The Heiress Effect Page 5

  “That’s not going to happen,” Oliver said sharply. “I don’t ruin women, no matter how annoying they are.”

  Hapford was looking between them, his eyes worried. “Well said, Marshall.”

  Bradenton seemed to come back into himself with one long, slow breath. The hatred in his eyes dimmed to mere amusement. “Oh, look at you two. Ruin her? Goodness, how sordid. I wouldn’t ask my worst enemy to kiss her.”

  “Then what are you asking?”

  The marquess leaned back in his seat. “I want her to know her place. Humiliate her. Hurt her. Teach her her lesson. You know how it’s done; it took you long enough to learn yours.”

  For a second, the room seemed to go hazy about Oliver. He’d learned his lesson, all right. He’d learned to keep quiet in public and seethe in private. He’d learned to keep his ambition hidden. To let men like Bradenton see only what he wished to see.

  “Don’t answer, Marshall. Work it through your principles.” Bradenton smiled. “But in the end, we all know how this will work out. It’s one annoying girl against your entire future. Against the future of voting rights.”

  “I say,” Hapford muttered.

  “It’s not pretty,” Bradenton said. “And yes, Hapford, there are times when you might not like the details, messy as they are. But this is how things get done. If there’s something you can’t do, that must nonetheless be done…”

  “But—”

  “One day, your Miss Johnson will wish she’d cut the acquaintance far sooner. You’re doing her a favor, Hapford. You’re going to be her husband; it’s your duty to do what she needs before she knows it.”

  Hapford lapsed into silence.

  “And as for you, Marshall…” Bradenton looked at Oliver. “Take the time you need to salve your conscience. To tell yourself whatever it is you need to make this palatable. You’ll be doing her a favor, you know.”

  No, Oliver thought. Not a favor. And I’m not doing it.

  But that sick pit in his stomach felt differently.

  Yes, it whispered. Yes, you are.

  It usually took Jane one day, at most two, to crush a man’s interest in her. Any positive feelings her fortune engendered could be quickly overcome, so long as her first impression was sufficiently negative.

  She had assumed that Mr. Oliver Marshall would prove no different.

  She had assumed wrongly. The second time they encountered each other was on a street corner. She was going into the modiste for a second fitting with her companion; he was passing by, talking with a male friend.

  He stopped on the street, tipping his hat to her. And that was when something awful happened.

  She looked into his eyes. They were ice-blue and mobile. In the bright mid-morning, his spectacles made him look sharp and intelligent. He didn’t look over her head as if wishing her elsewhere. He didn’t curl his lip in disgust or nudge his companion as if to say, That’s her; she’s the one I was telling you about. He looked at her straight on, his eyes flickering over her as if he were wondering what lay beneath the blinding orange-and-green pattern of her day gown. And he smiled at her as if she deserved more than a few scraps of surface civility.

  She wasn’t in heels any longer, so he had several inches on her now. His hair was a bright copper, and when he lifted his hat at her, the wind caught the ends. He seemed open and uncomplicated—so far from the dark, brooding gothic hero that filled the pages of Emily’s novels.

  Still, she felt something that she’d only read about in the pages of a book. There was a slow prickle in her throat, a flush of heat that slid over her skin. She felt a sense of pure awareness. A frisson. She felt a real live frisson just from looking into his eyes.

  How dreadful.

  She looked away. “Mr. Cromwell,” she said, almost desperate to erase that feeling from her skin. “How lovely to encounter you again.”

  He didn’t seem annoyed at her misidentification. He didn’t blink or correct her. “Miss Fairfield,” he said, and gave her a smile so friendly that she almost stepped back.

  Mr. Marshall’s companion was a dark-haired gentleman who would have fit the brooding hero mold rather better. He blinked and looked between the two of them with a curious expression on his face. “Cromwell?” he asked in low tones.

  “Yes,” Mr. Marshall said. “Did I forget to mention that? I’ve been politiciking under an assumed name. Play along, Sebastian.” He turned to Jane and said, “Miss Fairfield, might I introduce my friend? This is Mr. Sebastian—”

  The other man took a step forward and took her hand. “Sebastian Brightbuttons.” This, with a glance at Mr. Marshall. “If you get to assume a name, I want one, too.”

  In all the months in which Jane had been operating under a charade, she’d learned to deal with almost every emotional response to her mannerisms. She could manage everything from anger to disbelief.

  Playfulness? That was new. She swallowed and tried to do what she always did. She imagined the conversation as a prime coach-and-four. She imagined it racing along a road at top speed, the wheels glinting in the sunlight. And then she imagined driving it straight into a hedge.

  “Sebastian,” Jane mused. “Like Sebastian Malheur, the famous scientist?” A comparison guaranteed to put this gentleman off. Malheur was a name that one heard around Cambridge a great deal—a man who was known for giving lectures where he openly talked of sexual intercourse under the guise of discussing the inheritance of traits. His name was cursed alongside that of Charles Darwin, and sometimes with greater vituperation.

  But instead of flushing, Mr. Marshall and Mr. Brightbuttons exchanged amused glances.

  “Very much like him,” Mr. Brightbuttons said. “Are you an enthusiast of his work? I am.” He leaned in a little closer. “Actually, I think he’s brilliant.”

  Marshall was watching her again, and Jane’s skin prickled under his perusal.

  That was when Jane realized she’d made a mistake. Those freckles, his background—they’d all misled her into thinking that he was a quiet little rabbit.

  He wasn’t. He was the wolf that looked as if he were lounging about on the outskirts of the pack, a lone hanger-on, when in truth he had adopted that position simply so that he could see everything that transpired in the fields below. He wasn’t solitary; he was waiting for someone to make a mistake.

  He looked willing to wait a very long time.

  But he hadn’t had to. She’d used the wrong-name trick on Marshall the other night, and here she was, repeating it again. Use a stratagem too many times, and people began to be suspicious.

  She blamed that damned frisson.

  Mr. Brightbuttons, or whatever his name was, was grinning at her, too.

  “Tell me,” he said, “do you really think that I’m like Sebastian Malheur? Because I’ve heard that he is excruciatingly handsome.”

  He smiled at her, and Jane realized she’d made another mistake. He wasn’t Sebastian some-random-name-that-he-hadn’t-admitted-to. He was Sebastian Malheur in the flesh.

  Mr. Marshall was friends with the infamous Malheur. Jane swallowed.

  “You can’t be very much like Malheur, then,” she managed. “I’ve been looking at you for a full thirty seconds, and I haven’t had a single flutter of interest.”

  Mr. Marshall let out a crack of laughter.

  “Very well, Miss Fairfield,” he said. “You’ve earned it. May I introduce Sebastian Malheur, my friend and cousin. He won’t assume you’re as dreadful as rumor says, so long as you give him the same credit.”

  Jane opened her mouth to agree. She almost did, before she realized what he’d said—and what she’d almost assented to. She had to physically yank her hand behind her back to keep from offering it in friendship.

  “What are you talking about?” Her voice sounded far too high. “I haven’t got a dreadful reputation. And Malheur—isn’t he some kind of evolutionist? I have heard that his lectures are entirely wild.”

  “I’d planned to call the work I’m prepar
ing now ‘Orgies of the Peppered Moth,’” Mr. Malheur said brightly. “It’s a series of heated interrogations of winged insects, completely unclothed, doing nothing but—”

  Mr. Marshall jabbed his friend with an elbow.

  “What? Have you got some sort of vendetta against moth-on-moth—”

  “Really, Sebastian.”

  His friend shrugged and then looked back at Jane. “Only one way to find out,” he said. “Come to my next lecture in a handful of months. I’ll start off with snapdragons and peas. Nobody can object to a discussion of plant reproduction. If they did, we’d require flowers to don petticoats instead of wandering around, showing their reproductive parts to all and sundry.”

  Jane choked back a laugh. But Mr. Marshall was watching her, a quizzical expression on his face.

  She swallowed and looked away.

  “Miss Fairfield,” Mr. Marshall said, “are you familiar with chameleons?”

  “I dare say I was just reading about those,” Jane said officiously, trying to regain her balance. “Those are a species of flower?”

  Mr. Marshall didn’t even twitch at that, and that made Jane feel all the more uneasy. He was supposed to smile at her. Better yet, he was supposed to sneer.

  “Or maybe it was a hat,” she added.

  Not so much as a curl of his lip.

  “The chameleon,” Mr. Marshall said, “is a species of lizard. It changes its coloration so that it hides in its surroundings. When it darts across the sand, it is sand-colored. When it slips through the forest, it is tree-colored.”

  His eyes were the color of an unforgiving winter sky, and Jane shifted uneasily in her tracks. “What a curious creature.”

  “You,” he said, with a small gesture of his hand, “are an anti-chameleon.”

  “I am an ant-eating what?”

  “An anti-chameleon. The opposite of a chameleon,” he explained. “You change your colors, yes. But when you are in sand, you fashion yourself a bright blue so that the sand knows you are not a part of it. When you are in water, you turn red so that everyone knows you are not liquid. Instead of blending in, you change so that you stand out.”

  Jane swallowed hard.

  “Well, Sebastian,” Marshall said, turning back to his friend, “what think you of that sort of adaptation? What kind of creature tries to stand out from its surroundings?”

  Mr. Malheur frowned and rubbed his forehead as he considered the question. “Poisonous ones,” he finally said. “Butterflies do it all the time. They are brightly colored so that birds cannot confuse them with other creatures. ‘Don’t eat me,’ the color shouts. ‘I’ll make you vomit.’” He frowned as he said this. “But one ought not apply the principles of evolution to human behavior. Individual choice is not the product of evolution.”

  And yet the comparison was all too apt. That was precisely what Jane intended, even if she’d never thought of it that way. She did want everyone to notice her—and she wanted them to think her poisonous.

  “Well, then, Miss Fairfield. You have it yourself, from Mr. Malheur’s mouth.” He gestured at his friend. “We can conclude nothing.”

  “Mr. Cromwell…”

  Mr. Marshall held up a hand, cutting her off. That frisson went through her again, tingling at the base of her spine.

  “It’s Mr. Marshall,” he said quietly. “But I think you’re clever enough to know that.”

  God, she was in dire straits. You’re intelligent enough to remember two syllables was hardly a compliment, but she’d not received any praise at all in months. It left her feeling warm and utterly confused.

  “I—I’m not sure—” She took a deep breath, tried to gather the shreds of her charade about her. “Was I mistaken then? I’m so sorry, Mr. Crom—I mean, Mr. Marshwell.”

  “I am not going to lie to you,” Mr. Marshall said. “And might I suggest…”

  She looked at him, looked up into those eyes like a winter storm. She looked up into a face that should have been ordinary, and Jane felt her whole body come to a standstill. Her heart ceased to beat. Her lungs seized up in her chest. Even her hair felt like a heavy burden. There was nothing but him and his foolish not-even-compliments.

  “Might I suggest,” he finally said, “that you don’t need to lie to me, either.”

  “I—”

  He held up a finger. “Think about it,” he said. “Think carefully, Miss Fairfield. And once you’re done thinking… Well, the two of us might have a very productive conversation.”

  She swallowed. “About fashion? You don’t appear to be the sort to care.”

  He smiled, just a curl of his lip. “About a great many things. And yes, Miss Fairfield. About fashion. About the colors you wear, and what they are hiding.”

  He touched the brim of his hat and gestured to his friend.

  “Good day,” he said pleasantly, as if he’d not just uttered a horrendous threat, and he walked off.

  “Good God,” she heard Mr. Malheur say as they walked away. “What was that all about?”

  If Mr. Marshall answered, the response was swept away in the clop of horse hooves from a passing omnibus.

  Chapter Four

  The third time Jane met Mr. Marshall was even worse. She scarcely had a chance to speak with him at the Johnsons’ dinner, but she could sense his eyes on her all through the meal. He sat just down the long table from her, close enough to converse with. It didn’t matter what she said to him. It didn’t matter how she said it. He never gave her that freezing look that suggested that he’d been offended.

  Instead, he looked…amused.

  She felt wrong the entire evening—as if her shift was too small, as if she no longer fit in the armor of her clothing.

  When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the library after, she found herself uncertain, constantly aware of him. Her responses were forced, not flowing. She felt like—what was it he had called her?—an anti-chameleon, burning brightly in the middle of the room.

  Don’t marry me; I’m poison. She was poison. She was a blight. Her gown tonight was a wasteland of red-and-black silk, devoid of good taste and fringed with clattering beads. She loved it almost as much as she loved the band of polished silver on her arm. She’d perfected the art of holding her wrist just so—moving it back and forth so that it reflected light into a gentleman’s eyes. But she’d hit Mr. Marshall three times now, and he hadn’t so much as grunted.

  God, what was she to do?

  Mr. Marshall suggested that music might be a good way to spend the evening, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone would be looking at the performers, and they’d never ask her to join in. Jane wouldn’t have to be on. Being dreadful was such wearying work. The company adjourned to the music room.

  Jane stayed in her seat, holding her breath, hoping nobody would notice she wasn’t moving.

  Nobody did. They all filed out without glancing in her direction. Of course not; they didn’t want to see her.

  She slumped in relief as the door closed behind the last man. Alone at last. Alone, with no need to pretend. She could breathe. She could stop thinking, stop examining every smile, stop worrying about why it was that Mr. Oliver Marshall kept glancing in her direction.

  She set her fingers against her temples, wishing all the tension away, letting her eyes drift shut in relief.

  Silence. Blessed, blessed silence.

  “Thank God,” she said aloud.

  “I rather think you should thank me.”

  Her eyes jerked open, and Jane pushed herself to her feet. Her gown caught underfoot, the beads clicking together. She scarcely managed to catch herself from falling—and she swiveled, just in time to see Mr. Marshall. He was still sitting in his chair on the other side of the room. He watched her with a look of amusement, tapping his fingers against the arm of the chair.

  Oh, God. Hadn’t he left with the others? What had she said aloud?

  “Mr. Cromwell!” she blurted out. “I thought you had gone with everyone.”

 
; His fingers paused in the middle of a tap. Those blue eyes of his met hers. The dim light made his spectacles into a shield, reflecting her own image back at her.

  “There’s no need to pretend.” He spoke as if he were a mesmerist attempting to send her into a trance. “And you have no cause for worry.”

  There was nothing common about him, first impressions be damned. Behind those spectacles lurked something feral and untamable. He hadn’t moved from his chair, and yet still she felt a little tickle in her palms. A catch in her breath.

  His eyes were too sharp, his expression far too even. He set his glass on the side table next to him and leaned back, looking her over as if he were royalty and she the thief who had been caught raiding his larder.

  “Worry?” she repeated in her best breathless voice. “Why would I worry? You’re a gentleman. I’m a lady.” She took a step closer to the door. “I’ll join the others after all.”

  He waved a hand. “Don’t bother, Miss Fairfield. I have sisters enough that I can recognize the supposedly innocent act from a half-mile’s distance. You’re not fooling me.”

  She blinked. “Why should I not act the innocent? I have no guilt on my conscience.”

  Mr. Marshall clicked his tongue and stood up. There ought to have been a rule somewhere that men who wore spectacles could not exceed six feet in height, but he was easily that. He should have been a jovial, round-faced clerk. He should have been anywhere else but here.

  He shook his head and took a step toward her. “You’re wasting your breath. I know your secrets.”

  “I haven’t any secrets. I—”

  “Cut line, Miss Fairfield. You are either very, very stupid, or extraordinarily clever. And I, for one, suspect that you fall on the side of cleverness.”