My Mr. Rochester Read Online Free Page A

forth.
    “Now Jane, you must never mind about that book.” His tone modulated, and his false reasonableness made my blood run cold. “I’m sure Georgiana’s motives were sincere and pure. She has no appreciation of your inherent wickedness. But no matter. I’ve taken care of it.”
    “What? What have you done?”
    “It’s gone,” he said. “The atlas. If you must know, I’ve burnt it.”
    “You wouldn’t.”
    “It’s in the kitchen ovens. They’re baking bread just now, and the flames are good and hot.”
    “Oh, John Reed, I hate you. I hate you so!”
    His hand was raised, poised to slam once again across my jaw. I closed my eyes and braced for the blow. But it didn’t come. Instead, his warm fat hand rested softly against my cheek.
    “Oh, Jane,” he said. “Jane.”
    Thick and moist lips pressed against mine. As my eyes popped open in shock, his tongue thrust into my mouth. I jerked my head back, repulsed.
    “Jane.” He said my name urgently. “I'm sorry. I’m sorry about what I said before. I don’t think you’re plain.” He moaned with such agony, you’d think he was the tortured one. My heart raced with disgust and fear. He kissed me again, and his hand moved from my cheek to my throat.
    He let go my throat and I relaxed slightly as he gripped my shoulder, but then his hand slid down to my breast and he squeezed me hard. Bessie’s lecture on womanhood crowded into my brain.
    I screamed. Not in pain. Not in shock.
    I screamed in abject terror.
    I screamed the world down to our feet. I screamed all the red of the Red Room into a swirling ball of rage and screamed that rage into John Reed’s fat face. The door flew open and I saw his backside lumber away as he fled. The chair I was bound to tipped, and the hardwood floor came rushing toward my face.

« Chapter 4 »
Brocklehurst
    It felt like coming out of a nightmare. Someone lifted me to a sitting position and propped me against my pillows. I was in my bedroom, dressed in my nightgown. It was daylight, but I couldn’t tell if it was morning or well into afternoon.
    On one side of my bed Bessie watched me anxiously. I turned my face away, unwilling to accept her false show of concern after she abandoned me to that monster John Reed.
    The gentleman who’d lifted me hovered over me, examining my eyes, and I felt a rush of relief. A stranger in the house, guarantor of safety and civil treatment. Not truly a stranger—I knew who he was—but someone not belonging to Gateshead Righteous, and therefore not Mrs. Reed’s creature.
    Or John Reed’s creature either. I had to consider that now.
    “Well, do you know who I am?” the man asked.
    “Dr. Lloyd,” I said, and he smiled at my correct answer. “But why are you here, sir?”
    A dull ache nagged at my right temple, and my wrists and ankles were sore, but I couldn’t imagine Mrs. Reed calling in a doctor. She’d never called one for countless other wounds and scrapes I’d suffered under her guardianship.
    “Bessie asked me to see you as long as I was here,” Dr. Lloyd said. “I was called to attend poor Mrs. Reed and her brood.”
    I smiled at the way he said brood , drawing out the oooo sound. My resentment of Bessie eased somewhat.
    “Something they ate, I believe.” Dr. Lloyd shook down a thermometer and stuck it in my mouth. “Someone dropped a picture book into the oven fire while the bread was baking. Fumes from the burning ink did no wonders for the loaves, I daresay.”
    He winked at me, as if it was a joke only he and I could understand.
    “She’s to have liquids only,” he told Bessie. “Broth, tea. A little brandy.”
    “Dr. Lloyd!” she said, scandalized, and my eyes grew wide.
    “No brandy?” the doctor said jovially. “I suppose not. The tea then, with honey and lemon.”
    “Yes, sir.” Bessie smiled. She appreciated his good nature too. She was really quite pretty when the sweet side of her personality held sway.
    Dr. Lloyd seemed pleased with the