The Heiress Effect (14 page)

“Yes, Uncle,” she said. “I’ll do everything
you say.”

There was an assembly that night, a glittering
gathering of young men and delicately arrayed women. Oliver had
come, and he still wasn’t sure why. To see Miss Fairfield, he
suspected, but his reasons for that…

He was not going to take Bradenton up on his
offer. He’d find some other way to bring the man around. Bradenton
could be reasonable, after all.

He’s not asking for a reasonable thing.

Oliver shoved that voice away. He’d watched
Miss Fairfield’s face turn to wax as her maid informed her of the
waiting doctor of galvanics. He’d been right. Whatever she was
facing, it was awful. Bradenton would turn reasonable, and that was
that.

But if he doesn’t?

Oliver shook his head. He would be.

The assembly room was smaller than most
London ballrooms. But then, there were far fewer people—no more
than perhaps a dozen couples with only a few more on their way.
Everyone had already mingled and made introductions. A few ladies
had glanced Oliver’s way shyly—ever since it had come out that he
was a duke’s son, there had been a little more interest. He talked
to them halfheartedly. He might have enjoyed the conversations, had
he not been waiting for Miss Fairfield.

It was not so much that he wanted to see
her.

She was pleasant enough to look at—the parts
of her that she didn’t drape in hideous apparel, at least. Earlier
in the bookshop, he’d enjoyed their conversation. He’d enjoyed it
so much that he’d stopped noticing the head-splitting pattern of
her day gown.

And now here he was, waiting for her to
arrive. Waiting with an eagerness that seemed a little out of
proportion to simple curiosity.

Just when he was on the verge of giving up
hope of her, she walked into the room.

Oliver saw her immediately and was so stunned
that he could not move. For the first few ticks of the clock,
nobody took notice. Ladies talked; gentlemen offered their arms.
Glasses were raised and drunk from.

Then one man glanced up, and another. Ladies’
heads turned. There were no gasps—the dress she was wearing was
beyond gasps. Oliver himself had to close his mouth. Silence
rippled over the room—an active, electric silence, the stillness
between the lightning strike and the rumble of thunder
overhead.

The cut of her gown was completely
unobjectionable. Rather modest, in terms of lace. It had no more
pattern than a few delicate twining vines at the hem. But aside
from those curling green tendrils, the gown was the bright pink
of…of…of…

All comparisons failed Oliver. It wasn’t the
bright pink of
anything.
It was a furious shade of pink, one
that nature had never intended. It was a pink that did violence to
the notion of demure pastels. It didn’t just shout for attention;
it walked up and clubbed one over the head.

It hurt his head, that pink, and yet he
couldn’t look away.

The room was small enough that he could hear
the first words of greeting. “Miss Fairfield,” a woman said. “Your
gown is…very pink. And pink is…such a lovely color, isn’t it?” That
last was said with a wistful quality in the speaker’s voice, as if
she were mourning the memory of true pink.

“Isn’t it lovely?” Miss Fairfield spoke
loudly enough to be heard by all. “I asked Miss Genevieve, and she
said that pink is always appropriate for a debutante.”

“Well,” said that other woman,
“there’s…certainly a great deal of pink in that gown.”

“Yes,” Miss Fairfield responded happily. “I
think so too!”

Everyone
was looking at her. Literally
everyone—there wasn’t a single person who could do anything but
gawk at that gown.

It would have been bearable if there were not
so much of that fabric, but the seamstress had not stinted. It
wasn’t just the pink bodice and the pink skirts, but the
excessively pink sash—all pink, no vines on that—which had been
looped and wired to stand out from her gown. There were floridly
pink flounces, which were trimmed with gouge-your-eyes-out pink
lace.

So much vicious, pink fabric. And all of it
was shiny.

She smiled brilliantly, as if she were proud
of that confection and utterly unaware that she was the cause of
all those titters.

Oliver had once watched a man eat a lemon.
His own mouth had dried in vicarious response, and he’d looked
away. He felt like that now, looking at her gown. She didn’t hold
back one bit. She wore her too-bright gown and spoke in her
too-loud voice, and she didn’t flinch while everyone gawked at
her.

She was going to get burned, not caring. She
went about the room greeting people. Behind her, a gentleman made a
rude gesture at her backside—a flip of his hand that was too crass
for a ballroom—and the laughter that erupted had an ugly tint to
it.

Miss Fairfield smiled as if she’d done
something brilliant.

No, it was not just that she was going to get
burned.

She had already been burned. She was afire
now. She smiled and laughed and she didn’t care what they thought
of her. It was as painful to watch as that fellow had been,
casually peeling a lemon and then eating the slices one by one as
if nothing were wrong. Oliver wanted to tell himself that he
wouldn’t hurt her, that he wasn’t that kind of man. But right now,
all he wanted to do was push her so far from him that he never had
to see this, never had to hear that low, mocking laughter
again.

He remembered being laughed at. He remembered
it all too well, and he remembered its aftermath. They’d come find
him later, taunting, a group of them when he’d been caught out
alone…

No. He couldn’t watch this. He turned
away.

But it did little good. He could still hear
her.

She greeted the hostess, cheerily. “Mrs.
Gedwin,” she said in a carrying voice, “I am
so
delighted to
be in attendance. And what a lovely chandelier you have. I wager it
would look almost new, if it had been dusted recently.”

Oliver’s fists clenched.
Stop playing with
fire, you foolish girl, before you hurt yourself.

“Good God,” said a woman near him. “Even her
gloves
match.”

Sebastian had said that nature chose its most
brilliant colors as a warning:
Don’t eat me. I’m poison.
If
that were the case, Miss Fairfield had just announced that she was
the most poisonous butterfly ever to grace the drawing rooms of
Cambridge. She flitted about the room, leaving dazed looks and
cruel titters behind her.

By the time she made her way to him, he had a
headache. Hell, he didn’t need Bradenton to offer him his vote. He
might have pushed her away just so he wouldn’t have to listen to
everyone laugh.

“Mr. Marshall,” she said.

He took her hand and inhaled. And that,
perhaps, was what brought him back to himself. Amidst all that was
unfamiliar, there was one thing he recognized—the smell of her
soap, that mixed scent of lavender and mint. It spelled instant
comfort, and it made his course of action quite clear.

He’d promised not to lie to her. That was all
he had to do now—not lie.

“Miss Fairfield,” he said in a voice pitched
normally. “You look well today.”

She dimpled at him.

He let his gaze drift down briefly, and then
looked up at her. “Your gown, on the other hand…” He took in a deep
breath. “It makes me want to commit an act of murder, and I do not
consider myself a violent man. What are you wearing?”

“It’s an evening gown.” She spread her
outrageously gloved hands over her hips.

“It is the most hideous shade of pink that I
have ever seen in my life. Is it actually glowing?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” But the smile on her
face seemed more genuine.

“I fear it may be contagious,” he continued.
“It is setting all my preternatural urges on edge, whispering that
the color must be catching. I feel an uncontrollable urge to run
swiftly as far as I can in the other direction, lest my waistcoat
fall prey next.”

She actually laughed at that and brushed her
shoulder. “This would make a lovely waistcoat, don’t you think? But
don’t worry; the color isn’t virulent. Yet.”

“What does one call a color like that?”

She smiled at him. “Fuchsine.”

“It even
sounds
like a filthy word,”
Oliver replied. “Tell me, what sort of devilry is fuchsine?”

She glanced around them, ascertained that
nobody was near enough to hear. “It’s a dye,” she said, as if that
were not obvious. “A new one, a synthetic one, made from some kind
of coal tar, I believe. Some brilliant chemist with a talent for
experimentation and no sense of propriety came up with this.”

“It’s…” There were still no words for it.
“It’s malevolent,” he managed. “Truly.”

She leaned in. “You’re maligning the shade,”
she whispered. “Don’t. I actually love it. And I wager that
everyone else here would, too, if it had been someone
else
wearing it first.”

He swallowed. “Maybe. That other person might
have been wearing it in greater moderation.”

“I had it made up specially. The gloves, the
lace. I thought about having little brilliants sewn all over the
bodice in sparkly patterns, but…” She shrugged expressively.

“You decided you didn’t actually want to be
responsible for blinding the entire gathering. Thank you.”

“No. I decided that I would save that for the
virulently
green
dress.” She gave him a waggle of the
eyebrow. “There must be some escalation, after all. What’s the
point in being an heiress, if you aren’t allowed to make anyone
cringe?”

Oliver simply shook his head. “Yes, but…”

“It’s the most amazing thing. I don a gown
like this, and you’re the only one who tells me to my face how
utterly hideous it is. Everyone else has been giving me the most
contrived compliments. Here comes someone else, no doubt to
compliment me on the extraordinary color.”

He shook his head. “That must take some
calculation, Miss Fairfield. Determining precisely the line you
must walk to prevent yourself from being bodily hurled from the
assembly.”

She smiled. “No calculation at all. They put
up with me for one reason, and one reason only. I call it the
heiress effect.”

The heiress effect. Maybe that was it—that
was what stood between those ugly whispers and the prickle of hair
on the back of his neck. He managed a halfhearted smile.

“Miss Fairfield, you frighten me. You and
your wardrobe.”

She tapped his wrist with the fan. “That,”
she said briskly, “is the point. This way, I can repel dozens of
men in one fell swoop, all without even opening my mouth. And
nobody can say it’s not demure. I’m even wearing pearls.”

He glanced down. If anyone asked, he was
looking at her pearls. Definitely looking at her pearls, which were
displayed to admirable effect by her bosom. That lovely swell of
sweet flesh, so soft-looking. Her breasts made even the pernicious
pink fabric that framed them appear touchably good.

“Miss Fairfield,” he said, after a moment of
silence that stretched a little too long. “I would ask you to
dance, but I fear our last conversation was interrupted.”

The smile slowly slid off her face, and her
brow crinkled in little lines of worry. “There’s a verandah,” she
finally said. “We could go out. It is a little cold, but… Other
people are getting air. Not many of them, but we’ll be in sight of
the company. If anyone asks, you can claim that you were doing the
assembly a favor. Ridding them of the horror of looking at me for a
quarter hour.”

She smiled as she said it. She sounded
perfectly serious.

And Oliver… Oliver felt a twinge deep inside
him. He wasn’t that man. He wasn’t going to humiliate her. He
wasn’t.

You will,
his gut whispered back.

“You’re not horrid,” he said. “Your gown
is.”