The Heiress Effect (35 page)

“Miss Fairfield,” he said with a smile.

“Mr…” She looked up at him. She couldn’t even
remember if he’d used his real name in introduction. She hadn’t
been listening. “Mr. Cromwell,” she finally said.

An amused light came into his eyes.

“You came.” She wanted to clutch his arm.

“Of course I did. I told you I would.” He
glanced down at her gown. “What ungodly color are you wearing?”

“Green,” she said. “Serpent-belly green. Or
perhaps it’s the green of a cloud of poisonous chlorine gas.”

“And yet nobody is shrieking and averting
their eyes.” He gave her a smile. “Nice trick. How do you manage
it?”

She gave him a brilliant smile. “Simple,” she
said, adjusting the diamonds at her neck. “I already told you. It’s
the heiress effect.” She smiled at him again. “You came, Oliver. I
can’t believe you came. And so quickly, too.”

“Didn’t I tell you?” he smiled at her.
“You’re not alone.”

“But it’s been months.” She looked over at
him. “We only knew each other a few weeks. I assumed that you would
be…” But maybe he
was
. She looked up at him in horror.

“I’m not married,” he said simply. “Nor
engaged. Nor even courting.”

She wasn’t going to let herself feel glad
about that. She refused to do so.

But her refusal didn’t seem to be working. A
lightness pervaded her.

He gave her dress a pointed stare. “Although
if I had realized that you were trying to blind the entire
assembly, I would have brought blinkers. As for a horse.” He held
up his hands to either side of his head, demonstrating. “They would
keep me from getting skittish.”

They were smiling at each other, and for the
first moment since that morning, Jane felt as if everything would
turn out. Somehow.

“Now,” he said, stepping closer. “Is this a
place where we can talk about what you need, or shall we arrange
for a better time?”

“Time.” She laughed. “In fifteen minutes, I
am supposed to meet the Honorable George Dorling.” She gulped. “For
purposes of eloping with him.”

Something shifted in his expression—something
that washed that humor out of his visage. He took a step toward
her. “I’ll be
damned
if you do.”

He wasn’t married. She had sent him a
nonsensical telegram, listing only the name of the city, and he had
come in a matter of hours. Jane wasn’t particularly good at
figuring people out, but even she could add two and two and come up
with a number larger than three. She felt herself smiling despite
everything.

He, on the other hand, took a deep breath and
shook his head. He looked upward, and then…

“Terribly sorry.” His voice was a little
rough. “That was overdone on my part.” His hand curled into a fist.
“Is that what you want?”

“It’s not like that,” Jane said. “It’s a
false elopement.”

He frowned.

“Or it will be. There’s no time to explain. I
have to go bribe my pretend-bridegroom. You see, if he is
pretending to elope with me, my aunt will think I’ve gone to Gretna
Green. If she thinks I have merely run off on my own, she’ll let my
uncle know I’m on my way. Then I’ll never be able to steal my
sister in time.”

Any other man might have been taken aback at
that. Oliver simply nodded.

“That makes almost no sense,” he said. “But I
gather we’re on a tight schedule. I suppose you have an elopement
to fake, and then…”

“Then we must make our way to Cambridge. As
swiftly as possible.”

“That part I can manage. I’ll find
transportation.” Oliver frowned. “If we’re going to Cambridge, and
we don’t want your aunt to know…there are no trains any longer
tonight. She’ll hear if we stay at a hotel in town.”

“I had my friend bring a valise for me to the
Stag and Hounds over in Burton Joyce. I planned to overnight there
and then catch the early train.”

He nodded. “I’ll have my things sent over and
a separate room arranged.” He paused. “God, Jane…” His hand
twitched toward her, but he brought it back swiftly. All he said
was, “It’s good to see you. Go bribe your swain.”

She laughed.

He started to leave and then turned back. “I
wasn’t expecting this.”

She shook her head in mock solemnity. “Nobody
expects a false elopement.”

He reached out and touched her hand. Jane had
to bite her lip to keep from grabbing hold of him and refusing to
ever let go.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said, his voice
low. “I never forgot about you at all. So why is it that now that
I’m here, I feel as if I’m recalling things I’ve never known?” He
looked into her eyes. “I missed you, Jane.”

Oh, God. She looked back at him, wishing the
entire world away. All those dreams she hadn’t wanted to let
herself remember… They all came rushing back on a wave of heat. But
all she said was, “I missed you, too.”

Dorling was already waiting for Jane in the side
room where they’d agreed to meet. She paused at the doorway and
contemplated the man. She would have felt badly about using him
except that he was using her as badly, and had planned far
worse.

“Dorling,” Jane said.

He turned, dropping a fob watch back into his
pocket as he did so. It would be wrong to say that he smiled. That
expression didn’t look like any smile Jane had ever seen. It was
far too practiced, too sly.

“You’ve taken care of everything?” Jane
asked.

When she’d talked to him earlier, she’d told
him the bare basics. That she needed to leave. With him. That
night—details to be determined later.

She’d never actually said she would elope
with him, but she had strongly implied it.

He smiled at her. “I did,” he said. “Did you
bring the money?”

Jane could feel that roll between her
breasts. “Yes. We need to talk.”

“Plenty of time for that on the way to
Scotland.”

“Yes, well. That’s what we need to talk
about. You’re under a misapprehension. I’m not eloping with
you.”

He blinked at her, his smile dying on his
face. “But I’ve already told your—that is, I sent your aunt a
letter. Think of your reputation.”

She snorted. Her reputation? For a year,
she’d cultivated the reputation of an abrasive, foolish, awful
woman. She’d done it on purpose. Her reputation wasn’t black, but
it was definitely stained. Another blot wouldn’t hurt.

“There’s no time to explain,” Jane said.

“But—”

“I’m
not
going to elope with you. I
will give you money to pretend to do so. This isn’t hard. You can
have nothing, or you can have a vast sum. Your choice.”

“Money?” He looked struck by this. “How much
money?”

“Five hundred pounds. All you have to do is
leave town tonight and not return for another three days. Five
hundred pounds for that, Dorling.”

“But—”

“No negotiations. Just cash.”

He huffed. “That wasn’t the choice I wanted.
Ah, well. Let’s see the money then.”

She turned her back to him. She had to take
off one of her poisonous green gloves to worm her fingers between
her breasts. But it was lovely to get that roll of bills out of
their hiding spot, to not have them digging into her skin. She
rubbed surreptitiously at her bosom, and then realized belatedly
that rubbing her breasts with Dorling around, no matter how
innocent her intentions, was probably not a good idea. She turned
back to him.

As soon as she did, her breath caught in her
lungs. She was looking into the shiny metal barrel of a gun. Her
whole body went cold, the world narrowing to a barrel-sized
pinpoint. Her hands seemed nerveless. She barely managed to keep
hold of her glove.

“Hate to do this, sweetling,” Dorling said.
“But I can perform basic mathematics. You’re offering me five
hundred pounds to let you walk away, but I’ll have a hundred
thousand if we marry. There’s really no comparison.” As he spoke,
he reached out and plucked the roll of bills from her fingers.

“You can’t marry me at gunpoint,” Jane
said.

“No.” He sounded ridiculously unhappy about
that. “But I can make you leave with me. I know this looks bad,
kitten, but I do mean to be a reasonable husband. You’ll forgive me
eventually.”

“You mean that you’ll let me use my money to
embarrass my uncle if he mistreats my sister?”

He smiled. “Ah, you must have overheard that
this morning. Now it all makes sense. Sorry, darling. I gave my
word to him on that point. If you couldn’t trust my word, why would
you marry me at all?”

A curious question. He seemed unaware that he
had just robbed her of five hundred pounds at gunpoint, that he was
proposing to take her freedom by a similar method.

“How nice,” Jane said, “that you are a man of
honor.”

Luckily, he didn’t hear the sarcasm in her
tone. Jane glanced surreptitiously over her shoulder, but there was
no sign of Oliver.

And what would he have done? She
needed
Dorling. He needed to disappear so that her aunt
would think that Jane had eloped.

All Jane had to do was be smarter than him,
and hope the opportunity presented itself quickly. Because there
was only a narrow window of time they had, that time when her aunt
would believe Jane was eloping rather than haring off on her own to
rescue her sister.

“You leave me no choice,” Jane said.

Dorling smiled. “Good,” he said. “Then
there’s no need for me to use the ether. Let’s get to the
carriage.”

Ether.
Jane tried not to twitch. “Of
course,” she said. He took her arm—she managed not to flinch from
his touch—and guided her down the hall.

She didn’t dare look back.

“Where are we going?” she asked bravely. “And
what route are we taking?” The more she knew, the better she could
plan.

Abduction, Jane reflected several hours later,
was deathly boring. Dorling sat across the carriage from her still
holding his pistol. The carriage they were in was closed, the
glassed windows on the door showing nothing in the night but the
dark blur of woods. They’d been traveling for a good long while
northward, and all Jane wanted to do was yawn.

“Is there an inn nearby?” she asked. “Are we
stopping for the night?”

“Eventually,” Dorling snapped.

She yawned again and peered out the window.
Silhouettes of big, knotty oaks flew past. She tried counting
trees. At forty-seven, the carriage stopped—which surprised her, as
there was no evidence of civilization nearby.

“What are we doing?” Jane asked.

But Dorling looked just as confused as she
felt. He shook his head and gestured her back.

A few moments later, the carriage door
opened. The driver was a dark, cloaked silhouette in the
doorway.

“Is there a problem?” Dorling asked.

“Aye,” he responded. “One of the horses has
gone lame.” The man had a broad farm accent. Jane wondered, idly,
if he was bribable. There
was
still that roll of bills
strapped to her thigh.

“God damn it.” Dorling’s nostrils flared. “Of
all the times… What is wrong with you, man, that your horses go
lame? This shouldn’t be happening. Now what are we going to
do?”

The driver shrugged. “Come take a look.”

Dorling glanced over at Jane. “I’m not
sure.”

The driver shrugged again. “Give it to me,
then. I’ll watch her. You go see.” Dorling handed over the pistol
and stepped out of the carriage. But the driver didn’t follow him
immediately. He turned in the doorway, and then, very carefully,
raised a finger to his lips.

Jane let out a breath. “Oliver,” she
whispered.

“Shh. A moment longer.”

“God damn it,” Dorling’s voice came again.
“One of the beasts has a stone in its hoof. I don’t think it can
walk at the moment.
Now
what are we going to do? Do you have
any idea how bloody inconvenient this is?”