The Heiress Effect (28 page)

She
had
known, and she hadn’t said
anything.

Titus probably would have believed her
responsible no matter what the truth was. But his eyes narrowed at
the guilty expression on her face. He shook his head sadly. “As I
thought.”

A denial popped into her head—something like,
but I did tell her to be careful
. She managed not to say it
out loud. She had no idea what Titus knew and had no intention of
incriminating her sister.

“Did something happen to her?” she asked. “Is
she well? Has she been hurt?”

Titus waved a hand. “Her body is as well as
it ever can be, poor child. But she was unrepentant when I found
her. She attempted to reason with me, to…” He sighed. “To convince
me.”

“She’s right. There would be no problem, if
only you—”

“If
I?”
He slammed his hands against
the desk and leaned forward. “So you’ll lay this at my feet, too?
You encouraged her to defy me. You likely showed her how to leave,
and told her—”

“She’s not a simpleton,” Jane snapped back,
“nor is she led on strings. She’s a nineteen-year-old woman. She’s
old enough to marry, to make her own decisions. Nobody needs to
show
her how to do things. She does them on her own.”

If Titus heard this, he didn’t show it.

“I can no longer avoid contemplating the ill
effects of your influence,” he said piously.

Jane took a deep breath. “She’s a normal
girl. She has high spirits, that’s all.”

Titus shook his head. “It is your telling her
such things that causes these problems. A normal girl? She is no
such thing. She is
afflicted,
Jane, and you let your sister
wander about the countryside unchaperoned. What if she had met a
man?”

“What if a burglar broke into her window?”
Jane countered. “She’s not Rapunzel, to be locked away for
good.”

Titus stared into her eyes. She wasn’t sure
what she was looking at—anger, surely, but something more.
Something halfway between anger and triumph. “That,” he finally
said, “was a test. I know that she met a man. She told me so
herself. I had given you that one last chance for honesty, you see.
Your refusal to tell me the entire truth…” He shook his head, sad
once more. “You disappoint me, Jane. You disappoint me deeply.”

It wasn’t fair. She wasn’t going to apologize
for refusing to betray her sister. Especially since she would have
received the blame no matter how Titus found out. He’d failed Emily
and Jane both, thrust them into this untenable position where the
choice was either to lie or to accept a future where Emily was
isolated from company and tortured by physicians.

“You will leave tomorrow,” Titus said. “Your
aunt, my sister Lily, will take you in.” His lip twitched
distastefully. “She will find you a husband in short order. Emily
will not write. You may not visit. It will be as if she has no
sister. I have hopes that I may yet undo the damage you have
caused.”

“No.” Jane choked on the word. “No. You can’t
take her away from me.”

“I can.” He folded his arms in satisfaction.
“I will. I already have, Jane. Your things are packed. You’ll be
escorted to the train station tomorrow. Mrs. Blickstall will
accompany you to Nottingham.”

Jane stared straight ahead of her, too dazed
to cry. Her lungs burned. She couldn’t think of anything at all. If
she were not here, what would Emily do? Her sister wouldn’t have
books to read or companions near her age. And that was to say
nothing about what would happen if Titus decided to bring in yet
another charlatan to cure Emily’s condition.

She took a deep breath. “I’ll go, but if I
do, there will be no doctors. No attempts to experiment on
her.”

“Jane,” Titus said in a tired voice, “you
cannot dictate terms. You are not your sister’s guardian. I am.
I
am responsible for her, and I will determine what is best
for her welfare.”

If you need me,
Oliver had said.

That thought filled her with a terrible,
wistful hope. Surely this counted as need. Surely
this
was a
situation where his promise would require him to return, and if he
did…

He was not a full hour gone from her life,
and she was already contemplating bleating for him like a little
lost lamb. As if she’d been a foolish child when she’d told him
that she was strong enough. Her lip curled, and she contemplated
her uncle.

In the orangish light of the lamp, he looked
old and tired. The lines on his forehead seemed gouged into his
skin, deep dark ruts marking a lifetime of fretting.

Jane raised her chin. She’d beaten Bradenton,
by God, and he was stronger than Titus.

She could still feel Oliver’s kiss on her
lips. She imagined a box made of carbonized steel—steel as strong
as the girders of a steamship, steel as thick as an engine boiler,
able to withstand the heat and pressure of a thousand infernos. She
could lock all Titus’s ineffectual rage away forever inside such
strength.

She put the feeling of Oliver’s kiss inside
the box and closed it tightly so that nothing could happen to it.
While she could remember what it felt like, she was not alone. He’d
said so, and she believed it.

She lifted her head and stared into her
uncle’s eyes. Her greatest fear had come true, but…this was
freedom, not disaster. She had no need to pretend any longer. Not
with anyone. She held Oliver’s kiss close, until she drove the
tremor from her hands. Until she was calm enough to speak without
croaking.

“No,” she said softly. “That is not what is
going to happen.”

He blinked at her in confusion. “You can say
no all you wish, but you have no legal power.”

“No,” Jane repeated. “You are wrong. You’re
Emily’s guardian, but you aren’t mine. You have no way to control
what I do.”

He gave her a haughty look. “Speak sense for
once, because I do not take your meaning.”

He couldn’t win. Why had she never seen it
before? She’d been so busy hiding in the shadows that she’d ceded
all her best weapons.

“I don’t
have
to go to our aunt’s
house,” Jane said. “I have money. I can do anything I wish. You
haven’t noticed because all I’ve wished for is my sister’s
happiness and wellbeing. You’re so set on believing me disobedient.
You’ve not realized that I have been trying to obey your edicts.
Think what I could do, if I chose to be difficult.”

He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“If I wished, I could purchase a house next
to this one. I could live there with a string of lovers. I could
purchase an advertisement in the newspaper announcing that you
suffered from a malady of the brain.”

As she spoke, he turned white. “You
wouldn’t.”

She leaned forward. “I could tell everyone I
met about your sordid medical practices. I’d let them know how
unfit a guardian you were. I could make your life impossible.
That’s who I am, if you haven’t noticed. I’m an impossible girl,
and you cannot rid yourself of me. Not with threats. Not with
words. Those are my terms.”

He stared at her in mute, baffled confusion,
as if she had suddenly transformed into a bear and he didn’t know
whether to scream and run or fetch a rifle. “I will not have you in
my household.”

“Then it’ll be the newspaper,” she said with
a shrug. “And—”

“But you may visit,” he squeaked. “Once a
month?”

She stopped and looked at him, and he managed
a weak smile.

“I can’t keep you out of Cambridge,” he said,
looking down at the desk, “but I
can
dictate who Emily
sees.”

If Jane bought a house in Cambridge, that
would mean the end of any freedom at all for Emily. Their uncle
would be guarding her too closely, trying to keep them apart.
And—Jane realized—she couldn’t really carry out her threats. If she
did, she’d have no leverage on him. Even Titus might prove
dangerous if he had nothing to lose.

At least this way he was negotiating.

“You’ll go to my sister,” Titus said. “You’ll
do as she says. You won’t make a scene or a fuss. You see Jane, I
do care for your welfare even if you do not. I want you to
safeguard your reputation, not throw it away in some desperate
attempt to lead your sister down your path.”

“My path.” Her cheeks burned. “For all you
talk of it, you don’t know anything about my path. You’ve never
tried to really help. You’ve just given me orders.”

He waved a hand. “Spare me the
histrionics.”

She caught hold of herself. She brought the
shrouds of her dignity about her and glared at him.

“The truth is, Jane,” he said, “that if you
hadn’t had me to look out for you, I do not know what you would be
doing. Go to my sister. Find a husband.” He sighed wearily. “God,
you girls tire me so.”

She would never convince him. “I’ll see Emily
every other week,” Jane said. “And she’ll write as often as she
wishes.”

“I will monitor the correspondence.”

She’d expected nothing less. She shrugged at
this. “You’ll stop torturing her with those dreadful physicians,”
she said.

“No. If I hear of someone who can do her
good—”

“Then you may speak to me. I’ll want
proof—testimonials from former patients who have a malady similar
to Emily’s, patients that the physician has helped. The lot of them
are far too quick to experiment, and heedless of the pain they
cause. And you’ll ask Emily if she wishes to proceed.”

He snorted. “Your sister does not know what
is good for her because you coddle her. This is why
nineteen-year-old girls have guardians, Jane—to make them do the
things they would not choose on their own. Frankly, you’ve just
proven that you’re not any better.”

She glared at him. “This is not negotiable,
Titus. It is either that, or I will embarrass you. Badly.”

His nostrils flared and he pressed his
fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Very well. Before I embark on a
course of treatment, I will…consult.” He made a face as he talked,
his lips lifting away from his teeth as if he were a snarling dog.
“God. When will this ever end?”

He could claim weariness as loudly as he
wished so long as he left Emily alone.

Jane nodded.

“Then we are in agreement,” she said.

“You’ll leave tomorrow.”

By the time she crawled into bed, Jane had lost
the ability to make sense of the world.

She had let everyone know that she was not as
stupid as she’d pretended. Oliver was gone. On the morning, she was
leaving Emily behind and going to live with her aunt in Nottingham.
She’d held Titus to a bargain, wresting concessions from him with
threats.

She wasn’t sure who she was any longer. She
seemed both bigger and colder than the person she had been even a
few nights ago.

There was only one certainty in her life.

Even though Jane was tired, she waited,
fighting the waves of weariness that threatened to drag her down
into sleep. It took almost fifteen minutes before her door swung
open.

“Jane?” Emily’s voice was small in the
darkness.

Jane turned to the sound.

“Can I—”

Jane didn’t even wait for her sister to
finish her sentence. She pulled back the covers, and Emily ducked
under them and joined her. Her sister made a mass of warmth under
the blankets.

It had been a long time since Emily had
climbed into bed with Jane. Not since she was eleven and afraid of
thunderstorms. Back then, she would have made her sister a little
cocoon out of coverlets to try and keep her safe.

She wasn’t going to be able to keep her safe
any longer. She’d done her best, but she knew what Titus was.

“I’m sorry,” Emily said. “I’m so sorry. I
didn’t mean to get you sent away. I just wanted to—needed to—get
away. And I kept going. Twice a week, and then three times… I’m so
stupid.”

“Don’t apologize.”

“How can I not? It’s my fault that this is
happening. I knew what Titus was, what he would do, and I
still—”

Jane tried to put her finger over her
sister’s mouth. In the darkness, she missed and jabbed her cheek
instead.

“Ow.”

“Oh, dear.” She converted the motion into a
shoulder pat instead. “It’s
not
your fault, Emily. It’s
Titus’s fault.”

“But—”

“He’s an adult. All his mental faculties are
in functional order, no matter how flawed they might be. He doesn’t
have to be unreasonable; he just chooses it. You didn’t force him
to act irrationally. It’s ridiculous to say that you are at fault
when he’s the one making demands.”

Emily let out a long breath. “I’ll try to be
good,” she finally said. “To reach him with reasonableness.” She
laughed. “I’m not sure it’s possible.”

“I’ll visit,” Jane said. “I’ve worked it out
with him. I’ll still see you. I’ll be able to slip you money, so
that if you ever need it—if you have to bribe physicians
yourself—you’ll have it. You have a little more than a year until
he’s no longer your guardian. Once you turn twenty-one, there is
nothing he can do to hold you here.”