The Heiress Effect (29 page)

“I know,” Emily said. “I love you, Jane,
but…” She swallowed. “Don’t worry for me. I shall manage on my
own.”

Jane smoothed her sister’s hair. “Who knows?
Maybe Titus will get better.”

Emily laughed. “Maybe. And maybe he… But no.
I won’t make fun of him.”

“There’s a plant on my desk,” Jane said. “A
cactus. I want you to keep it while I’m gone. So you’ll have
something of me.”

“Oh, God, Jane. I always forget to water
plants. I’m going to kill it.”

“Forget to water this one.” Jane smiled.
“You’re supposed to.”

Her sister nodded and curled up against
her.

“Was it worth it?” Jane asked. “This man you
were slipping out to meet… Was he worth it?”

Emily paused. “He’s going to be a barrister.
He asked me to marry him. I’ve not given him my answer yet. I was
waiting for some kind of a sign. And now this thing has happened
with Titus.”

“Titus is never a sign of anything but
Titus,” Jane said. “Does your barrister love you?”

Emily waited even longer before answering. “I
don’t know,” she finally said. “It’s hard for me to read him. He
says that I’m pretty.”

“Anyone would say that, silly. You are. But
he was meeting you in secret. I can’t like that. Is he a rake?”

“He’s the farthest thing from a rake. I told
you, he’s gentle. Except when he’s not. When he’s angry, he speaks
his mind quite clearly.”

“Does this not-rakish gentleman have a
name?”

She could feel her sister stiffen beside her
with some inexplicable tenseness. “He does.”

Was it someone Jane knew? Someone she had
mentioned?
Not the Marquess of Bradenton,
she prayed.
Let
it not be him.
But she didn’t ask. She didn’t push. She simply
waited. And after about half a minute, Emily continued.

“It’s Anjan,” Emily said. “Anjan
Bhattacharya.”

Jane’s eyes widened in surprise. There were a
thousand responses she could give. She mulled them all over and
finally settled on one.

“Tell me,” she said sleepily. “Tell me all
about him. Does he say your name the way you say his?”

Her sister pondered this. “He told me once
that my guardian should hold me precious. But Mama didn’t. Papa
didn’t. Titus, oddly enough, has come closest, and he, well….” She
sighed and turned in the bed. “That leaves only you, Jane. You’re
the only one who has ever thought me a treasure.”

Jane gathered her sister in her arms, holding
her close. “Of course, Emily. Of course I do.”

“So who did you have?”

Jane’s throat tightened. Emily had never
asked that before. She’d always been the younger sister, never
thinking that
Jane
might need someone, too. Jane shook her
head numbly.

“And now you’re going away.” Emily’s own
voice was hoarse. “Promise me that you’ll take as good care of
yourself as you did of me. Promise that, and I’ll manage to take
care of myself.”

“Emily.”

But her little sister kissed her fingertips
and set them against Jane’s forehead. “Promise. Promise that you’ll
do it.”

Jane folded Emily’s hand in her own. “I
promise,” she whispered.

Anjan Bhattacharya hadn’t known how much he
cared until Emily stopped coming. The first day she’d not appeared
at their agreed-upon meeting, he wandered up the banks of the brook
where they normally walked. He strolled down the other side, where
there was no path, only unbroken fields boot-high in winter
grasses.

Maybe she’d not been able to get away.

He walked and he waited. After an hour and a
half passed, he left.

He waited the second day at the usual time.
He waited and he waited and he waited until his feet were sore from
standing. He waited until the sun slid from the sky and kissed the
horizon, until even his vast well of hope had begun to run dry.

On the third day, a servant was there for
him. She frowned at Anjan. “Are you…uh…Mr….uh…”

“Yes,” he replied, because he answered to Mr.
Uh almost as often as he did to his own name.

“This is for you,” she said, holding out a
square of paper. He broke the seal and unfolded the letter.

Dear Anjan,
Emily had written.
My
uncle has discovered everything. I’ve tried twice, and I can’t get
away to see you. I might be able to make it one day, but I can’t
ask you to wait for weeks on end on such hopes.

The world, he decided, was vastly unfair.

I have been considering everything you said
the last time we spoke. I enjoyed the story you told me, but I’m
not sure what to do about it yet.

Emily

He folded the paper carefully. She was
considering. He could guess what that meant. The Law Tripos would
be administered in a few months, and after that, he’d be gone. He
needed proximity, not consideration.

If he were another man, he would march up to
her uncle’s house and demand to see her.

He suspected that if he tried, he’d be shot.
Or thrown in gaol and accused of some horrendous crime. Nobody
would believe him when he said he just wanted to talk to her.

She’d been a bright spot in his day. And
now…

He started back toward town.

He was beginning to get angry. Not at her, at
a fate that taunted him with something so lovely, and then just as
it seemed to be within his reach, snatched it away. Fate was
cruel.

He passed through the gates of his college in
a black study.

By now, most of his classmates were used to
him. If they were the sort to make remarks, they rarely did it
around him. He made his way across the green, scowling at the
ground.

“Ho, Batty!” a man called.

Anjan almost didn’t stop. He took three
strides.

“Batty, where are you going?”

Ah, yes.
Batty
was him. He halted.
Before he looked around, he found his smile. Even now, he could put
it on his face with so little effort. It wouldn’t do to scowl at a
man just for being friendly. And George Lirington was one of the
good ones—one of the people who talked to Anjan, who had first
invited him to play cricket. He had even talked his father into
finding Anjan a position.

“Batty,” Lirington said, “where were you
today? We needed a bowler. We were desperate without you.”

“Lirington,” Anjan spoke as pleasantly as he
could. “You look as if you’ve just come from the cricket field. Did
they have you bowling, then?”

“Yes, which is why we lost.”

His friend smiled, and began to describe the
game in detail, acting out the most important points. Anjan was
Batty
because Bhattacharya had too many syllables. He’d told
one man his first name; the fellow had blinked, and then had
immediately dubbed him John. That’s who they thought he was: John
Batty
.
These well-meaning English boys had taken his name as
easily, and with as much jovial friendship, as their fathers had
taken his country.

And Emily had called him Bhattacharya. He’d
fallen a little bit in love with her the moment she’d said his name
as if it had value.

His fist clenched, but he kept on
smiling.

Oliver didn’t think of Jane much. In the last
week of January, he managed to keep his thoughts of her to a
minimum—a few wistful imaginings at night, wondering what might
have happened between them if matters had been different. If she’d
had no need to drive suitors away. If she’d been a legitimate
daughter of a well-respected family. If he’d been able to court
her.

Court. Ha. He didn’t think about anything so
sedate as
courting
her. His thoughts ran darker and deeper,
starting from their kiss and ending against stone walls and thick
trees. His thoughts ran far ahead of his sensibilities, until he
had to take the problem in hand to solve it. But after, when sanity
returned…

He still couldn’t imagine Jane in plain white
and demure pearls. So he made himself give up that fantasy.

In February, he scarcely thought of Jane at
all. He didn’t have time to think of her. Parliament was sitting
once more. The queen herself addressed the nation’s lawmakers and
urged them to extend the franchise. The work began in earnest.
Oliver hashed out his plan with Minnie, his brother’s wife, who had
a head for strategy; between them, they planned a series of
dinners. Working men from all over the country were brought in by
train. Oliver gave short two-day courses on etiquette and the
workings of politics. The men then ate with dukes and duchesses,
barons and baronesses. Members of Parliament sat down for an hour
with bakers.

The message was clear: These are reasonable,
rational men. Why should they not vote?

He very assiduously did
not
think of
Jane in those moments. He didn’t want to contrast her with the
pallid, smiling wives he encountered, women who never made a single
faux pas, who would blush if they heard the word “fuchsine,” and
would certainly never don a glove of that color, let alone a
gown.

He smiled instead. And when those women
mentioned their unmarried sisters or cousins or nieces, he smiled
again, this time a little more distantly, and tried not to call to
mind brilliant colors.

By the time March rolled around, Oliver had
stopped telling himself he wasn’t thinking of Jane. It didn’t
matter whether he was thinking of her or not; she wasn’t here, she
was still impossible, and he was unlikely to ever see her again. If
he found himself still a little enamored of her memory, it was
hardly worth moping about. Not when there was so much to do.
Dinners gave way to arguments. Bills were drafted; bills were
rejected. He wrote a series of articles for a London paper, on the
subject of the representation of the people, that was
well-received; he wondered, idly, if Jane had read them and what
she had thought of them.

At the end of April, the men Oliver was
working with took him aside and asked him when he was planning on
running for Parliament.
When,
not
if
. He had their
support, they assured him. He nodded calmly and spoke very little.
He let them tell him the things he had always known—that he was
levelheaded, intelligent, articulate, that he had ties to the
nobility and ties to the working class. He let them tell him that
he was exactly the sort of man who should be joining them. He let
them tell him that he would succeed, while inside he was dancing a
jig.

The future he’d envisioned so long ago was
opening wide.

Then they told him that all he needed to
complete the picture was domestic felicity. That, he passed over
somewhat.

Oliver went home that night and shared a
bottle of port with his brother, trading jokes back and forth until
he got a little tipsy. They drank until Minnie, his sister-in-law,
came downstairs. She smiled and shook her head at them, and then
escorted her husband to bed.

She left Oliver behind to contemplate the
fruition of all his dreams.

Once the port and his brother had deserted
him, the euphoria drifted away.

All he needed was domestic felicity. A
pleasant girl, someone who would smooth his way. There were
hundreds of women who would do. Surely, one of them would eclipse
Jane. He just had to meet her.

He wasn’t in love with Jane, after all. He
just admired her spirit. That was it. He poured himself another
half glass of port, all by himself in the darkness.

Well, perhaps it was more than her spirit. He
admired her intelligence. The way that she’d walk into a room and
immediately determine who was in charge and how best to alienate
him. He wanted a wife just like that—except, of course, she’d have
to do the opposite of alienation. Someone just like Jane, he mused.
That’s who he wanted. Just like Jane, but completely opposite. He
finished off the port in his glass.