The Heiress Effect (21 page)

Jane’s mind was still whirling when she entered
her sister’s room late that night.

For years, Emily had been her only
confidante, the one she told all her troubles. Now, over the course
of the past few days, Jane had gathered a host of secrets she
couldn’t tell her sister.

There’s this man. He was thinking about
humiliating me, but never mind that—let me tell you about the
Johnson twins.

Did you know that Bradenton has put a bounty
on my head? Apparently, I’m worth an entire vote in Parliament. Or
the destruction of a cactus. I’m not sure which one honors me
more.

Do you think Mr. Marshall likes me? I have
no notion what to think of him.

But that was a lie, too. She knew exactly
what she thought of him.

While she was gathering her thoughts, her
sister spoke instead. “Did you know that there are people who don’t
drink alcohol?”

Jane put her head to her side. “I’d heard.”
In Cambridge, surrounded by young men, she’d mostly heard those
people mocked. “Is it the Quakers who don’t believe in imbibing or
the Methodists? I never can remember.” She glanced over at her
sister, who was watching her intently. “Why?”

“I read about it.” There was a faint flush on
Emily’s cheeks, though, one that suggested that it was more than a
matter for idle speculation. “There are…other sorts, aren’t there,
though?”

“Hmm. I hardly go around asking.”

“Of course.” Her sister looked down,
fingering the fabric of her night rail.

Jane was trying to formulate what she might
say to her sister. If she started telling the story, she could
hardly withhold a piece. And now she had other people’s secrets to
keep. She couldn’t tell her sister what Genevieve had said. That
wasn’t her secret to disclose. Jane had argued with Emily before,
but she’d never had secrets from her.

“You’re pensive,” Emily said. “What on earth
has happened to you?”

“Nothing,” Jane lied.

Emily looked at her. She looked across the
room at the new cactus plant on Jane’s chest of drawers and raised
an eyebrow. “Oh,” she said. “I see. And here I thought
I
was
the one that nothing happened to.”

Jane winced. “I’m sorry, dear.”

“Don’t humor me,” Emily snapped. There was
nothing to say to that—nothing that wouldn’t make it worse at any
rate—so Jane held her tongue.

Emily finally spoke again. “Did you know
there are people who don’t eat meat?”

It was apparently a night for odd questions.
“I knew a man who didn’t like the taste of ham.”

“Not just ham. All meat.” For some reason,
Emily wasn’t looking her in the eye, and Jane had a sudden
suspicion.

“Emily,” she said softly, “do these people
who don’t eat meat or drink liquor have names, by any chance?”

Her sister shrugged insouciantly. “Of course
not. Or at least they don’t have names that
I
would know.
How would I?”

If Jane hadn’t known what an excellent liar
her sister was, she would have thought nothing amiss. But Jane knew
Emily far too well. And so she stopped and studied her, and
realized that something was different.

Emily wasn’t fidgeting. No little bounces on
the edge of the bed. No jigglings of her leg. She only drew idly on
the coverlet with her finger.

Before they’d come to Titus’s, she could have
mapped her sister’s activities during the day by her fidgets at
night. Had she run outside for two hours? She could sit calmly and
orderly by bedtime. Had it rained, keeping her indoors? She’d not
be able to sit still, jumping up and moving around.

Emily wasn’t moving right now.

Suspicion gathered at the edge of Jane’s
mind. There
was
rather more color in her cheeks, and…

“Emily, have you—”

Her sister looked up sharply. “Nothing,” she
caroled sweetly. “I’ve been doing
nothing.
See how it
feels?”

Jane shook her head. “Never mind. I don’t
actually want to know. If Titus finds out, I want to be able to
claim ignorance, and I’ll hardly be able to do that if you’re
telling me everything.”

A wistful smile touched her sister’s face and
she looked away. Jane knew that smile.

“Just tell me that whatever it is you’re
doing”—Jane trailed off—“or not doing…”

Whatever it was her sister was doing, she had
to be leaving the house. By herself; Blickstall had been with Jane
today. There were risks there, and not just the foolish worries
Titus held.

“Tell me,” she said, “that you’re staying
safe.”

“Even Titus could not object.” Emily gave her
a wicked smile. “I’m reading his law books, that’s all.” Her finger
traced a curlicue on the coverlet.

“In the course of reading his books,” Jane
said softly, “perhaps you’ll have noticed that people do each other
harm from time to time. I’d hate for you to have to discover the
criminal from personal experience.”

“Oh, no.” Emily sketched a curling tendril
with the tip of her finger. “There’s no chance of that.”

“There’s always a chance—”

“Hypothetically speaking,” Emily said, “if
someone is unwilling to eat an animal because he does not believe
in doing it harm, it follows that he would think the same of
humans.”

“No,” Jane said, “it does not follow. Please
do not think it follows.”

Emily paused in the midst of her tracery. She
stopped still—something she did so rarely that Jane felt herself
leaning in, wanting to shake her to make sure that she was still
breathing.

“If a rock never moves,” her sister finally
said, “the water wears it away all the same. I
am
being
hurt, Jane, and if I stay still, Titus will wear me away. Sometimes
I wonder that there’s anything left of me at all.”

“Emily.” Jane touched her sister’s hand. “I
won’t let that happen.”

“It’s not up to you to
let
it. That’s
what Titus would say.” Her sister raised her eyes. “Don’t counsel
me to stay home because I might get hurt.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

Emily squeezed her hand. “Then you keep your
nothing, and I’ll keep mine.”

It was the third time that Emily had slipped out
of her room to meet Mr. Bhattacharya.

If her uncle knew what was happening, he
would have had a fit of his own. He would have delivered her
lecture after lecture about her innocence and how she was too kind
and good and young. How men were not to be trusted.

But Mr. Bhattacharya had proven far too
trustworthy for Emily’s tastes. He smiled at her. He took her arm
when they found a path that was narrow, but he relinquished it when
the footing was secure. He looked—oh, he definitely looked. But he
hadn’t done anything untrustworthy. Nothing at all.

Today, he was quieter than usual. He’d been
perfectly polite in greeting her. And then they’d walked and walked
along the brook, following the path until it met up with the road.
He’d not said a word. After about a half an hour, he finally
spoke.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not the best of
company. I’m preparing for the Tripos, and I’m trying to figure out
some of the trickier points of common law. It makes my head
hurt.”

“Would you like to talk it over?”

She’d started reading Titus’s law books again
just to see what Mr. Bhattacharya was talking about. Her uncle had
been a little confused, but had finally said that she might enjoy
the stories in the cases so long as she skipped over the
conclusions of law.

Mr. Bhattacharya didn’t act as if she
couldn’t follow the reasoning, as if the things he learned were
above her. He just talked to her.

Last time, he’d pulled one of his books from
his satchel and they’d read through a passage together, their heads
bent over it in tandem, so close that he could have reached out and
set his hand over hers.

He hadn’t.

Today, though, he didn’t take out his book.
He looked up at the sky instead. “There is a case,” he finally
said, “where the courts conclude that a bequest is invalid because
an eighty-year-old woman could have had a child after the will was
drafted.” He made an annoyed noise.

Emily folded her hands, waiting, but he
didn’t say anything else. He simply glared at her as if the
centuries-long foibles of Chancery could be foisted on her
shoulders.

“Perhaps,” Emily finally said, “if you could
explain to me precisely where you are having difficulties, I might
be able to be of more help.”

“I—” He blinked at her. “How is it not
obvious where I am having difficulties? Start with the fact that an
eighty year old woman does not bear children.”

“Sarah had children in the Bible,” Emily
said, “and she was at least eighty years old, so—”

“The Bible.” He shook his head. “If we are
allowed to argue from that authority, I still don’t understand it.
The rule in question says that it must become clear who a bequest
is going to within twenty-one years of the death of a person who
was living at the time the bequest was made. If we take the Bible
as authority, we need only use Jesus Christ as a person living at
the time of the bequest. Since he rose from the dead and lives
forever, then—”

“No, no,” Emily said, trying to stifle a
laugh. “I know very little of law, but I’m certain that you can’t
use Jesus.”

“Why not? Did Jesus live after he rose a
second time or didn’t he?”

“They’ll call it sacrilege, that’s why.”

He shrugged, as if sacrilege were of no
particular worry to him. “Very well. Let me see if I understand how
this works. We can use Sarah from your holy scripture, but not
Jesus. I assume that if I mentioned the
Bhagavad Gita
, the
response would be hostile.”

“What is that?” Emily asked curiously.

“You might call it some of our Hindu
scripture.”

She contemplated this. “I do not consider
myself an expert on English law, but I believe you are safe in
assuming that citing Hindu scripture in an English court may not be
the best choice.”

“English law is incomprehensible. Your
scripture is the only valid argument that can be made, and even
then, it is to be used only when it is convenient to support an
argument, but not otherwise. How does that make any sense? There is
no guiding principle.”

“I think, Mr. Bhattacharya, that you
understand well enough,” Emily said. “Your problem is not one of
understanding. It is one of acceptance.”

“You have it backward,” he said, calm and
unruffled. “I
accept
. But how am I to apply illogic? And you
claim that English law is the pinnacle of civilization.”

“Me?” Emily took a step forward. “
I
haven’t claimed anything about English law. English law says that I
can’t make my own decisions, that even though I’m old enough to
marry and have children of my own, that I cannot choose who I live
with and who touches my body. English law says that I must abide by
my uncle’s wishes, when he would have me confined to my room.”

He was looking at her oddly. “Your uncle,” he
said slowly. “But I thought your uncle…” He glanced around the
path. “What do you mean, he would confine you to your room?”

She swallowed. “He is, perhaps, not as
permissive as I represented.”

He took a step back. “I’m not sure you should
be defying your uncle. He’s family. That isn’t just law; it’s good
sense. I thought…”

“I smoothed over the truth a little,” she
said testily. “My uncle is not…”

“
I
wouldn’t defy my family like
that.”

“Of course you would,” Emily responded. “If
your family asked you to do something distasteful. Suppose, for
instance, your father was a tyrant like Napoleon, and that he
commanded you to—”

But he was shaking his head again. “Now I
really don’t understand you. What was so terrible about
Napoleon?”

He was so even-tempered, so often smiling,
that at first Emily thought he was joking. Then she found the
furrow in his brow, the dark look he gave her.

She threw up her hands. “You’re being
ridiculous. He was bent on conquering the entire European
continent, never mind the cost in…in…”

She swallowed, as her mind raced to a
conclusion ahead of her.

“Oh,” she said in mute horror.

He didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

“Oh,” she repeated, setting a hand over her
belly. For a few moments he said nothing at all.

He spoke when she was feeling the height of
her stupidity. “The East India Company laid claim to Calcutta more
than two centuries ago. You cannot imagine what I have seen. Ten
years ago, there was an uprising in the north. You probably have
not heard of it.”

He said that without blinking. And he was
right. She hadn’t. “Go on,” she muttered.

“Several of the Indian battalions mutinied.
Indian killed Indian.” His hands made fists, but his eyes had
shifted inward. “My brother was in the army. They called him to
help.”