The Heiress Effect

  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.”

  Just those few words, but she could see the grim set of his jaw.

  He shook his head and looked away. “I knew people,” he finally said. He gave himself a shake, a firm, hard shake, and those dark eyes looked up at her.

  “Which side did your brother fight on?” she asked slowly.

  He made an annoyed noise. “I’m here. You have to ask?”

  She shook her head.

  “It started because the East India Company issued rifle cartridges to the sepoys that had been greased with animal fat. Pork fat, beef fat; whatever they had to hand. Since part of the training required the soldiers to put the cartridge in their mouth…” His hand clenched.

  They had talked about this enough that Emily understood what that would mean. She swallowed.

  “The English didn’t understand that they were asking for a desecration. They didn’t know why everyone became so furious when the news came out.” He looked up at her. “They didn’t understand why the fighting grew so bad, spreading from province to province. And when they counted the dead, they didn’t include our counts. So no, Miss Fairfield. Napoleon is not so bad.”

  She held her breath. “I take it,” Emily finally said, “that you are in favor of home rule for India, if not outright independence.”

  He looked so calm, not one muscle in his body twitching. And yet there was that sadness in his eyes. She wanted to wipe it away.

  “No. Were you not listening to what I said before? I do not dare favor such a thing.”

  She swallowed.

  “My family is well-to-do,” he said. “It is complicated to explain if you don’t know the system. My eldest brother was an officer in the Indian forces. My second brother is a magistrate. My father is in the civil service, a position of responsibility directly under the commissioner of railways. I am here precisely because my family accepts British rule. How could I talk of rebellion? What would happen to them?”

  She shook her head wordlessly.

  “Even if they were not, my brother told me about the Sepoy Mutiny. How it started. How it ended. Indian fighting Indian for the British. What do we have to gain?” There was a bitterness in his voice. “So no, I do not dream of home rule. I dream of the things I can achieve, not the ones that are outside my grasp.”

  “But—”

  “If I dreamed of home rule, I could accomplish nothing.” His breath came faster. “I’d be too radical to stomach, and in the end it would all come out to the same thing. Violence all over again, and to what point?”

  She tried to imagine not being able to even dream of freedom.

  He turned away from her. “So don’t talk to me about Napoleon. You cannot possibly understand what he is like.”

  For all that Emily had only ventured a few miles from her uncle’s house, she felt her horizons crumbling, as if she’d been pulled inside out. God, how blind she had been.

  “This is not a subject for polite conversation.” His tone had evened out. “You have my apologies.”

  That fierceness had left his eyes. He smiled evenly, as if nothing had happened. It was wrong, all wrong. A mask of pleasantry.

  “No,” she said passionately. “No. Never apologize for that. Never. I don’t know what you dare to do anywhere else in the world, but with me…” She wasn’t even sure why she was so upset. “This is my escape,” she finally said. “The one thing I do that makes the rest of the day worthwhile. It should be yours, too.”

  For a long moment, he didn’t say anything. He just looked at her, his emotions hidden behind a mask. “I should tell you
that you shouldn’t defy your uncle,” he finally said.

  “If there were no civil service, no danger of violence… Tell me, Mr. Bhattacharya, what flag would you hoist?”

  He inhaled. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to think about that. I think you are trying to change the subject.”

  “I think,” Emily said, “something quite different. Did you really believe me when I said my family was that unconventional? To allow us to wander about for days on end without so much as an introduction?”

  “I…” His lips twitched. “Well…”

  “You knew. You might not have wanted to know, but you knew. If you don’t think I ought to be sneaking out, why are you here?”

  For a long moment, he didn’t say anything. Then, ever so slowly, he reached out and took her hand. Not to guide it to his arm or to steady her over rough footing. He took her hand and caressed it with his thumb, until her fingers unfurled in his. And then—still looking in her eyes—he bowed and kissed her palm.

  And that was when Emily realized that without intending it, she’d swum into deep waters.

  Chapter Eleven

  Temptation, Oliver told himself, was best conquered by avoidance. If one didn’t want to indulge in too many sweets, it was best not to buy them. If one didn’t want to partake of alcohol, one ought not visit a pub. And if one wanted to keep from humiliating a lady…

  Well, Oliver figured it was best to keep his distance. He’d managed the trick for three days, and he hoped that tonight’s dinner would prove no different.

  Her gowns didn’t improve. There had been the blue and gold affair, perfectly acceptable in coloration, but printed in a pattern that shimmered and pulsed, seeming to grow and shrink before his eyes until Oliver had to look away. There was the Red Gown of Hellfire—as Whitting had called it—moiré silk that did, in fact, call to mind flame.

  And then there was the gown she wore tonight.

  Miss Fairfield had a gift for taking a beautiful concept and then marring it beyond all recognition. Oliver had seen lovely gowns made of gauze over satin. White gauze and blue satin made for an ethereal combination. Red gauze and white satin glittered pinkly in lamplight. Even black satin—and the satin of her gown was a deep black—topped by gold would have been lovely. If only she had stopped with the gold gauze. Of course she hadn’t. Blue, red, white, green, purple—all those layers made up her flaring skirt of gauzes, running together in garish, impossible colors.