The Heiress Effect (26 page)

He could almost see her as one of them.
Almost, if he ignored the over-long stares the other women gave
her. If he refused to admit that her voice carried over everyone
else’s.

They sat down to dinner.

She didn’t interrupt anyone’s conversation or
insult anyone’s clothing. The twins spoke almost as much as she
did.

In the end, it was Lord James who brought up
politics.

“So,” he said, “I had a visit from the
Countess of Branford. She said the women have been talking about
the Contagious Diseases Act, of all things.”

“Ah, ah,” Bradenton said, wagging a finger.
“Look about.” He inclined his head an inch to the left, indicating
the Johnson twins.

The discussion of politics wasn’t always
allowed in polite company, but in a group like this—men who thought
of nothing else for much of the year—it was inevitable. More than
half the women present were political wives or sisters and were
used to such discussions at the table.

Lord James blinked in surprise. “I’m sorry,
my lord,” he finally said. “I had thought Miss Johnson—but never
mind.”

“Oh,” Miss Fairfield interrupted, two feet
down the table from him, “please don’t stop on our account. I do so
wish to hear everyone’s opinion. Starting with yours, Lord
Bradenton.”

Bradenton looked up. Oliver could almost see
him weighing the matter. He stroked his chin once, then twice.

“Humor Miss Fairfield,” Oliver said, with a
pointed raise of his eyebrow at Bradenton.

Bradenton smiled broadly after a
half-second’s hesitation. “Of course,” he said. “We all know how I
feel—that the Act must go on, however harsh the consequences—and I
gather we are in general agreement. But why don’t you tell us your
opinion on the Contagious Diseases Act, Miss Fairfield? I’m sure
you have a great deal to say.”

“Why, yes,” Miss Fairfield told him. “I do. I
believe we should expand the scope of the Contagious Diseases Act.
Radically.”

Bradenton blinked and glanced at her. The
entire table was shocked into silence.

“How radical do you mean?” Lord James
asked.”

Canterly nodded. “You’d extend it to more
cities? Or would you, ah, hold suspects longer? Or—” He stopped,
glancing at Jane, at the two sisters who were seated up the table
from her.

Bradenton smiled more broadly, perhaps as if
he thought he knew Oliver’s plan. Lure her into talking about
sexual matters. Start a rumor, perhaps. The gossip would run amuck
from there. Young virgins simply did not engage in frank
conversations about the government’s policy of locking up
prostitutes. The disgruntled mutters about Miss Fairfield would
turn into outrage.

“It’s simple,” Jane insisted. “I know just
how to do it. Instead of just locking up the women who are
suspected of being ill, we should lock up
all
the women.
That way, the ones who are well can never get sick.”

At the foot of the table, Whitting scratched
his head. “But…how would men use their services?”

“What do men have to do with it?” Jane
asked.

“Um.” Lord James looked down. “I take your
point, Bradenton. This is…perhaps not the best conversation to be
having at the moment.”

“After all,” Jane continued, “if men were
capable of infecting women, our government in its infinite wisdom
would never choose to lock up only the women. That would be
pointless, since without any constraint on men, the spread of
contagion would never stop. It would also be unjust to confine
women for the sin of being infected by men.” She smiled
triumphantly. “And since our very good Marquess of Bradenton
supports the Act, that could never be the case. He would never sign
on to such manifest injustice.”

There was a longer pause at that.

Bradenton had listened to this speech in
stony silence, his lips pressing more and more closely together. He
glanced over at Oliver, a warning in his glittering eyes.

“Yes, well,” he said tersely.

“She has you there.” Canterly smothered a
smile.

“Do I?” Jane asked innocently. “Because if
that’s so, then I win this round of our game, Bradenton.”

That was met with an even more prickly
silence. Bradenton squinted at Jane, leaning forward, as if trying
to make her out from a distance.

“Our game?” he repeated.

“Yes,” Jane said. “Our game. You know, the
one where I play at ignorance and you play at insults.”

Bradenton inhaled. “
Play?”

“It is play, of course,” Jane said. “The
alternative is that you’ve been carrying a grudge against me all
these months, simply because your fortunes were in a decline and I
had suggested that you needed to find another heiress.”

Bradenton stood up. “Why, you poxy
little—”

Next to him, another man put his hand on
Bradenton’s sleeve. “Come now, Bradenton.” Bradenton looked down
and then—very slowly—he sat.

“Good heavens,” Jane said, “you’re not upset
about the
game,
are you? And here I thought it was all in
good fun, after all.”

“I don’t understand,” Canterly said.

“There’s only one part I regret,” Jane said.
“Mr. Whitting, a few weeks ago, I implied that you were deficient
in understanding. That wasn’t well done of me. In my defense,
you’ve said worse of me, but…” She shrugged. “I still ought not
have done it.”

“A game,” Bradenton said, choking on the
words. “A
game.
You think this is a game.”

“You seem so surprised. Here I thought you
all
gamesters.” Jane looked around the table. “After all,
Bradenton did offer to sway your votes to the newly proposed Reform
Act if only Mr. Marshall would humiliate me. Are you telling me the
rest of the table knew nothing of this?”

Silence met this—a long, deep, uncomfortable
silence. One that Oliver reveled in.

Across the table from Jane, Mr. Ellisford set
down his spoon. “Bradenton,” he said seriously, “you know I’m your
friend. I’ve known you far too long. You’d never prevail on our
friendship for such petty reasons. I know you wouldn’t.” But
despite the certainty of his words, there was a question in his
voice.

“Of course I wouldn’t,” Bradenton said
heartily. “You have only her word for it. She’s hardly reliable.
Ask anyone here.” He looked up at Oliver. “Except Marshall. He’s a
bastard, and he’d tell any lie to get ahead.”

“No,” Oliver said quietly.

“No, you’re not a bastard? You can’t deny
your parentage.”

“No,” Oliver said. “I’m not the only one who
will speak on her behalf.”

“I saw you threaten her,” Genevieve Johnson
put in. “Geraldine and I both did. We feared for her safety.”

A murmur swelled around the table.

Bradenton’s eyes narrowed. “You
misunderstood.”

Across the table from her, Hapford shut his
eyes. “I’m sorry, uncle.” He spoke softly.

“What?” Bradenton said.

“I’m sorry,” Hapford repeated more loudly.
His hands had worked his serviette into a ball. “But I don’t think
my father would want… I do not think he would want…” He trailed
off. “Miss Fairfield is telling the truth. I was there when the
marquess made his offer to Mr. Marshall. You offered him precisely
what she said—your vote, your help swaying the men here, if only he
would show Miss Fairfield her place.” He swallowed. “I didn’t like
it then, and it has not sat well with me since.”

The silence grew again, threatening like
thunder.

Hapford blew out his breath. “When my father
recommended a relationship with you men to me on his deathbed, I
did not think he intended to attach me to a group of small-minded
power-mongers, intent on hurting women. He recommended you as a
group honestly interested in the best interests of England.”

“Yes,” Ellisford finally said, pointedly
turning away from Bradenton. “You have the right of it. That’s what
I thought we were, too.”

“Then maybe we can listen to Mr. Marshall
without having him pay so high a price.”

“You’ve convinced me,” Ellisford said to Oliver
several hours later. “I’m rather glad we had this talk. I’d never
imagined…”

His eyes darted to the left. The gentlemen in
the library sat with cigars and glasses of port. Bradenton was the
only one who kept his silence. He’d stewed the entire evening:
through dinner, through the conversations after the men separated
from the ladies. Just as well he’d kept quiet; nobody else seemed
inclined to talk to him, even though he was the host.

“I feel the same,” Oliver said. “And we’ll
talk again in London.”

“Of course.”

Bradenton’s silence shouted sullenly, but
nobody was paying him any mind.

Oliver had won. Not Bradenton’s vote—he’d
never get that now—but all the things he’d wanted. The votes of
Bradenton’s little set. His own integrity. He could afford to be
magnanimous—and in this case, magnanimity meant letting the man
stew in peace.

“Well,” Oliver said, “shall we rejoin the
ladies?”

Everyone agreed. But when Oliver stood,
Bradenton finally spoke. “Not you, Marshall,” he growled. “You and
I have business.”

“Of course,” Oliver said, as congenially as
he could. Everyone else trooped out with only a few scant glances
behind. Strange; the fire seemed to dim as they left and the
shadows of the furniture seemed to grow, now that there was no warm
conversation to fill the empty spaces.

“You think you’re so clever,” Bradenton
snarled as soon as they were alone.

“I? I hardly said anything at all.”

“You know what I mean. But you can’t win.”
Bradenton stood and paced to the fireplace. “You can’t win,” he
repeated.

Oliver forbore from pointing out that he had
just done so.

“You can’t win,” Bradenton said a third time,
turning to Oliver, his cheeks ruddy with anger. “You might achieve
a few trifling little victories here and there, but that’s what it
means to be you—that you can never stop trying. That every inch you
win, you must fight to keep. As for me?” He threw his arms wide. “I
am a marquess. No matter what you managed today, you spent weeks
considering doing my bidding.”

“That much is true.”

“Men like me? I’m rare. I was born a victor.
What I have cannot be given or taken away. What are you? You’re one
of a thousand similar men. One of ten thousand. Faceless.
Voiceless. It’s men like me that run the country.”

Bradenton nodded, as if he had just convinced
himself, and Oliver let him rage in peace.

“It will give me great pleasure to vote
against the Reform Act,” he said. “Great pleasure indeed.”

“I would never begrudge you your amusement,”
Oliver said. “Especially not when you must savor it alone.”

The two men stared at each other until
Bradenton’s lip curled away from his teeth in a snarl. “I do
believe we are done with each other, Marshall. I won’t forget
this.”

Oliver shrugged. “I told you Miss Fairfield
would discover her place tonight, Bradenton. She did.”

There was only one woman Oliver wanted to see
when he joined the company. Jane was sparkling. Not just the
diamond bracelets that ringed her wrists. It was her laugh, too
loud, and yet just right. Her smile, too broad, and yet exactly as
friendly as it needed to be. The look in her eyes when she turned
and saw Oliver.

She was magnificent.

He greeted her politely and then leaned in to
whisper. “Can you meet me afterward? I want to…”

There were too many ways to finish that
sentence. He wanted to kiss her. Congratulate her. He wanted to
slip that gown off her shoulders and have her legs around his
waist. Her eyes slipped to her chaperone, sitting against the wall.
“Northwest corner of the park,” she replied sotto voce. “After I
leave.”

His pulse leapt at the thought. His
imagination came alive. But he nodded to her politely, as if he’d
not just arranged for an illicit rendezvous with her.