The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)

Mrs. Sandeston made a strangled sound.

It was only sometimes that Jane wondered if they could have been friends. Usually, she remembered the reasons she couldn’t have real friends. All one hundred thousand of them.

So she simply nodded at the Johnsons’ horrific suggestions. “What think you two of that clever strip of Maltese that we saw earlier—the gold one, the one with the rosettes?”

“Absolutely,” Geraldine said, nodding her head. “The Maltese.”

The sisters cast each other looks above their fans—an exchange of sly smiles saying, clear as day: Let’s see what we can get the Feather Heiress to do today.

“Miss Fairfield.” Mrs. Sandeston put her hands together in an unthinking imitation of prayer. “I beg you. Keep in mind that one can achieve a far superior effect by employing fewer furbelows. A lovely piece of lace, now, that’s the centerpiece of a beautiful gown, dazzling in its simplicity. Too much, and…” She trailed off with a suggestive twirl of her finger.

“Too little,” Genevieve said calmly, “and nobody will know what you have to offer. Geraldine and I—well, we have only a mere ten thousand apiece, so our gowns must reflect that.”

Geraldine gripped her fan. “Alas,” she intoned.

“But you—Miss Fairfield, you have a dowry of one hundred thousand pounds. You have to make sure that people know it. Nothing says wealth like lace.”

“And nothing says lace like…more lace,” Geraldine added.

They exchanged another set of looks.

Jane smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know what I would do without the two of you. You’ve been so good to me, tutoring me in all things. I have no notion of what’s fashionable, nor of what message my clothing sends. Without you to guide me, who knows how I might blunder?”

Mrs. Sandeston made a choking noise in her throat, but said nothing more.

One hundred thousand pounds. One of the reasons Jane was here, watching these lovely, perfect women exchange wicked smiles that they didn’t think Jane could understand. They leaned toward one another and whispered—mouths hidden demurely behind fans—and then, glancing her way, let out a collective giggle. They thought her a complete buffoon, devoid of taste and sense and reason.

It didn’t hurt, not one bit.

It didn’t hurt to know that they called her friend to her face and sought to expose her foolishness to everyone they saw. It didn’t hurt that they egged her on to more—more lace, more jewels, more beads—simply so they might fuel their amusement. It didn’t hurt that the entire population of Cambridge laughed at her.

It couldn’t hurt. After all, Jane had chosen this for herself.

She smiled at them as if their giggles were the sincerest token of friendship. “The Maltese it is.”

One hundred thousand pounds. There were more crushing burdens than the weight of one hundred thousand pounds.

“You’ll want to be wearing that gown Wednesday next,” Geraldine suggested. “You’ve been invited to the Marquess of Bradenton’s dinner party, have you not? We insisted.” Those fans worked their way up and down, up and down.

Jane smiled. “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it, not for the world.”

“There will be a new fellow there. A duke’s son. Born on the other side of the blanket, unfortunately—but acknowledged nonetheless. Almost as good as the real thing.”

Damn. Jane hated meeting new men, and a duke’s bastard sounded like the most dangerous kind of all. He would have a high opinion of himself and a low opinion of his pocketbook. It was precisely that sort of man who would see Jane’s one hundred thousand pounds and decide that he might be able to overlook the lace dripping off her. That kind of man would overlook a great many defects if it would put her dowry in his bank account.

“Oh?” she said noncommittally.

“Mr. Oliver Marshall,” Genevieve said. “I saw him on the street. He doesn’t—”

Her sister gave her a gentle nudge, and Genevieve cleared her throat.

“I mean, he looks quite elegant. His spectacles are very distinguished. And his hair is quite…bright and…coppery.”

Jane could just imagine this specimen of thwarted dukehood in her mind’s eye. He would be paunchy. He would wear ridiculous waistcoats, and he’d have a fob watch that he checked incessantly. He’d be proud of his prerogatives and bitter of a world that had led him to be born outside of wedlock.

“He would be utterly perfect for you, Jane,” Geraldine said. “Of course, with our lesser dowries, he would find us quite…uninteresting.”

Jane made herself smile. “I don’t know what I would do without you two,” she said, quite sincerely. “If I didn’t have you to look out for me, why, I might…”

If she didn’t have them trying to set her up as a laughingstock, she might one day—despite her best efforts—manage to impress a man. And that would be a disaster.