. In the future perhaps Jane Eyre as superintendent—with a lover from the village she thought she kept hidden but was fodder for the kitchen’s gossip.
    It didn’t have to be like this. I was not some puppeteer’s marionette. I had agency. I was a free human being. I had a marketable skill. I could break free. Go into the world. Teach in a different school.
    I advertised my services—and received one answer.

« Chapter 10 »
The News From Gateshead
    A few weeks later after my last class ended, Miss Miller summoned me to the superintendent’s cottage. She handed me an elegant fawn brown envelope of heavy linen stock post marked from the state of Jefferson, addressed to J. Eyre, Lowood Righteous Institution, Lowton, Idaho .
    My heart raced as I opened it and read the letter inside. “It’s from a Mrs. Fairfax at Thornfield Righteous Estate,” I said. “In Millcote County, Jefferson.”
    Millcote. I’d never forgotten the name. My true home, my soul’s home. Where my guardian angel had guided my hand that day in the library window seat. It was a sign! I’d taken the right course.
    “But who do you know in Jefferson?” Miss Miller said. “Who do you know anywhere?”
    Exactly, I thought. “She’s offered me a position teaching her daughter.” I stared at the word governess but couldn’t bring myself to say it.
    “What an idea!” Miss Miller chuckled, as if the offer was an insult. “Homeschooling would hardly suit.”
    “I think it would suit me very well.” I showed her the letter. “The pay is double what I receive from Lowood.”
    She read thoroughly—or I should say she stared at the page for a while. “I’ll miss you, Jane,” she said