The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)

“I feel that you two are like my sisters, given the care you take for me,” she said. Maybe like stepsisters in a blood-curdling fairy tale.


“We feel the same,” Geraldine smiled at her. “As if you were our sister.”

There were almost as many smiles in that room as there was lace on her gown. Jane offered up a silent apology for her lie.

These women were nothing like her sister. To say as much was to insult the name of sisterhood, and if anything was sacred to Jane, it was that. She had a sister—a sister she would do anything for. For Emily, she would lie, cheat, buy a dress with four different kinds of lace…

One hundred thousand pounds was not much of a burden to carry. But if a young lady wanted to remain unmarried—if she needed to stay with her sister until said sister was of age and could leave their guardian’s home—that same number became an impossibility.

Almost as impossible as four hundred and eighty—the number of days that Jane had to stay unmarried.

Four hundred and eighty days until her sister attained her majority. In four hundred and eighty days, her sister could leave their guardian, and Jane—Jane who was allowed to stay in the household on the condition that she marry the first eligible man who offered—would be able to dispense with all this pretending. She and Emily would finally be free.

Jane would smile, wear ells of lace, and call Napoleon Bonaparte himself her sister if it would keep Emily safe.

Instead, all she had to do for the next four hundred and eighty days was to look for a husband—to look assiduously, and not marry.

Four hundred and eighty days in which she dared not marry, and one hundred thousand pounds to the man who would marry her.

Those two numbers described the dimensions of her prison.

And so Jane smiled at Geraldine once again, grateful for her advice, grateful to be steered wrong once again. She smiled, and she even meant it.

A few days later

Mr. Oliver Marshall was almost loathe to relinquish his coat when first he entered the Marquess of Bradenton’s home. He could feel the chill biting through his gloves, the draft of a winter wind rattling the windowpanes. The wire frame of his spectacles felt like ice against his ears. But it was too late.

Bradenton, his host, stepped forward. “Marshall,” he said pleasantly. “How good to see you again.”

Oliver handed off his own gloves and heavy greatcoat and shook the marquess’s extended hand.

“Good to see you as well, my lord. It’s been too long.”

Bradenton’s hands were cold, too. He’d grown paunchier these last years, and his thin, dark hair had receded up his forehead, but the smile he gave Oliver was still the same: friendly and yet cold.

Oliver suppressed a shiver. It didn’t matter how high the servants piled the coal, how merry the blaze they set. These fine, old houses always seemed to be inhabited by a wintry chill. The ceilings stretched too high; the marble on the floors seemed icy even through the soles of his shoes. Everywhere Oliver looked he saw mirror-glass and metal and stone—cold surfaces made colder still by the vast, empty expanses that surrounded them.

It would warm up when they moved out of the entry, Oliver told himself. When more people arrived. For now, it was just Bradenton, Oliver, and two younger men. Bradenton motioned them forward.

“Hapford, Whitting, this is Oliver Marshall. An old school friend. Marshall, this is my nephew, John Bloom, newly the Earl of Hapford.” The Marquess of Bradenton gestured to a man at his side, earnest and pale. “And Mr. George Whitting, my other nephew.” He indicated a fellow with a shock of sandy hair and matching, untamed sideburns. “Gentlemen, this is Oliver Marshall. I’ve invited him to assist in completing your education, as it were.”

Oliver inclined his head in greeting.

“I’ve been tasked with seeing to Hapford’s introduction,” Bradenton explained. “He’ll be sitting with the Lords next month, and none of us were expecting that.”

Hapford had a black band around his arm; his clothing was dark. Maybe there was a reason the house seemed cold and somber after all.

“I’m sorry to hear of it,” Oliver said.

The new earl straightened and glanced over at Bradenton before responding. “Thank you. I intend to do my best.”

That glance, that deference paid to the other man… That was why Oliver was here. Not to recall school-era friendships that had gone tepid over the years. Bradenton was the sort of man who nurtured new entrants to Parliament. Nurtured them, and then did his best to keep them as part of his coterie. He had quite a collection now.

“I’d wish for a little more time to prepare you, but you’re coming along.” Bradenton gave his nephew an approving clout on the shoulder. “And Cambridge isn’t a bad place to conduct the exercise. It’s a microcosm of the world out there. You’ll see; Parliament is not so different.”

“A microcosm of the world?” Oliver was dubious. He’d never met a coal miner at Cambridge.