The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)

“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.