Jane Austen Stole My Boyfriend Read Online Free PDF Page B

spent a lot of
time at Steventon parsonage and he and Frank were always discussing shooting, hunting, horses and dogs. I had a feeling that he was rather fond of Jane. He seemed to watch her often when he thought
he was unobserved and he laughed uproariously at any joke that she made.
    I asked Jane whether she thought Harry could keep a secret.
    ‘I should think so,’ said Jane after a moment’s thought. ‘I always trusted him. I used to tell him all my secrets. You know what children are like with their little
private affairs!’ And Jane sighed in an elderly fashion.
    ‘You see,’ I said to her, ‘I was thinking that if I could get Thomas to send a letter to Harry Digweed and to put a cross or some mark like that on the outside, then he could
bring it over here to me.’
    ‘Better still, bring the letters secretly by dead of night to the hollow yew tree outside the church,’ said Jane dramatically. ‘Do you remember how Cassandra and Tom Fowle used
to use that as a letter box? They’ve given it up now that they’ve become officially engaged; I’ve looked a few times and there never is anything there. We could use that now, and
it’s so near to the Digweeds’ house it would be quite convenient for Harry.’
    ‘And if we could get Harry Digweed to send your letters to Thomas, then no one in this household need be involved.’ I was getting enthusiastic about this idea. It was so much better
than my first idea, of asking Frank to post them and to collect the letters from Thomas and give them secretly to Jane and to post my replies. I would hate to get Frank involved in something of
which his father disapproved.
    ‘You’ll have to play your part cleverly, Jane,’ I warned. ‘You must make Harry Digweed think that he is doing a great favour to you. He’s fond of you.’
    ‘Ye . . . es,’ said Jane thoughtfully. ‘I’ll have to think out a “girl in distress” storyline.’ She stared unseeingly out of the window for a few
minutes and then said rapidly, ‘You have appealed to me to help you, and all I could think of was to go to this friend of my youth, my dear Harry Digweed. The thought of his manly profile, of
his blond hair and his blue eyes made my knees feel weak. He was the one, the only one, that I knew I could trust. One who could be a friend to weak girls . . . a brave, handsome, gentle, perfect
knight.’
    ‘Don’t overdo it,’ I advised, though I couldn’t help laughing.
    ‘No, just a touch of a quaver in the voice, just a hesitating gesture towards putting a hand on his sleeve – halted abruptly, of course . . . Leave it to me. I can manage
Harry.’
    ‘Poor boy,’ I said laughing, but I didn’t care really. All I cared about was being in touch with my lovely Thomas and to have him able to write letters to me that could freely
show what was in his heart.
    ‘Let’s write the first letter now. What do you want to say? Or do you want to write it yourself?’
    I told her that I had given my word to her father not to write any letters while I was under his roof so I wanted to keep my promise. I think she was quite relieved at that because she got out
the paper and trimmed a new quill very enthusiastically.
    ‘Just leave it to me,’ she advised. ‘I’ll tell him all about how you wander the house as a pale as a ghost; how you start and blush when anyone mentions something to do
with the navy, like ships, or the sea, or even the colour blue.’
    I begged her not to be so dramatic, that Thomas would think she was just laughing at us, but she assured me it would be a perfect letter.
    I went to the window and waited while she was writing, and when she had finished she read it to me:

    Jane was quite proud of her letter and I had to acknowledge that the idea of the anchor was a good one. I wished that I could write my own letter though. There were so many things that I wanted
to say, and I definitely would not have mentioned the episode with the tea cosy.
    After breakfast