Read Burning Bright (Brambridge Novel 2) for Free Online

James and it was as if she was the silly goose again and he was the young man she had worshipped.
    Her foot throbbed. Harriet groaned again. She couldn’t believe she’d kicked him. Of all the stupid things to do—and then the way she’d railed on at him about him not coming back for two years. What about what she was going to say about the darkness of the mine? Or about asking him why he had not come back?
    Opening her eyes, Harriet gingerly put down her foot and advanced into the cottage.  It was early afternoon; everyone would be in the front room, bent over intricate lace work. They would have been there since the early hours of the morning. Children looked up briefly as Harriet entered, before returning to their work.
    Janey, bobbin in her mouth, pointed to the black kettle that sat by the fireplace. Limping across the room, Harriet took the kettle outside, filled it with water from the pump and then set it back on the fire.
    She edged back slowly onto a low stool, and picked a book out from her bag.
    “Can’t do no teaching today, Harriet,” Janey said as she deftly took the bobbin out of her mouth and wound it round the last piece of lace weft. “That Edgar’s riding us hard. He knows that we sent our lace off with you.”
    “No!” Harriet put her hand over her mouth, the book forgotten.
    “He’s demanding twice as much for half the price. In fact he’s refusing to pay us for the lace now, we can only exchange it for goods from his shop.”
    “I’m very sorry, Janey, I tried everywhere in Ottery St Mary, but they refused to deal with me. They said that there would be consequences for them if they didn’t deal with Edgar directly.”
    “Have you still got the lace?” Janey looked at her lace with little pause.
    “Yes, it’s in our cottage. Should I bring it back?” Harriet wrung her hands. The bale of lace still sat where she left it by the cottage door. “Oh, I should never have offered to help!”
    “You weren’t to know, Harriet.” Janey looked up for the first time. “We asked you to go. You are the only one in the village that knows them letters and numbers well enough not to be robbed. We’re getting desperate.”
    Harriet nodded. Agatha had taught her to read and write as there had been no village school when Harriet was growing up. Reading was her grand passion; she devoured everything from out-of-date papers to plays. Her aunt had been disappointed in her lack of interest in mathematics. In Harriet’s mind it was up there with the long confining hours of teaching. But the teaching brought them a little bit of money in addition to the housekeeping that Agatha did for the Vicar’s wife. At least for however long the village school stayed open.
    “How’s your father?” she asked.
    “Mam’s looking after him. It doesn’t help him being in bed all the time with his shoulder. If he doesn’t sail on the Rocket , he doesn’t get no pay. He’s terrible at making lace.” A single tear trickled down Janey’s cheek. “He’s going to be no use to anyone for the next month.”
    Harriet swallowed. It was her fault that the precious lace lay unsold, and that Edgar was now going to pay even less for them. She even felt responsible for Tommy, Janey’s father. Although she wasn’t the one to have swiped him with a sword, she had sewn him up, and now it was to be seen whether the stitches would hold. She was terrible at sewing.
    “Don’t look so sad, Harriet.” One of Janey’s sisters stretched where she sat. “Can you read us some more of that story?”
    “It’s not a story, silly,” a small boy’s voice said proudly. “It’s a play. And we’re all in it. We’re going to perform it at the Midsummer’s festival.”
    Harriet nodded. “It’s all the rage in London. It’s called Romeo and Juliet. Edmund Kean is playing Romeo at the Covent Garden theatre as we speak.”
    At the children’s blank looks, Harriet sighed. She understood. Even she hadn’t been to London or