The Heiress Effect (18 page)

Oliver found his sister waiting for them on the
way home. She was standing on top of the hill by the stream. Her
arms were folded and she hadn’t put her hair up. It blew behind
her, a brilliant banner of orange the same color as his own
close-cropped hair.

He paused a few feet away from her.
“Free.”

She didn’t answer, but her chin squared. Yes,
she was definitely angry with him.

She didn’t have a temper, or at least not the
temper that people generally thought of when they imagined a woman
with hair somewhere on the brighter end of the spectrum. She was
patient and kind. She could also be stubborn and immovable.

“Free,” he said again. “How are you doing?
Did you want to talk with me?”

She didn’t look at him. “Why would I?” She
didn’t blink. “You haven’t kept your promise, so why should I talk
to you?”

“Promise?” He stared at her in confusion.
“Did I promise something?”

Now she finally turned to him. “Of course you
did,” she said. “You promised to spend some time speaking Greek
with me. Mama doesn’t know Greek, so she can’t, but you went to
Eton.”

“I promised?”

“More than a year ago, at Christmas,” she
said, with a firm nod of her head.

A vague recollection came back to him—of a
late night sitting with his sister in front of the fire, passing
pages of the newspaper back and forth.

“I can manage some of it from books,” she was
saying, “but I need to practice. I need you.”

“As I recall,” Oliver said, “I promised I
would help as soon as I had time, and I haven’t had any. In the
intervening year, I’ve been…”

“You’ve spent months with the duke.” She
folded her arms accusingly.

“That was different. I was talking to men in
London about reform. That’s the whole reason I haven’t had any
time. When this is all finished,
then
I’ll…”

Her chin rose. “When this is all finished?
How long will that take, Oliver?”

“I’m really not sure.”

Her lips pursed. “It took more than three
decades for the issue to receive serious consideration in
Parliament again, after the last Reform Act. Last year’s bill was
soundly defeated. It stands to reason that your goal might be years
away.”

“That’s why I’m working so hard,” he told
her. “The harder I work now, the sooner it will happen. Learning
always keeps. Greek will still be there once I’m done with
this.”

Her eyes flashed. “Oliver, if I start
learning Greek two years from now, it will be too late.”

“Too late for what? Too late because you’ll
be married?”

But she shook her head. “Too late for me to
go to Cambridge.”

He stopped dead and looked at her. He felt a
little chill run down his spine; he wasn’t sure where it had come
from. He wanted to reach out and grab her, to fold her in his arms
and keep her safe. From what, he wasn’t certain. From herself,
perhaps.

“They don’t let women study at Cambridge,” he
finally said.

“Do you not pay attention to anything?” she
demanded. “Not now, they don’t. And there are no plans to open the
University itself, of course. But there’s a committee talking about
a women’s college in the village of Girton. I’m not old enough yet,
Oliver, but by the time I am…”

God. She wanted to go to
Cambridge.
He
pulled in a long breath and stared at her, but it didn’t help. His
head seemed to be ringing, echoing with a noise that repeated over
and over.

Well,
some practical side of himself
whispered,
it could have been worse. She could want to go to
Eton.

He refused to think about Free at Eton.

Instead, he took a few steps forward and took
hold of her hand. She was smaller than he was—not so large a
difference that he thought of it much, but his earliest memories of
her were of vulnerability. Watching out for her. Picking her up and
sweeping her in his arms in a wide circle while she screamed in
delight, making sure to hold on tightly so that she wouldn’t
fall.

“You think that all you’ll have to do to go
to Cambridge is learn a little Greek?”

She stared up at him, her eyes clear and
defiant.

“Do you have any idea what you’re taking on?
When I went to Cambridge, I was barraged with an unceasing deluge
of insult, both subtle and overt. I couldn’t go a day without
someone telling me that I didn’t belong. You’ll have every one of
my disadvantages—except I had my brother and Sebastian. You’ll be
alone. And you’re a woman, Free; everyone will be against you.
They’ll want you to fail twice as much as they wanted me to—first
because you’re a nobody, and second because you’re a woman.”

She shook her head. “Then I’ll have to
succeed three times as hard as they want me to fail. You, of all
people, should understand that.”

“I love you,” he said. “That’s all this is. I
love you, and I don’t want you to suffer. And…for me, Cambridge was
the beginning. It was a handful of classes and exams and professors
and papers, and afterward, the camaraderie of having attended
school with a group of friends. And enemies.” He looked over at
her.

She raised her chin defiantly.

“It won’t be like that for you. Going to
Cambridge will not be a thing you do, followed by another thing and
another thing. Going to Cambridge will define who you are forever
after. For the rest of your life, you’ll be The Girl Who Went to
Cambridge.”

“Someone will have to be The Girl Who Went,”
she said. “Why shouldn’t it be me? And don’t worry; I have no
intention that getting a college degree will be the last of the
dreadful things I do. I’d rather be the Girl Who Did instead of the
Girl Who Didn’t.” She sniffed and looked away. “And I never thought
you would talk me out of it, Oliver. Of all the people who I
imagined would wish me to fail—”

“I don’t wish you to fail,” he said tersely.
“If you
are
going to Cambridge, I wish you to succeed. I
wish you to succeed against all odds. I only wish they didn’t have
to be arrayed against you.”

“Then don’t be one of my barriers.” She spoke
quietly. “You said you would help me learn Greek, Oliver.
Everything else, I’m managing as best I can on my own. But
Greek…”

“I’m not very good at Greek. I can manage the
basics, but that’s all. If you want to succeed against all odds,
you’ll need the best help you can get.” He waited a moment longer.
“Mama and Papa have their rules about taking the duke’s money,
but…it really is mine, you know. Shall I hire you a tutor?”

She swallowed. “Is that what you think I
need? I’d be more comfortable with you.”

“I’m not just saying that to get out of the
duty,” he said. “I don’t think you understand how awful my Greek
is. If you’re going to do this, you’re going to have to learn to be
uncomfortable.”

Slowly, she lowered herself down to sit on
the ground. “What will Papa say?”

“I leave that to you to worry about.” He sat
beside her and hooked his arm over her shoulder. They sat there
like that for a long moment, not speaking. Oliver wasn’t sure what
to say. He knew his sister too well to attempt to change her mind,
but then…

He also knew what was waiting for her. That
thing she yearned for right now with all her heart? The shine would
come off it, he suspected, and the only way she’d make it through
would be by gritting her teeth and bulling her way to the end. He
wouldn’t wish his Cambridge years on anyone. Least of all someone
he loved.

“I worry about you,” he finally said to Free.
“I’m afraid that you’re going to break your heart, going up against
the world.”

“No.” The wind caught her hair and sent it
swirling behind her. “I’m going to break the world.”

She almost seemed not to have heard the words
she’d said, so absently did she speak. As if it were a conclusion
she had come to years ago, one she didn’t even need to examine any
longer.

He watched her breathe in. The sun fell on
her skin—she was going to freckle dreadfully—but she wouldn’t care.
Her eyes were shut, and she turned to face the breeze as if the
wind could take her to another place.

“Is that what happened to you?” she finally
asked, without opening her eyes. “Cambridge broke your heart?”

He barely kept from startling. His eyes
widened and he turned to her. But she hadn’t moved, and she didn’t
say anything at all to him. She just sat there, her head thrown
back, a little breeze catching a strand of her hair. Oliver wasn’t
sure why his heart was racing. Why his fists were clenched as he
stared straight ahead.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Oliver finally said.
“It’s just a school. That’s it; it’s just a school.”

The University of Cambridge had an
extraordinary set of botanic gardens, carefully planted with exotic
species brought back from around the world and arranged in order of
Linnaean classification. No matter how strange the species were,
however, they could not rival how oddly Jane felt.

She could feel the kiss that Mr. Marshall
hadn’t
given her still lingering on her lips three days
after he’d declined to give it. It tingled, a sharp, sweet secret,
that undelivered kiss, and she felt as if it painted every word
that came out of her mouth with the fullness of its ungranted
promise.

“You seem quite taken with Mr. Marshall,”
Genevieve Johnson said to Jane as they walked together.

They were passing an evergreen from China,
branches laden with green needles drooping low to the ground.

“He’s amusing,” Jane said.

The twins exchanged glances.

“That is to say,” Jane tried again, “I am
sure he is a dependable fellow.”

“I’m sure he is,” Geraldine agreed, taking
Jane’s arm with an expression that would have been a smirk on
another girl.

Jane should make a remark about his station,
something to depress their interest. She couldn’t bring herself to
do it.

“He’s a duke’s brother,” she finally said.
“Surely that elevates him to the status of at least a
marquess.”

The sisters exchanged a longer glance.

“No,” Geraldine finally said. “You might
think of a duke’s brother, but I don’t think you should consider a
marquess.”

There was something faintly off in their
mannerisms, and the two of them were so rarely off. Genevieve’s
lips pressed together; Geraldine looked somber. It took Jane a
minute to understand. Of course. They
knew
a marquess. Good
heavens. Geraldine was engaged to the Earl of Hapford, but his
uncle was unattached. Had Genevieve set her sights on
Bradenton?

She wished her joy of him. The girls were of
excellent family—cousins to an earl—and had good dowries. But she’d
long suspected that Bradenton needed far more than a dowry that was
merely
good
by country standards.

“Under no circumstances a marquess,”
Geraldine was saying. But her sister took her elbow and gave her a
little tap—that, and the tilt of her head, no more, and Geraldine
stopped talking and turned.

For there in the gardens, just beneath an
awning covered with some creeping vine that had dropped most of its
leaves for winter, stood the marquess himself.

Jane had never been particularly enamored of
Bradenton, but she’d not thought he held any particular distaste
for her. He was after all, too much enamored of himself to care
about her. But Mr. Marshall had told her last night that the
marquess wanted Jane humiliated and hurt.

Humiliated.

She felt a flush of fierce resentment at
that. The marquess was watching her with cold, glittering eyes. She
wanted to smack him, to let him know that he could not conquer
her.

“Shall we greet him?” Geraldine said
softly.

“No need,” Jane whispered. “He looks busy. We
wouldn’t want to put him off with our forwardness.”

“Indeed,” Geraldine agreed, a little too
swiftly. “Indeed, Miss Fairfield.”

“After all,” Genevieve said in too high a
voice, “I should hate him to see me outside of my evening
finery.”

“And in direct sun, no less. Oh my, he’ll see
every flaw in my skin.”

They spoke swiftly atop each other, nodding
the whole while. “Good,” Geraldine said, “it’s settled. Oh,
da—drat, he’s seen us. He’s coming this way.”

“Jane,” Genevieve said urgently, “is my
powder smudged? Tell me quickly.”

Jane peered into the other girl’s face. As
usual, it was flawless. She didn’t even look as if she were wearing
powder.

“Oh, nothing to worry about,” Jane told her
merrily. “It’s only smudged a little here.” She indicated her right
cheek.

Genevieve whipped out a handkerchief, but it
was too late.

“Miss Johnson. Miss Genevieve,” Bradenton
said. “How lovely to encounter you. And Miss Fairfield, too.”

If Jane had been caught with a handkerchief
in her hand, she would have done something dreadful with it—like
drop it, or shove it into a pocket, leaving an unshapely lump in
her skirts.