Jane looked around. Nobody was looking at them, and even if they did, they’d see two people standing by a stone wall. He’d touched her so casually that apparently even he hadn’t noticed. But she had. Oh, she definitely had. She drew in a shocked breath.
“Miss Fairfield,” he repeated, “tell me that you are perfectly happy with your choice. That you don’t mind being laughed at every time your back is turned. Tell me that you are not starved for rational conversation. Convince me that this role that you are playing suits you, and I’ll happily concede the point.”
“I…” Yes, she could make an argument, she supposed. Something about how she was better off without the friendship of everyone who was cattish enough to mock her.
She could make that argument, but she couldn’t even convince herself.
Instead she held perfectly still, absorbing the warmth of his hand, hoping he wouldn’t notice what he’d done and draw away. “I can’t claim that it makes me happy. But I am good at this. Mucking up conversations. Not knowing any of the rules. Doing things that I ought not do, saying things that I am not supposed to say.”
He kept silent. And of course, she kept talking. That was what she always did when she was nervous.
“It started before I had any idea that I’d need to stay unmarried. I was nineteen when we first came to my uncle’s house. He had not yet engaged a bevy of doctors to see my sister.” She swallowed. “My uncle…for a number of reasons, he had a dim view of me from the start. He wanted me married off, and I was happy to comply. I wanted a family, my own house. I’d lived in an isolated manor all my life. I’d had no children to play with besides my sister. I wanted friends.”
She’d thought he was unaware that he’d touched her, but his hand tightened around her fingers. She looked down, but he didn’t pull away. Instead, his fingers curled into hers.
“I’d never had a governess. I had never had an etiquette lesson. My uncle purchased a book for me.” She laughed softly. “It was sixteen years out of date.”
“I can see where this is going.”
“I had nobody to instruct me on my gowns. All I knew was what I liked, and what I like is dreadful.” She shut her eyes. “For instance, I love this gown. Yes, it’s outrageous, but… I had awful tastes and the money to indulge them, and my manners were even worse. I was a complete disaster. You cannot imagine how much of a disaster I was.”
“I can,” he replied. “You should have seen me at Eton the first few months. I continually had bruises. It took until I was seventeen to get to the point where between my brother’s threats and my learning how to behave, I wasn’t accosted on a daily basis.”
“I have never been good with names, but when I called Mr. Sanford ‘Mr. Smith’ on accident, you would think that I had robbed a carriage at gunpoint. I ate the wrong foods. I asked questions about trade in mixed company. I have always talked too much, and when I’m nervous, I have difficulty stopping. Is it any surprise that I did everything wrong? They started the whole ‘Feather Heiress’ thing the first month. That was all I heard—in front of me, behind my back. ‘It’s like being beaten to death by feathers.’ They played a game where the boys would all come to talk with me in a group. And they’d say, ‘What would you rather be doing now?’ ‘Oh, I’d rather be mauled to death by lions.’ ‘I would rather bathe in a vat of acid, how about you?’ As if I were so stupid that I could not figure out that they were talking about how much they hated me.”
“Jane.” His thumb rubbed the side of her hand.
“Don’t feel sorry for me.” She raised her chin and banished that cold, dark feeling from her heart. “I do not. When I realized how much my sister needed me, I thanked God that I had so easy a method of avoiding marriage. They thought I was awful? Well, I would give them awful. They wanted to gawk at my ignorance? Well, I would give them something to gawk at. They’d exaggerated my flaws just to have someone to laugh at, and so I vowed to make them exaggerations no more. The more they mocked me, the harder it would be for them.”
Her voice shook as she talked. And his thumb continued its gentle caress—up, down. Up, down.
“They are a pit of vipers,” Jane said fiercely. “And I hate them. I hate them. I didn’t choose this role, Mr. Marshall. But it chose me, and I have used it.”
He didn’t say anything, not for the longest time.
“I know what you are thinking,” she finally said in a rush. “Because I treated you the same, when first I met you. You hadn’t done anything to me, and I…”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t thinking that.”
“I know it’s wrong,” she said. “But at this moment, everything in my life is so wrong that the right, proper thing to do would be dreadfully out of place. I don’t know when I stopped playing a role and when the role started playing me. Now, though, I don’t see how I could stop. Everyone expects me to be someone else. They’re assured of it. That is the rub; I am awful.” She licked her lips. “And I don’t see any way for me to become anything else.”
God. She hadn’t meant to tell that much. Even when she’d imagined telling him everything, she hadn’t told him that.
Jane squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to complain to you. I’ve done nothing but talk and talk and talk. You scarcely know me. You have far more important things to do. It’s just—you’re so lovely.”
She winced, hearing the words out loud, wondering what he must be thinking at the moment. Licentious, indeed. Licentious, forward…
“I mean, you’re forthright and trustworthy, where everyone else has been…” Talking more wasn’t making it better.
“Miss Fairfield,” he said.
His voice was as deep as the night around them, and she turned to him.
But he didn’t look disgusted by her admission. He didn’t even look amused by her babbling. He looked… She wasn’t sure what that expression was on his face. His eyes were clear, so clear that in the moonlight they looked almost colorless.
He took his hand from hers. “Never trust a man who claims that he is telling you ninety-five percent of the truth.”
His words came over her like a cold wash of water. There was something grim in his face, something she couldn’t quite understand. She peered up at him. “What do you mean?”
“What would you do,” he said carefully, “if I were to tell everyone of this conversation? If you think matters are impossible now, when they think you merely ignorant, what do you suppose they would do if they knew you had done all this on purpose?”
She opened her mouth to answer and then shut it, ever so slowly. “But you wouldn’t tell.”
He shook his head. “Miss Fairfield,” he said, “why do you think I was kind to you?”
“Because—you—that is to say…” She swallowed. “You mean to say, that’s not just the way you are?”
“No. If I’d had my choice of matters, I would have simply avoided you after that first awful night. I talked to you because Bradenton asked me to do it.”
She took a step back involuntarily. “Bradenton! What has he to do with any of this?”
“He thinks you need to know your place. He offered me a trade: his vote in Parliament, if I’d deliver a sharp lesson to you. I talked to you to figure out if I could do it.”
Her head spun. She should have known. This wasn’t real. That hand on hers, that look in his eye. None of it was real. He had been too nice, and she was—
She shook her head, dispelling those thoughts. “You wouldn’t be telling me of this if you intended to take him up on the offer.”
His lips compressed. Then he took her arm. “Walk with me,” he said.
There wasn’t much of anywhere to go—just a little circuit around the verandah. But when they got to the far edge, he stopped, gesturing for her to sit on a bench. He’d led her out of view of everyone else. He looked around and sat down next to her.
“There’s something you should know.” He wasn’t looking at her now; he was staring off into
the night sky. “I tell myself the exact same thing you just said—that I would never do it. But there was a time. I was fifteen years old at Eton.” He leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees. “I didn’t fit in. My brother and my cousin did their best, but when they were not present, I had to take care of myself. I did it, too. There were a handful of us who weren’t born to a grand position in society, and we made our way by banding together. Walking together. Working together. Offering such small encouragements to one another that would make the days bearable.”
“Did none of the adults stop what the other boys were doing?”
He turned and gave her a level glance. “Boys will be boys, Miss Fairfield, and generally speaking, the punishment we were subjected to wasn’t so awful. We were tripped, insulted, occasionally set upon. The sort of thing every boy experiences at school. We just had a larger dose. Enough so that we would know our places.”
For some reason, his mouth set into a harder line at that, and he didn’t speak for a minute.
“I had it a little easier than most. My father had been a pugilist, and the other boys learned to be wary of me. They wouldn’t take me on unless there were two or three of them at a time.”
She bit back a horrified gasp.
“It doesn’t matter how good you are at fisticuffs, though. At some point, you get tired of bruises.”
Jane reached out and took his hand. She’d been afraid he would push her away, but he didn’t.
“There was another boy. Joseph Clemons. He was small for his age and timid. He hid behind me every chance he got.” He sighed. “And you know what? I hated him. I tried not to. It wasn’t his fault he was set on so much. It wasn’t his fault that I’d stand up for him. It wasn’t his fault his father was a shoemaker, nor was it his fault that he was a brilliant Latin scholar, the likes of which the school had not seen in dozens of years. Still, I resented him so for causing me such difficulties. I just protected him out of…”
He shrugged. His hand clenched around hers. Out of some innate sense of fair play, she suspected.
“Out of spite,” he said. “One fight is nothing. Two fights are nothing. Three years of fighting makes you weary. One day, I came upon Clemons with two older boys. I was going to stop them, because that was what I did. But Bradenton was nearby. He said, ‘Marshall, all they want is for you to stop challenging them. Walk away and leave them alone.’” He looked up. “I think he could have given me any reason to walk away at that point and I would have taken it. I did.”
“I take it that Bradenton was wrong.”
“Oh, no,” Oliver said softly. “He was right. Those particular boys never came for me again. As for Clemons… I don’t know what they did to him, but when he left the infirmary, he never came back.”
She gasped.
“So, yes, Miss Fairfield.” He looked over at her now. “You might think you know who I am. What I’m willing to do. I tell myself all the time that I’m not that man. That I wouldn’t be so awful as to cause harm to someone else. But I know better.”
She dropped her gaze from his. “You can’t blame yourself for what the other boys did.”
“It wasn’t the only time.” His voice was harsh. “Anyone in my position, anyone born without power, who aspires to more… Trust me, I didn’t arrive here by standing on principle my entire life. I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut when it must be shut, to do what a man in power asks because he asks it. I count myself lucky that I’ve survived as unscathed as I have. Don’t fool yourself, Miss Fairfield. I could hurt you. Badly.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. But by the light in his eyes—that cold, serious gleam—he meant every word. His hand felt clammy in hers, but she squeezed it.
“And you are telling me this because…”
“Because I don’t think what is happening to you is right, Miss Fairfield.” His voice was tight. “Because no matter how many times I tell myself I would never do it, I cannot trust myself. The bait that is dangling before me is too tempting. I’m giving you a chance to run off before my ambition overwhelms my better judgment.”
She opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it once more. It made no sense, what he said. It made no sense, not unless…
She turned to him. “Are you always this starkly honest?” she demanded. But she knew the answer to that already. She had seen him in the group with the others—smiling, talking, always seeming to know what to say so that nobody looked at him askance. He knew how to belong with them. He couldn’t always be honest.
“You’re special.” His voice was low. “I resented Clemons. I rather like what I know of you.”
She looked up, and he reached out with his free hand and, very gently, drew a finger down the side of her face.
“There are so few people in this world to whom I dare tell the whole truth. I hate to waste a one.”
It wasn’t a frisson she felt. A frisson went only skin deep, just a prickle of hairs on the back of her neck. This was a full-body experience. As if the past years had tightened her internal organs into a snarl of emotion, and he had just convinced them to relax. She found herself tilting toward him, ever so slightly. Wanting that moment, that point of contact, to last and last.
He drew away, letting go of her hand. Her fingers felt suddenly cold. “You see,” he said, “even now, I’m doing it.” His voice was low, almost like a caress. “I’m telling you everything, but I’m making it worse, too. You should not let me touch you, Miss Fairfield.”
She didn’t want him to stop. Jane swallowed. “Oh,” she said. “Very well.” She turned away, unsure what to think.
“Good. Now you’re angry.”
She shook her head. “I suppose I should be. But I’m not, really. It doesn’t surprise me that you’d want to betray me. Everyone else already does.” She laughed again, but her laughter rang a little high to her ears. Too much like nervous giggling, and not at all like the half nausea that she felt turning in her belly. “So there you have it. You might betray me, but you’re my favorite betrayer thus far.”
He made a noise. “You should be angry, Miss Fairfield. You should push me away.”
“Mr. Marshall, haven’t you figured it out? I’m too desperate to be angry.”
It sounded bald and terrible in the night. But it didn’t sound pitiful—almost as if giving voice to the truth made her less vulnerable.
“Maybe,” she continued, “if I had a slew of true friends, I could afford to fly into a rage. But as it is, all you’ve confessed is that someone told you to do a cruel thing to me, and you have considered doing it. Most people don’t need to be asked to be cruel to me, and they do it straight away.”
“Damn it, Miss Fairfield. Listen to what I’m saying. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want the damned temptation hanging over my head. I don’t want to be the man who hurts a woman for personal gain. Slap me right now and have done with it.”
Jane shrugged. “Have your temptation, Mr. Marshall, and be welcome to it. I don’t expect anything of you, but at least for the moment I can pretend that I have a friend. That there is one person in the world besides my sister who cares whether I wake up in the morning. If you’ve never been without, you can have no idea what it is like to not have it.” She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “And to have him be a man like you on top of it all…”
Her cheeks flamed as she realized what she’d implied.
“Oh,” she said. “Not that I expect—not that I would think—that is, you’ve already said that I’m the last woman you would marry. And I have no intention of marrying as it is…” She’d lost control of her mouth. She clapped her hands over it and refused to look up at him. “Oh, God,” she said.
He didn’t say anything for a moment, and she wondered if she’d succeeded in frightening him off after all.
“Oh, God,” she repeated, squeezing her eyes shut. “Why do I always do this?”
“What do you always do?”
“I talk. I talk so much. I talk as i
f my life depended on nothing but words filling the space. I talk and talk and talk and I can’t stop. Not even when I tell myself I must.” She gave a little sobbing laugh. “I do it all the time—tell myself to shut up—but generally, I’m talking too much to listen to my own advice.”
She glanced over at him. He was watching her with a hooded, unreadable look in his eyes.
“Just say it,” she begged. “Shut up, Jane. See? It’s not hard.”
“Keep talking, Jane,” he said softly.
“Stop. Stop humoring me.”
“If you won’t push me away, why should I return the favor? You’re bright and incisive. And as I do not like to talk all of the time, I don’t mind listening to you.”
“What?”
“I think that you’ve been told to shut up so often that you’ve started saying it to yourself.”
“Oh?” She swallowed. “You think…”
“You say things that make other people uncomfortable. Of course they want you to shut up.”
“Don’t I make you uncomfortable?”
He smiled. And then, he reached out and set his thumb on her lips. It was a casually intimate touch—as if her lips were his to caress. Jane’s breath caught. She had the sudden, horrible urge to suck his digit into her mouth.
Instead, she exhaled.
“You make me uncomfortable,” he murmured. “But not, I expect, the way that you mean.”
“It’s because you’re an absolutely lovely man,” she confessed. And then she heard what she’d said aloud and flushed warmly. “Oh, God. Not that I think you’re attractive…”
That was worse. Far worse.
“I mean, of course I think you’re…”
Worst of all.
She screwed her eyes shut. “Shut up, Jane,” she whispered to herself.
“No.” He drew his thumb along her bottom lip. “Keep talking, Jane.”
“That’s a terrible idea.” Her own voice sounded husky. “There’s no way to come out ahead. It doesn’t matter whether I think you’re attractive. You don’t care what I think. Even I don’t care what I think.”
The Heiress Effect Page 11