The Heiress Effect (34 page)

“Stop moping,” Robert said, punching his
shoulder. “Maybe it’s simply that with the Reform Act creeping its
way through Parliament, you’re needing a new project. You’ve worked
on this for how long now? It can be a surprising letdown to see
something you’ve worked for come to fruition. It leaves an
emptiness in your life.”

“That’s precisely what it is.” Oliver shut
his eyes. “An emptiness in my life. I’m just not sure what would
fill it.”

There was a tap behind them. Oliver turned to
see a servant standing in the doorway.

“Sir,” he said, bowing to Oliver. “A telegram
has come for you.”

“Oh, lovely,” Oliver said aloud. “I wonder
what Free has done now?”

The servant didn’t answer and Oliver took the
envelope in bemusement.

The flimsy paper inside contained three
lines

NOBODY ELSE I CAN TURN TO

AM IN NOTTINGHAM

TOMORROW I WILL

That was it. That was the entirety of the
message. It seemed curiously abbreviated, and the last line—he
hesitated to call it a
sentence
when even in the truncated
language of telegrams it lacked necessary parts of speech—made no
sense. Tomorrow I will…who was this I?

Oliver had no idea.

Eat, drink, and be merry,
some amused
part of him whispered,
for tomorrow I will…

He looked the paper over. He didn’t know
anyone in Nottingham. And the only person who would send him a
message asking for help, aside from his family, was…

He stared at the paper and reread it.

Jane Fairfield.

He licked his lips.

“Robert,” he said, “tell me if I am wrong,
but this would be a most inconvenient time to leave town, would it
not?”

There were ongoing debates in Parliament.
Details were being settled on a regular basis. But the thought of
staying—of going to yet another dinner with yet more people who
made him feel strange inside his skin—seemed impossibly wrong.

Free hadn’t needed him. She hadn’t even asked
for him. But Jane…

“Oliver,” Robert said, “is everything well?
It’s not your sister again, is it?”

“No,” Oliver said, almost dazedly. “It’s not
my sister.”

He could go to Jane. If it was Jane who had
sent this message.

A stupid idea. He tried to dispel it with
logic.

The world didn’t turn on Jane, he lectured
himself, and everything
would
alter if the voting reforms
were watered down. What were one woman’s problems when compared
with the entire world? He wasn’t even in love with her. This might
not even have come from her.

But for one second, he imagined seeing her
again. He imagined spending a few days with a colorful, square
block—a few blissful days without a single round hole in sight.

“I’m going to Nottingham,” he said.

And for the first time in four months, he
felt right—as if he’d turned toward home after a long journey in a
foreign land.

Robert blinked.

Oliver laughed, feeling almost giddy with
relief. “I don’t know what I’m doing there,” he said. “Or why I
need to go, or how long it will take. But I’m going.”

“You’re going now?”

Now
seemed like a good time. An
excellent time. After all, the sooner he went, the sooner he could
come back. And maybe, just maybe, when he saw her, he could figure
out how she managed to keep from being worn down. Maybe he needed a
little dose of the impossible.

That was it. He wasn’t in love with her, but…
God, he ached to see her.

“I’m going,” Oliver said, “as soon as I can
put together a few things.”

He repeated that mantra on the train, chanted it
in time with the rushing clack-clack-clack of the wheels.

He wasn’t in love with her; he was just
fulfilling a promise.

He wasn’t in love with her; he was merely
going to visit an old friend.

He wasn’t in love with her; he was simply
going to set right a wrong.

The train steamed on through the afternoon,
and Oliver let himself believe every word.

He wasn’t in love with her. He just
wasn’t.

When he asked casually at the inn upon arrival,
he was told there would be an assembly that night—starting in a
mere fifteen minutes—and that all the eligible young ladies would
attend. “Including,” the maid said, “an heiress.” She blinked at
him. “I hear she has the most outrageous gowns. I do wish I could
see them.”

So did Oliver. It
had
been her
telegram, then. She needed him. He was going to see her, and the
thought of it filled him with an electric anticipation. He wasn’t
in love with her. He was just smiling because he knew she’d
appreciate being called outrageous.

He wasn’t in love with her; he was just going
to the assembly without taking the time to unpack his valise.
Nothing wrong with that, was there?

He made excuse after excuse as he dressed, as
he made sure his coat pockets contained all the necessary things
one would need if a woman ended up in danger—money and a pistol
pretty much covered it.

He wasn’t in love with her; he was just being
careful.

He told himself those same lies when he
joined the throng in the assembly. He was just looking for her—a
perfectly normal thing to do, wasn’t it? To look for a woman you’d
traveled a hundred miles to see. It was normal that his breath
seemed heavy in his lungs, that the seconds without her seemed to
weigh on his shoulders.

And then he saw her. The assembly doors
opened, and she entered the room. She was dressed in a gown that
clung to the curves of her breasts and flared at the waist. It was
green—the kind of green that a monk might have used in an
illuminated manuscript of old to sketch out a venomous snake
whispering temptation from an apple tree.

Someone else might have found that gold
fringe at her ankles gaudy. They might have winced at the color of
her dress or the sparkling beads that adorned it. They might have
blinked at her garish headpiece.

But this was Jane. It had been four months
since Oliver had last seen her. She was utterly gorgeous, from the
bejeweled slippers that peeked out under the edge of her gown all
the way up to the poison-green feathers plaited into her hair.
Jane. His Jane. His breath caught, and for the first time in what
seemed like forever, he felt as if he had landed precisely where he
belonged. Here, in this assembly that he’d never attended, amongst
a crowd of strangers.

He’d been lying to himself all these
months.

He
was
in love with her. And he had no
idea what to do about it.

“That gown is hideous,” Jane’s aunt said for
what seemed the fifteenth time. “Do you want everyone to think you
a…” She paused, but as there was no particular social message that
was sent by wearing a viper-green dress, she had no way to
continue. “Are you trying to be a ninnyhammer?”

“A ninnyhammer,” Jane said, “sounds like a
magic hammer. One that I can use to smite ninnies. I have a great
need for one of those.”

Her aunt was struck dumb by this. She stared
and sniffed, and finally shook her head. “How will you ever bring
Dorling up to scratch dressed like that?”

Jane didn’t dignify that with an answer. She
refused to talk about the man with her aunt. Instead, she stared
blankly at the carriage wall. Dorling was the author of half of her
current misery, and she cared approximately nothing for him. It was
when she thought of Emily—of what her uncle might do, what he might
already have done—that she began to worry.

The telegram might not have gone through.
Even if it had, what she’d remembered writing on the card in a
tearing hurry was utter gibberish. She hadn’t given him an inkling
of what she needed, when she needed it, where they should meet, or
any other pertinent information—such as, for instance, her own
name. Oliver had an entire life to live, people that he cared for,
things to do. He wasn’t going to rush off because he received a
telegram that might or might not have come from a woman he might or
might not have forgotten.

He was likely married by now. He had almost
certainly put aside his foolish promise. Besides, there wasn’t any
time. The telegram had gone out just before noon. Scarcely seven
hours had elapsed, and her plan was already in motion.

God. It was all going to happen tonight,
whether she was ready or not. She had nobody to rely on but
herself, no weapons except two rolls of bills. One was strapped to
her thigh; the other was lodged rather uncomfortably between her
breasts.

The assembly room was up a flight of stairs.
The exercise made her too warm. With every step, those bills
between her breasts chafed. On the plus side, there was no way that
the money would slide out on accident, wedged in there as they
were. On the other hand, she feared they would leave a permanent,
bill-shaped imprint against the sides of her breasts. It was a good
thing she didn’t need a pistol.
That
would hurt, stuffed
down there.

So Jane smiled at her aunt, squared her
shoulders, and marched into the assembly room.

It was blazing hot in that crush of bodies,
so hot that Jane felt almost overwhelmed by the blast of warmth.
She had less than half an hour to find Dorling, to explain to him
what she needed.

But it was not Dorling her eyes lit on as she
perused the crowd. It was another man entirely.

“Oh,” she said aloud. She had to be imagining
him—those eyes, alight with some inner humor, pale blue and
sparkling. That bright shock of hair. Those spectacles.

He was dressed in dark clothing with long
tails on his coats. The cuffs of his shirt gleamed whitely at his
sleeves. His hair shone in the lamp light like a bright beacon. He
looked about, adjusted his spectacles on his nose, and saw her.

It had been months since she’d seen him last,
and the sight of him felt like a blow—a welcome blow, one that
nearly knocked her over with the weight of relief. Everyone else in
the room vanished. There was only him—him and her—and the distance
and time that lay between them seemed to dwindle away.

It took every ounce of self-control that Jane
had—every last scrap of restraint—to keep herself from dashing
across the room into his waiting arms.

But…her aunt was watching.

And so she waited demurely, trying to ignore
the unsightly trickle of sweat that slid down her back, trying not
to scratch at her breasts. She waited, talking to others with her
mind in a daze.

How had he come so quickly?

Oh, it was
possible,
of course, that
he might have done so. But he would have had to get on a train
almost immediately after he’d received her telegram.

She was still dazed when Mrs. Laurence came
up with Oliver in tow. Jane barely heard the words of introduction;
she had no idea what story he had told. She only nodded in
dumbfounded agreement when he asked if he might walk her around the
room.