The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)

“Your pardon?” Titus shook his head.

The countess gestured at Jane. “We are not alone.”

“We aren’t?” Titus frowned, and then slowly, he turned to see what the woman was indicating. His eyes fell on Jane.

She’d imagined that he would look embarrassed or fearful at the sight of her. She’d been blackmailing him, after all.

Instead, he turned bright red. “You!”

He pointed, took a step forward. His hands made fists at his side. “You!” he repeated. “What have you done with your sister?”

Chapter Twenty-Five

It took Jane a moment to realize what Titus had said. Her uncle advanced on her, his face blooming a brilliant crimson. “What have you done with her?” he demanded. “I’ll have the constable on you, I will. You can’t just rush in and grab her up, simply because you wish.”

It came to her in a flash: Titus hadn’t sent Emily away. And if she was gone nonetheless…

Jane couldn’t help herself. She’d been caught up with worry for the past two days. She had faked her own elopement, had been abducted, and then rescued. She had traversed half of England believing that her sister’s fate hung in the balance. She’d been as big a fool as Titus. She burst into laughter.

“Stop that,” Titus said. “And surrender your sister, or I’ll—I’ll—” Failing to come up with an adequate threat, he narrowed his eyes at her. “Or I’ll be very displeased.”

“I don’t have Emily,” Jane said. “I’m only here because I thought you had her put in an asylum.”

He blushed fiercely. “Why—uh—why would you think that? I certainly—well, I—which is to say, I was having her examined by physicians, to see if such a thing was possible. She was acting so…so differently. Less exuberantly. I was afraid that she was succumbing to melancholy, and was considering my choices.”

“Listen to you. She yells at you, and you think she’s disobedient; she stops yelling, you think she has melancholy. Can she win? No.”

He flushed. “I just wanted to make sure she didn’t go untreated. Yes, I talked to a few physicians, and yes, one of them said that he’d be willing to certify her, if I paid—” He cleared his throat loudly. “But the other two said she seemed quite in her own mind.” Perhaps Titus realized that he was telling her details of his plan that didn’t reflect highly on him. He shook his head swiftly. “Which is to say, it was all your fault. Your influence. You did it. And you have her. You can’t bluff me!”

“Emily has herself,” Jane said. “She always did. That’s what is so funny—that I came all this way to rescue her, and…”

Titus waved a hand at Jane. “You’re claiming that your sister just ran off? On her own two feet without any encouragement from you at all?” He looked dubious.

“Why not?” Jane asked. “I ran off myself, and she’s almost my age.”

“But you…”

“Yes, I have money. But last I’d heard, you hadn’t found the hundred pounds I gave her. I imagine that when she ran off, she hired a coach. Or took the train.”

He flushed. “I wasn’t going to mention funds. I was referring to the fact that you are whole.”

Jane felt her temper snap. She crossed the room to him. She was taller than him; how had she never noticed that? Probably because she had never stood this close, quivering with years of resentment. She slammed her hands into his chest.

“Emily,” she said through gritted teeth, “is whole. She has fits, that’s all. Joan of Arc had fits, and look what she managed to accomplish. The only person who is broken here is you, for being unable to see it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“When we find Emily, you’ll discover that she’s safe. That she had a plan. That she acted intelligently and rationally in the face of your stupidity.” Jane shook her head. “Good God, you were trying to have her declared mentally incompetent by bribing doctors. Of all the low, dirty tricks—”

She remembered a moment too late that perhaps she could not claim the moral high ground on the bribing-of-doctors front, and so she glared at him instead.

“Rational.” Titus sighed. “She can’t be rational. I had only a note from her saying that she was going to meet her barrister. Her barrister. She doesn’t have a barrister. I would know if she had one.”

Jane felt her heart give a sudden thump, and she wanted to laugh aloud again. Trust Emily to send Jane a message out in the open, one that their uncle would never decode.