The Heiress Effect (15 page)

“I can guess,” Mr. Marshall said a little later,
as they made their way onto the verandah, away from the press of
other people, “as to why you are doing this.” His gesture
encompassed her gown of fuchsine.

Jane had expected as much. He seemed a clever
man; he wouldn’t have missed the import of the conversation he’d
overheard. But she looked away, concentrating on the gray Portland
stone of the verandah, the stone balustrade ringed by naked trees,
cast in flickering shadows.

“Is it your sister?”

“Emily.”

“She’s ill, then.”

“
Ill
is not the right word. She has a
convulsive condition. That is to say, she has convulsions.
Seizures. F—” She was talking too much again, and she bit back the
even longer explanation that popped into her mind.

“It’s not epilepsy?”

“Some doctors call it epilepsy,” she said
cautiously. “But she has seen so many of them. The only thing they
can agree on is that they don’t know how to cure her fits.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “What I overheard the
other day, that’s the nature of the typical experiment, then? The
doctors want to send an electric shock through her?”

“Among so many other things.” Too many
treatments to list. Too many for Jane to think about without
feeling sick to her stomach. “They’ve tried bloodletting and
leeches and potions that make her vomit. Those are the easy ones to
talk about. The rest…” If she closed her eyes, she could still
smell the poker burning into her sister’s arm. She could still hear
her scream. “You don’t want to hear about the rest.”

“Her guardian, I take it, is in favor of
experimentation. You are not.”

“Emily is not,” Jane said tightly.
“Therefore, I am not.”

She waited for him to argue with her. To tell
her what Titus always said—that young girls had guardians so that
someone could make them do the things they did not wish to do.

“I can scarcely imagine,” Mr. Marshall
finally said. “My sister-in-law, Minnie—she’s the Duchess of
Clermont—bother, never mind her title.”

Jane blinked, but he went on, as if he called
duchesses by their Christian names every day. Maybe he did.

“In any event,” he said, steering her around
a few dormant rose bushes, “Minnie’s best friend is married to a
physician. Doctor Grantham and I have had some frank discussions on
the state of medicine. I don’t think it is possible to speak with
five doctors without hearing of some terrifying practice.”

“Twenty-seven,” Jane said softly. “She has
seen twenty-seven doctors, and I’m not counting the ones who
haven’t the proper credentials. It’s simple, really. If I marry,
I’ll leave her alone in the household. I have money, but she does
not. As she is not yet of age, if I gave her money it would simply
be held in trust by her guardian. Who, needless to say, would use
it to find more doctors. So I must stay in the household,
unmarried, so that I might bribe them to leave her in peace.” There
was so much more to it than that. She worried about her sister,
left alone so much. Emily had so much vitality in her; restricting
her movements left her restless. And Emily needed companionship,
friends of her own age.

But he nodded. “That much I had gathered. But
why is it that you make this particular attempt?” He gestured at
the doors of the assembly. “Why not simply say that you don’t plan
to marry?”

She sighed. “It’s my uncle. He is a very
dutiful man. He allows my presence only because he believes he is
doing me a favor—helping me find a husband who will curb my
tendencies. But I’m not his ward any longer. If he wanted me out of
his household, he could have me out.”

“Your tendencies?”

“I am,” she said swiftly, “stubborn,
argumentative, and…and he fears, considering my birth, potentially
licentious.” She didn’t look up at him to see how he would take
this. She probably shouldn’t have told him that. What he would
think…

There was a pause. “Lovely. My favorite kind
of woman.”

“You’re very droll.”

“Was I joking?” He held up his hands. “I
wasn’t joking.”

“No man wants a woman who argues with him,”
she said. “He especially doesn’t want a…licentious woman.”

He laughed. “You,” he said, “have a very odd
idea of what men like in a woman. Most men I know prefer a woman
who favors a good, long night of…” He trailed off, leaning in.

“Of what?”

“Of argument,” he replied.

“That’s ridiculous.” But she found her lips
tugging upward in a smile. “I have proof positive you are wrong on
this point. I argue with men all the time, and they absolutely
despise me.”

“Ah, see, you’ve got the idea now. Contradict
me again, Miss Fairfield, and see how I like it.”

“You don’t.”

“That, my dear, you cannot dispute. We can
argue over the general preferences of my sex until the cows come
home, but we cannot argue over what I like. I will always win.”

“Why should that stop me?” Jane asked. “I
have made an entire career out of losing.”

The smile slipped off his face. He took a
deep breath and regarded her. “Yes, as to that. We have established
why you do not wish to marry. But there are a great many easier
ways that a woman can stay unmarried. What made you choose this
one?”

She’d not expected the question. Even her own
sister had never asked her
why
she’d chosen this particular
route. And that brought back memories—memories that still itched
under her skin, if she let them.

“It suits me,” she finally said.

“I don’t think it does.”

“You cannot argue over what I like,” Jane
retorted. “I will always win.”

“Miss Fairfield.” He did not seem to be
saying her name as a prelude to anything, but simply to be speaking
it for the pleasure of the syllables. He shook his head slowly as
he did, and then put his hand over hers.

Jane looked around. Nobody was looking at
them, and even if they did, they’d see two people standing by a
stone wall. He’d touched her so casually that apparently even he
hadn’t noticed. But she had. Oh, she definitely had. She drew in a
shocked breath.

“Miss Fairfield,” he repeated, “tell me that
you are perfectly happy with your choice. That you don’t mind being
laughed at every time your back is turned. Tell me that you are not
starved for rational conversation. Convince me that this role that
you are playing suits you, and I’ll happily concede the point.”

“I…” Yes, she could make an argument, she
supposed. Something about how she was better off without the
friendship of everyone who was cattish enough to mock her.

She could make that argument, but she
couldn’t even convince herself.

Instead she held perfectly still, absorbing
the warmth of his hand, hoping he wouldn’t notice what he’d done
and draw away. “I can’t claim that it makes me happy. But I
am
good at this. Mucking up conversations. Not knowing any
of the rules. Doing things that I ought not do, saying things that
I am not supposed to say.”

He kept silent. And of course, she kept
talking. That was what she always did when she was nervous.

“It started before I had any idea that I’d
need to stay unmarried. I was nineteen when we first came to my
uncle’s house. He had not yet engaged a bevy of doctors to see my
sister.” She swallowed. “My uncle…for a number of reasons, he had a
dim view of me from the start. He wanted me married off, and I was
happy to comply. I wanted a family, my own house. I’d lived in an
isolated manor all my life. I’d had no children to play with
besides my sister. I wanted
friends.”

She’d thought he was unaware that he’d
touched her, but his hand tightened around her fingers. She looked
down, but he didn’t pull away. Instead, his fingers curled into
hers.

“I’d never had a governess. I had never had
an etiquette lesson. My uncle purchased a book for me.” She laughed
softly. “It was sixteen years out of date.”

“I can see where this is going.”

“I had nobody to instruct me on my gowns. All
I knew was what I liked, and what I like is dreadful.” She shut her
eyes. “For instance, I love this gown. Yes, it’s outrageous, but… I
had awful tastes and the money to indulge them, and my manners were
even worse. I was a complete disaster. You cannot imagine how much
of a disaster I was.”

“I can,” he replied. “You should have seen me
at Eton the first few months. I continually had bruises. It took
until I was seventeen to get to the point where between my
brother’s threats and my learning how to behave, I wasn’t accosted
on a daily basis.”

“I have never been good with names, but when
I called Mr. Sanford ‘Mr. Smith’ on accident, you would think that
I had robbed a carriage at gunpoint. I ate the wrong foods. I asked
questions about trade in mixed company. I have always talked too
much, and when I’m nervous, I have difficulty stopping. Is it any
surprise that I did everything wrong? They started the whole
‘Feather Heiress’ thing the first month. That was all I heard—in
front of me, behind my back. ‘It’s like being beaten to death by
feathers.’ They played a game where the boys would all come to talk
with me in a group. And they’d say, ‘What would you rather be doing
now?’ ‘Oh, I’d rather be mauled to death by lions.’ ‘I would rather
bathe in a vat of acid, how about you?’ As if I were so stupid that
I could not figure out that they were talking about how much they
hated me.”

“Jane.” His thumb rubbed the side of her
hand.

“Don’t feel sorry for me.” She raised her
chin and banished that cold, dark feeling from her heart. “I do
not. When I realized how much my sister needed me, I thanked God
that I had so easy a method of avoiding marriage. They thought I
was awful? Well, I would give them awful. They wanted to gawk at my
ignorance? Well, I would give them something to gawk at. They’d
exaggerated my flaws just to have someone to laugh at, and so I
vowed to make them exaggerations no more. The more they mocked me,
the harder it would be for them.”

Her voice shook as she talked. And his thumb
continued its gentle caress—up, down. Up, down.

“They are a pit of vipers,” Jane said
fiercely. “And I hate them. I
hate
them. I didn’t choose
this role, Mr. Marshall. But it chose me, and I have used it.”

He didn’t say anything, not for the longest
time.

“I know what you are thinking,” she finally
said in a rush. “Because I treated you the same, when first I met
you. You hadn’t done anything to me, and I…”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t thinking
that.”

“I know it’s wrong,” she said. “But at this
moment, everything in my life is so wrong that the right, proper
thing to do would be dreadfully out of place. I don’t know when I
stopped playing a role and when the role started playing me. Now,
though, I don’t see how I could stop. Everyone expects me to be
someone else. They’re assured of it. That is the rub; I
am
awful.” She licked her lips. “And I don’t see any way for me to
become anything else.”

God. She hadn’t meant to tell that much. Even
when she’d imagined telling him everything, she hadn’t told him
that.

Jane squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry. I
don’t mean to complain to you. I’ve done nothing but talk and talk
and talk. You scarcely know me. You have far more important things
to do. It’s just—you’re so lovely.”

She winced, hearing the words out loud,
wondering what he must be thinking at the moment. Licentious,
indeed. Licentious, forward…

“I mean, you’re forthright and trustworthy,
where everyone else has been…” Talking more wasn’t making it
better.

“Miss Fairfield,” he said.

His voice was as deep as the night around
them, and she turned to him.

But he didn’t look disgusted by her
admission. He didn’t even look amused by her babbling. He looked…
She wasn’t sure what that expression was on his face. His eyes were
clear, so clear that in the moonlight they looked almost
colorless.

He took his hand from hers. “Never trust a
man who claims that he is telling you ninety-five percent of the
truth.”

His words came over her like a cold wash of
water. There was something grim in his face, something she couldn’t
quite understand. She peered up at him. “What do you mean?”

“What would you do,” he said carefully, “if I
were to tell everyone of this conversation? If you think matters
are impossible now, when they think you merely ignorant, what do
you suppose they would do if they knew you had done all this on
purpose?”

She opened her mouth to answer and then shut
it, ever so slowly. “But you wouldn’t tell.”

He shook his head. “Miss Fairfield,” he said,
“why do you think I was kind to you?”

“Because—you—that is to say…” She swallowed.
“You mean to say, that’s not just the way you are?”

“No. If I’d had my choice of matters, I would
have simply avoided you after that first awful night. I talked to
you because Bradenton asked me to do it.”

She took a step back involuntarily.
“Bradenton! What has he to do with any of this?”

“He thinks you need to know your place. He
offered me a trade: his vote in Parliament, if I’d deliver a sharp
lesson to you. I talked to you to figure out if I could do it.”

Her head spun. She should have known. This
wasn’t real. That hand on hers, that look in his eye. None of it
was real. He
had
been too nice, and she was—

She shook her head, dispelling those
thoughts. “You wouldn’t be telling me of this if you intended to
take him up on the offer.”

His lips compressed. Then he took her arm.
“Walk with me,” he said.

There wasn’t much of anywhere to go—just a
little circuit around the verandah. But when they got to the far
edge, he stopped, gesturing for her to sit on a bench. He’d led her
out of view of everyone else. He looked around and sat down next to
her.