The Heiress Effect (42 page)

“He has had me shocked with galvanic
current,” she said, undoing a second button. “He had a man hold my
head underwater. There was the man with a contraption. It utilized
leverage to apply bruising force to my leg when a convulsion
started.” She undid more buttons as she spoke. “We stopped use of
the machine after it broke my femur.”

His eyes rose to hers, and he felt a moment
of sick comprehension. When she’d talked of their walks being an
escape,
he’d imagined her as simply rebellious. But this?
This was awful.

She spoke so matter-of-factly that Lirington
simply nodded in tune to her recital, as if these things that she
were listing were normal activities. If he hadn’t been looking for
it, Anjan would have missed the way her fingers shook as she undid
the next button and rolled up her sleeve, revealing a white,
perfectly round scar.

“A doctor had me burned with a red-hot
poker,” she said. “He thought it would disrupt my convulsions. It
did not.”

Anjan gripped the arms of his chair.
Barbaric, that’s what it was. It was barbaric. And how had he not
known this? All those weeks they had walked together, and she had
said not a word. He’d lectured her about family. About doing as her
uncle told her.

He felt a fury rising in him.

“Gentlemen,” she said, still calm, “I hope
you will understand when I refrain from showing you the burns on my
thigh.”

“Miss Fairfield,” Lirington said in
confusion, “this is all well and good, but I am at a loss as to how
we are to help you. It is your guardian’s duty to provide medical
care, after all.”

“It is not well,” Anjan heard himself growl.
“Neither is it good.”

She heard him and smiled. “Well, one
possibility is to petition for a change of guardian. I had
hoped…”

“We handle maritime affairs,” Lirington said.
“This is a matter for Chancery.” He shook his head. “As grievously
as you no doubt have suffered, I do not see how we could be of
service. My secretary, Mr. Walton, can provide you a list, but—I am
desolate to admit—we ourselves can do nothing. Now, if you’ll
excuse us…” He stood. “Batty, as you’re here, I think we should
discuss the Westfeld accounts after all. My father is in his
office, and—”

He turned as Emily stood. For the first time
in her visit, she looked perturbed. “But I don’t know them,” she
said. “I don’t know those other people. And the situation is more
urgent than can be solved by a motion in Chancery. I’ve objected to
the treatment. In return, my uncle is—that is, I found
correspondence with…” She swallowed and met Anjan’s eyes. “He wants
to declare me incompetent. He’ll put me away. I’ll never be able to
make my own decisions.”

Anjan swallowed away a sick feeling. People
made jokes about Bedlam, but the things he’d heard… An asylum was
no place for anyone, let alone Emily.

“Already he refuses to allow me out of the
house. When he discovered I was sneaking out…” She turned her head
to Anjan, and nodded. “…he had a servant start sleeping in my room.
I didn’t even have a chance to say good-bye.”

Lirington shook his head. “I’m sorry.” It was
a dismissal, not an apology.

Anjan didn’t move. He was rooted in place,
everything he knew about her falling into order.

Her breath was coming faster now. “My sister
will help. She’s of age, and she has enough money to pay whatever
it is you need.”

“I do wish you the best,” Lirington said,
“but—”

“Be quiet, Lirington,” Anjan heard himself
grate out. “She never asked for
your
opinion. She came to
me.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Lirington frowned,
though, and then his lips quirked, as if he were just remembering
that in fact, she
had
asked for Anjan. By name. “I don’t
understand,” he finally said. “Why would she do that?”

Anjan didn’t answer.

“Because I knew,” Emily said. “I knew if I
came here, I would get a fair hearing. I knew, at the very least,
that you would listen. That you would care.”

“Is that what you think?” Anjan said, almost
curious to hear her answer. “I haven’t seen you in months; you
disappear with scarcely a word to me. And you think that you can
just arrive and tell me that I care?”

Emily tossed her head back. “Don’t be daft,”
she said. “I know you do.”

Anjan felt a smile spread across his face—a
slow, real smile. “Good.”

“I told you once that if our marriage had
been arranged, I would not complain,” Emily said. “Since then…”

Anjan leaned forward, ignoring the surprised
noise Lirington made.

“In the worst months of my uncle’s excesses,
when my sister was away and I had no outlet for my frustration, I
imagined that it was so. That I
knew
I would marry you. That
I had that to look forward to, no matter what happened in the
meantime.”

Anjan swallowed.

“And then I discovered that my uncle had been
corresponding with an asylum.” She shut her eyes. “I couldn’t stay
and risk that. And that was strangely freeing. I could go anywhere,
could choose anything. Nothing was arranged, not a single thing in
my future except the things that I could arrange for myself.”

Anjan couldn’t look away from her. She smiled
at him, and he felt himself smiling in response.

“So I came here,” she said. “To you.”

Lirington looked at Emily—really looked at
her—and then turned his head to look at Anjan. “Batty,” he said
slowly, “I do believe you’ve been holding out on me.”

Across the table, Emily grimaced again and
slapped her hand against the table.

“The name,” she said primly, “is
Bhattacharya.
And since it’s going to be mine, you had best
learn to pronounce it properly.”

“My sister left on her own,” Jane said when
Oliver returned to the hotel late that evening. “I know where she’s
gone, and I think she’s safe.”

Jane was smiling at him in open, friendly
welcome. They’d obtained rooms on opposite sides of the hotel, for
propriety’s sake. But shortly after he’d come back from his walk
with Sebastian, she’d slipped through the hallways and knocked on
his door.

She now sat on his bed, shoeless, her hair
down, and he didn’t want her anywhere else. He wanted time to
freeze. He wanted her in his room. He never wanted her to leave.
And she knew where her sister was.

Perhaps it was the very shortness of the love
affair that made every moment seem so dear.

“I’m so happy,” she said. “We have only to
find her.”

It was easy for Oliver to put his arms around
her, to draw her in close and inhale the scent of her. To think her
not only possible, but likely—the only likelihood that he could
comprehend.

He refused to think of the end.

He nuzzled her neck instead. “I’m glad
everything is turning out for the better,” he said. “You’ll need me
then, just a little longer. Just to be sure.” He held his
breath.

“Yes. If you don’t mind.”

He kissed her ear, pulling her close. He
didn’t want to let go of her. His hands played along her hair,
tangling in it, and he inhaled her scent.

“You’re affectionate,” she said.

“No. Just besotted.” Besotted and beset by
that worry in his gut. Once she was reunited with her sister, once
the threat of her uncle’s guardianship dissipated, he would no
longer have an excuse. He could sense the end now, so close he
could smell it, and he didn’t want to let her go.

“Where is she?”

“London,” Jane replied. “I’m almost certain
of it.”

“How…useful,” Oliver said. “I have to go to
London, too.”

But he’d been hoping they would have to go
somewhere else. Oliver had duties waiting for him there. He shut
his eyes and imagined those duties—the neglected appointments, the
newspaper column that he might write about the latest proposed
amendments—and then pushed them aside. “But we’re not there yet,”
he said. “We’re here. And now.”

“I had noticed,” Jane whispered. “What should
we do about it?”

He pulled her close. “This,” he said. And he
turned her face to his and kissed her.

“I do not know, Anjan.”

The woman who sat on the other side of the
table from Emily wore a purple and gold silk sari draped about her.
She had Anjan’s eyes, dark, ringed with impossibly long eyelashes.
Mrs. Bhattacharya’s face was unwrinkled except for the frown that
she leveled at Emily. Her arms were folded, and Emily tried not to
twitch under her perusal.

Anjan’s mother sniffed and looked at her son.
“Is something wrong with her? She looks sickly.”

“She has not been outside much.” Anjan seemed
entirely calm.

A feeling Emily did not share. Her stomach
danced, and it took all her effort to keep herself still.

Mrs. Bhattacharya simply shook her head. “And
what will your father say when I tell him that your bride-to-be has
fits? We only want the best for you.” She frowned at Emily. “Could
you not find some other girl? A nice girl from home, maybe…”

“I suppose that is possible,” Anjan said
politely. “But Miss Emily’s father is a barrister, and her uncle is
a tutor in law. She can introduce me to people besides just
Lirington’s parents. It’s an advantageous match in that
regard.”

Mrs. Bhattacharya narrowed her eyes at her
son. “Of course you try to convince me that way. You are just being
sensible.”
There was a hint of amusement in her voice as she
spoke. “You do not care that she is pretty. You did not write to me
that you could talk to her of everything. It has nothing to do with
any of that, does it?”

Anjan’s lips twitched into a real smile. “Of
course,” he said dryly. “What could be more pragmatic?”

She gave him a look. “I am not stupid,
Anjan.”

“You know me too well. But I’ve already told
you I’m in love with her. If I want to someday have influence on
the English, I need someone who understands them. Someone who does
that, and yet doesn’t wish me to forget who
I
am, too.”

“Forget?”

“Practically everyone in England eats meat
and drinks alcohol,” Emily said. “Imagine your son going to a
gathering and being served a roast. Who would you talk to
beforehand to make sure that didn’t happen? Who would make sure
there was lemonade in his glass instead of white wine? Taking care
of such arrangements is a wife’s work.” She glanced over at Anjan.
“I do not think you son would ever forget, of course, but I could
help smooth the way.”

Mrs. Bhattacharya frowned, considering
this.

“And of course we’re hiring an Indian
cook.”

“Hmph.” Anjan’s mother looked somewhat
mollified. But when she realized that her expression had softened,
she glared at Emily with renewed intent. “Meals are meals. And
India? You want him to forget about India? To never come home,
never have his children know where they are from?”

“No,” Emily replied. “Of course not. We’ll
visit as often as we can.”

“I see. Who is this girl, Anjan, who wants
everything you want? I am not sure I believe her.”

“But I don’t want everything Anjan wants,”
Emily said. “He explained to me how it works. I want everything
you
want.”

Silence met this at first. Then Mrs.
Bhattacharya tilted her head and looked at Emily. “You do?”

“Of course I do. I know nothing about being
married to Indians, raising Indian children. Who else would I ask
for advice?”

Mrs. Bhattacharya raised one eyebrow and
turned to her son. “You told her to say that.”

Anjan coughed into his hand. “I promise, Ma,
I didn’t. I
did
tell her that you were in charge, but she
figured the rest of it out herself.”

Mrs. Bhattacharya shook her head, but her lip
twitched, too—an expression of suppressed humor that reminded Emily
of her son. “Well, at least she knows how to go on.”