The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)

But she was stronger now. She was more. She had the memory of a kiss to sustain her through the hardest times.

Jane handed her wraps to a yawning footman, rang for a maid to help her undress, and then started up the stairs. She’d made it halfway up before she heard footsteps in the hall below.

“Jane?” a voice called.

She bit her lip and looked upward in entreaty. The last thing she wanted to do tonight was to talk to Titus.

It wasn’t as if she had a choice. She waited, trying to disguise her impatience, hoping that he wouldn’t be able to tell that she’d wept earlier.

He plodded forward into the dim circle cast by the lamp. “I must speak with you.” He scrubbed his hand over his head. “Come to my office.”

She would much rather be in her room. She wanted to be in her bed, surrounded by a fortress of blankets, hidden safely under covers. She could block out the world until she forgot all about Oliver Marshall. Following her uncle to his office for a late-night chat sounded like an absolutely horrid thing to do.

“Of course,” she said dutifully.

But his eyes glimmered, and he frowned at her. “None of your sass.”

Maybe she hadn’t spoken as dutifully as she’d intended. She bit her tongue and followed him anyway.

He pulled out a chair for her, and then settled himself ponderously into the leather-backed seat on the other side of the wooden desk. He didn’t look at her, not for a long while. Instead, he beat his fingers against the tabletop as if he were trying to imitate the sound of raindrops.

Finally, he heaved a sigh.

“This is very important,” Uncle Titus said. “How long have you known that your sister was leaving the house during the day?”

He’d caught her off guard, or she would have done a better job of lying. But Jane was tired. She was victorious. She was heartsick. She was glorious. This night, she’d won and then she’d lost. All her energy had been devoted to maintaining her calm in front of her uncle. And so instead of the confusion she might have mustered at any other moment, there was a moment when the truth shone guiltily on her face.

She had known, and she hadn’t said anything.

Titus probably would have believed her responsible no matter what the truth was. But his eyes narrowed at the guilty expression on her face. He shook his head sadly. “As I thought.”

A denial popped into her head—something like, but I did tell her to be careful. She managed not to say it out loud. She had no idea what Titus knew and had no intention of incriminating her sister.

“Did something happen to her?” she asked. “Is she well? Has she been hurt?”

Titus waved a hand. “Her body is as well as it ever can be, poor child. But she was unrepentant when I found her. She attempted to reason with me, to…” He sighed. “To convince me.”

“She’s right. There would be no problem, if only you—”

“If I?” He slammed his hands against the desk and leaned forward. “So you’ll lay this at my feet, too? You encouraged her to defy me. You likely showed her how to leave, and told her—”

“She’s not a simpleton,” Jane snapped back, “nor is she led on strings. She’s a nineteen-year-old woman. She’s old enough to marry, to make her own decisions. Nobody needs to show her how to do things. She does them on her own.”

If Titus heard this, he didn’t show it.

“I can no longer avoid contemplating the ill effects of your influence,” he said piously.

Jane took a deep breath. “She’s a normal girl. She has high spirits, that’s all.”

Titus shook his head. “It is your telling her such things that causes these problems. A normal girl? She is no such thing. She is afflicted, Jane, and you let your sister wander about the countryside unchaperoned. What if she had met a man?”

“What if a burglar broke into her window?” Jane countered. “She’s not Rapunzel, to be locked away for good.”

Titus stared into her eyes. She wasn’t sure what she was looking at—anger, surely, but something more. Something halfway between anger and triumph. “That,” he finally said, “was a test. I know that she met a man. She told me so herself. I had given you that one last chance for honesty, you see. Your refusal to tell me the entire truth…” He shook his head, sad once more. “You disappoint me, Jane. You disappoint me deeply.”

It wasn’t fair. She wasn’t going to apologize for refusing to betray her sister. Especially since she would have received the blame no matter how Titus found out. He’d failed Emily and Jane both, thrust them into this untenable position where the choice was either to lie or to accept a future where Emily was isolated from company and tortured by physicians.

“You will leave tomorrow,” Titus said. “Your aunt, my sister Lily, will take you in.” His lip twitched distastefully. “She will find you a husband in short order. Emily will not write. You may not visit. It will be as if she has no sister. I have hopes that I may yet undo the damage you have caused.”