“Ah, yes, you’ve said as much,” Mrs. Belden said while peering down the length of her disapproving nose. “Four times.”
“Surely it was not four,” she murmured. She’d have wagered this very post she depended upon that it had been at the very least six times.
“Regardless, Mrs. Munroe, I simply cannot have you here any longer.”
The panic climbed higher and higher, tightening her belly, and settling in her throat, threatening to choke her. She gripped the edge of her seat and held firm. “I do not have anywhere else to go.” This proved to be the second worst possible response.
The stern headmistress of the esteemed finishing school sat back in her chair. “That is, unfortunately, not my problem, Mrs. Munroe. I’d had,” she raked her cool gaze over Jane. “I had reservations about you but was persuaded,” likely paid a substantial sum to take her on, “to allow you a post. In your time here, you’ve filled my girls’ heads with dangerous talk of treason, challenging the very tenets of Society.”
“I’d hardly say encouraging the ladies to strengthen their minds and not offer blind allegiance to a gentleman constitutes treason.” She couldn’t keep the dryness from threading her words. The other woman snapped her eyebrows into a single line.
Blasted quick tongue. She cleared her throat. “That is, what I’d intended to say is I’ve striven to instruct the young ladies on the importance of using their minds to formulate productive thoughts.” That extended beyond the match they’d make and instead to rely on their own strengths and capabilities. “And—”
“And lecture them on the words of your Mrs. Mary Wollstonecraft.”
She was hardly Jane’s Mrs. Wollstonecraft. That esteemed woman was the inspiration who had given Jane hope she could be more than mere chattel. But she was everyone’s Mrs. Wollstonecraft. “Yes,” she said calmly. “I have spoken to them about Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s philosophies so they might formulate their own opinions.”
Mrs. Belden propelled forward in her seat. She thumped her fist on the desktop once more, sending the lone page fluttering to the floor forgotten. “Mrs. Munroe, women do not have opinions. They are obedient, decorous creatures to be cared for by a husband and your Mrs. Wollstonecraft with her bastard children is not fit discourse for anyone.” Crimson blotches blazed upon the woman’s cheeks, and she stared at Jane with pointed condescension, her words a smidgeon shy of the insult she’d level at her.
For every employer from the previous households she’d found employment in to this dour creature, all knew the truth—the Duke of Ravenscourt’s requests of employment for Jane were more of an order than anything else and stemmed from some obligatory response to his by-blow daughter.
She tipped her chin up at a mutinous angle, daring the woman with her eyes to speak the whole truth. The woman wisely remained silent, likely fearing retribution if she were to issue that insult. Little did the nasty headmistress realize that Jane would no sooner humble herself before the man who’d sired her by asking for his aid than beg the pinch-mouthed crone.
“I agreed to His Grace’s request but was forthright in saying that if you did anything to jeopardize my charges, I’d be forced to release you from your responsibilities. After all, I’d heard rumors of you.”
Rumors. So the grounds of her dismissal from her previous employer had found their way to the far flung corners of Kent. Not even the duke could silence those scandalous whispers. Fury tightened Jane’s belly at the condescending sneer on the woman’s lips. A woman who instructed young ladies on blind obedience and their rightful position in Society would never believe the word of a duke’s by-blow daughter over that of a powerful earl’s respected son and heir. So she said nothing.
“I cannot provide you a reference…” Nausea turned in Jane’s belly. A knock sounded at the door and she looked blankly from the arbiter of her fate and to the wood panel. Mrs. Belden frowned and glanced briefly over at the door, and then returned her attention to Jane once again. “As I said, I cannot provide you a reference. It would not be the honorable thing for me to do as your employer.”