The Heiress Effect (4 page)

For a bare moment, she paused. Her hand froze
in the middle of reaching for her spoon. She looked over at him,
her eyes wide—and then she looked away. “Well,” she said. “It would
be improper to correspond with a gentleman. Perhaps you are right.
Not such a good idea after all.”

Dinner with Miss Fairfield was like—he hated
to admit it—being beaten to death by feathers. He hoped, for her
sake, that her dowry was truly massive and that somewhere in
England, there was a man in need of a fortune. Someone who was
going deaf and wouldn’t have to listen to her.

It was extraordinary. She obviously meant
well, and still…

Dinner ended; the gentlemen slunk off to port
and cigars, grateful for at least this temporary reprieve.

There were no awkward pauses once they were
established in the library together.

“She is,” Whitting said to Oliver, “precisely
as bad as I said. Wasn’t she?”

“Really,” Bradenton said, with a shake of his
head, “gentlemen. It’s unbecoming to insult a lady.”

“Indeed,” Hapford echoed.

Whitting turned, a protest on his lips—and
saw that the marquess was smiling, a hard, evil smile. “Good one,”
Whitting said. “God, if we couldn’t insult her, there’d be no fun
to be had at all.”

Hapford sighed and looked away.

Oliver held his tongue. She
was
awful.
But…he didn’t think she could help it.

And there had been a time when he’d been the
one saying all the wrong things. Speaking when he should keep
quiet. Telling men like Bradenton that he only received respect
because of his title—God, that was almost the worst thing she could
have said to the marquess. If Bradenton zealously checked the
fences of his prerogatives, Miss Fairfield had leaped over his
efforts and trampled his fields.

“She’s so irritating,” Whitting was saying,
“that I can almost feel myself breaking out in a rash in her
presence.”

It didn’t matter how irritating Miss
Fairfield was. Oliver had been on the receiving end of those snide
comments one too many times to rejoice in making them.

Instead, he poured himself a glass of brandy
and stood at the window.

He didn’t listen. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t
join in, even though Bradenton tossed a few sentences in his
direction.

In the end, he was actually glad to rejoin
the ladies.

But it didn’t get better. Whitting glanced at
Oliver after every one of her telling remarks, expecting him to
join in his derision. The other men took turns standing next to
her, drawing her fire in little batches. It bothered Oliver. It
bothered him exceedingly.

There was a small supply of little cakes on
the back table; Oliver put several on his plate and wandered off to
look out the window. But there was no escape; she left the other
men and came to stand by him.

“Mr. Cromwell,” she said warmly.

He nodded at her, and she started
speaking.

It wasn’t that bad if he just listened to the
sound of her voice. If he avoided parsing it out into individual
words. She had a pleasant intonation—warm and musical—and a lovely
laugh.

She called him Mr. Cromwell. She commiserated
with him on the difficulty of accounting. She mentioned—three
times—how much respect she had for people like him, people who had
to work for their living. It wasn’t bad at all, now that he’d
prepared himself for the cyclone-force devastation of her
conversation.

And then, as he stood next to her, smiling
and trying to be polite, she reached out and took one of the cakes
off his plate. She didn’t even seem aware that she’d done so. She
smiled, holding his cake in her fingers, waving it about as she
gestured during the conversation.

That only meant that everyone could see what
she had done.

Behind her, the others were grinning.
Whitting made a loud remark about pigs feeding from any trough.
Oliver gritted his teeth and smiled politely. He was
not
going to break. They’d laughed at him, too.

“So,” Miss Fairfield was saying, “I’m sure
you’re most proficient with numbers. That’s an excellent talent to
have—one that will serve you in good stead in the future. I’m
certain any employer would think of you so.”

She took another cake as she spoke.

“It’s a wonder that they found enough lace to
wrap all the way around her,” Whitting said behind her.

If Oliver could hear it, so could she. But
she didn’t react. Not so much as a flicker of pain crossed her
eyes.

He’d been wrong. She
was
going to
break him. Not because she was so awful; she meant well, at least,
and that made up for a great deal. She was going to break him
because he couldn’t stand beside her and listen.

It reminded Oliver of an afternoon twenty
years ago, back when he’d still been at home. A pair of boys had
called his next-youngest sister, Laura, a plump little calf. They’d
followed her home making mooing sounds. That was back when Oliver
could solve problems with his fists.

Miss Fairfield wasn’t his sister. She didn’t
seem to notice. But she might be
someone’s
sister, and he
didn’t like what was happening to her.

He’d come here to try and talk to Bradenton
of reform. He’d come here to change minds. He hadn’t come here to
see anyone mocked.

So he kept silent.

And when she reached out for another cake, he
handed her his entire plate instead.

Her eyes widened for a moment. She stood in
place, looking at him, and he was reminded—temporarily—that when
Miss Fairfield held her tongue, when he was able to forget the
monstrosity that she was wearing, she was actually quite lovely.
There was a dimple in her upper arm, the kind that made him want to
reach out and explore its dimensions. She looked up at him with
eyes that were adorably brilliant.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I’ve been
holding these for you, but I must go…talk to a man.”

She blinked. He inclined his head and left
her.

“What is it with him?” he heard Whitting
wonder.

It was simple. He didn’t like to laugh at
anyone. He could find too much of himself in the object of their
amusement. And while much had changed since his childhood, that
never would.

Jane shut the door to her sister’s room and let
out her breath in one great whoosh. Her face hurt from the effort
of smiling. She set her cloak atop a clothespress and worked her
shoulders back and forth, relaxing muscles that were frozen to
tenseness. It was as if she were becoming a real person once more,
one with feelings and desires all of her own instead of a
simulacrum, spouting whatever nonsense was necessary.

It was nice to be able to have feelings
again. Especially when the reason for this desperate charade was
sitting on the edge of the bed in front of her, dressed in a
nightgown.

“Well?” Emily asked. “How did it go? What
happened?”

Somehow, returning her sister’s welcoming
smile didn’t seem to use the same muscles that she’d employed all
evening.

They didn’t look like sisters. Emily had
soft, blond hair that fell in natural curls; Jane’s hair was dark
brown. Emily’s features were delicate—an artist’s application of
thin, arching eyebrows and fine lashes. Jane—well, there had never
been anything
delicate
about her. She wasn’t the sort of
woman that one typically called plain. She was pretty enough, she
supposed, in a plump way.

Nonetheless, when she and her sister stood
side by side, Jane felt as if she were a draft horse. The kind of
horse that people on the street eyeballed as it clopped past,
whispering to one another.
That beast is nineteen hands at the
shoulder, I’d warrant. At least one hundred and fifty
stone.

Jane supposed they took after their
respective fathers. And
that
was part of Jane’s problem.

“Well?” Emily demanded again. “What did the
new fellow think of you?”

Some people confused Emily’s energy with
childlike enthusiasm. Jane knew her sister better. She was always
in motion—running when it was allowed, walking when it wasn’t. When
she was forced to sit, she jiggled her leg impatiently.

She jiggled her leg constantly these
days.

Jane contemplated her answer. “He’s tall, at
least,” she finally managed. He was tall—maybe an inch taller than
Jane in heeled shoes, which was a rare feat in a man. “And clever.”
He hadn’t even paused to deliver that quip about the Tower of
London. “Luckily, I managed to wear him down in the end.”

She smiled faintly at the door as she spoke.
Ah, the bittersweet taste of victory. He’d been impressive, really.
He had tried so hard to be nice to her and her money.

“How did you do it?”

“I had to eat off his plate,” Jane
admitted.

“How perfectly lovely. You used my trick.”
Emily glowed with a smile, jiggling her leg against the pink of her
coverlet. “I thought you said you were holding it in reserve. I’ll
have to think of another good one.”

“I
was
holding it in reserve.” Jane
blinked. “He was quite determined to be kind to me, and he was
funny to boot. If I’d let him talk to me much longer, he would have
made me laugh. I had to break him before that happened.”

He’d had the strangest expression on his face
near the end, solemn and brooding, as if he wanted desperately to
like her and was upset at his own failure. His complexion was so
fair, she wouldn’t have thought he’d have been able to brood. His
eyes had managed the trick—those pale, troubled eyes, masked
slightly by the glass of his spectacles.

“We’ll need a new reserve trick.” Emily
rubbed her chin.

Indeed. Jane wouldn’t feel safe until
Marshall was actually laughing with the others. She was almost
going to regret breaking him. He’d been
nice
.

But she’d given him no reason to be kind to
her. No reason except the hundred thousand reasons that any man
had, and that made him not nice at all. She shook her head,
dispelling all thoughts of kind-eyed, bright-haired men, and turned
back to her sister.

“I have something for you.” She turned back
to the cloak she’d tossed aside and rummaged through the pockets
until she found the gift.

“Oh!” Emily was sitting up straight now. “Oh,
it has been forever since the last one.”

“I found it this afternoon, but Titus said
you were not to be disturbed during your nap, so…”

She held out the volume.

Emily’s face lit and she reached out eagerly,
taking the book with a reverent sigh. “Thank you, thank you, thank
you. I love you forever.” She brushed one hand gently down the
cover. “I hope that Mrs. Blickstall didn’t raise too much trouble
over it?”

Jane waved a hand dismissively. She had an
understanding with her chaperone. Their uncle had chosen Mrs.
Blickstall to accompany Jane, but it was Jane’s fortune that paid
her salary. So long as Jane augmented the woman’s quarterly
payments, Mrs. Blickstall was willing to alter the reports she
delivered to their uncle…and to allow a little contraband from time
to time.

Contraband like novels. In Emily’s case,
dreadful
novels.

“
Mrs. Larriger and the Inhabitants of
Victoria Land,”
Jane said. “Really, Emily. Where is Victoria
Land?”

A dreamy look stole into her sister’s eyes,
and she clutched the book closer. “It is the land of ice and snow
at the South Pole. At the end of the last volume—the one where Mrs.
Larriger was kidnapped by Portuguese whalers and held for
ransom—she talked them into letting her go. The whaler captain, in
a fit of spite, deposited her on the icy shores of Victoria
Land.”

“I see,” Jane said dubiously.

“I have had to wait two entire months to find
out what happened to her.”

Jane simply shook her head. “I didn’t know
there were inhabitants of Victoria Land. I had thought that a land
without soil would be a harsh environment to support human
life.”

“There are penguins and seals and who knows
who else? It is
Mrs. Larriger
we’re talking about
.
She escaped execution in Russia after proving herself innocent of
the murder of the Czarina’s pet wolfhound. She singlehandedly put
down an armed revolt in India. She foiled the combined armies of
Japan and China, and only then was she captured by whalers.”

“All those governments around the world,”
Jane mused. “All wanting to execute the same woman. Surely they
can’t
all
be wrong.”

Emily laughed. “You just don’t like her
because she’s too much like you.”

“Oh, I’m like a fifty-eight year old woman?”
Jane put her hand to her hip in mock disgust.

“No,” Emily said cheekily. “But you’re bossy
and argumentative.”

“I am not.”

“Mm hmm.” Emily lifted the book to smell the
fresh-cut pages. As she did, the sleeve of her night rail slipped
to her elbow, exposing two round, shiny scars.