“No.” Jane choked on the word. “No. You can’t take her away from me.”
“I can.” He folded his arms in satisfaction. “I will. I already have, Jane. Your things are packed. You’ll be escorted to the train station tomorrow. Mrs. Blickstall will accompany you to Nottingham.”
Jane stared straight ahead of her, too dazed to cry. Her lungs burned. She couldn’t think of anything at all. If she were not here, what would Emily do? Her sister wouldn’t have books to read or companions near her age. And that was to say nothing about what would happen if Titus decided to bring in yet another charlatan to cure Emily’s condition.
She took a deep breath. “I’ll go, but if I do, there will be no doctors. No attempts to experiment on her.”
“Jane,” Titus said in a tired voice, “you cannot dictate terms. You are not your sister’s guardian. I am. I am responsible for her, and I will determine what is best for her welfare.”
If you need me, Oliver had said.
That thought filled her with a terrible, wistful hope. Surely this counted as need. Surely this was a situation where his promise would require him to return, and if he did…
He was not a full hour gone from her life, and she was already contemplating bleating for him like a little lost lamb. As if she’d been a foolish child when she’d told him that she was strong enough. Her lip curled, and she contemplated her uncle.
In the orangish light of the lamp, he looked old and tired. The lines on his forehead seemed gouged into his skin, deep dark ruts marking a lifetime of fretting.
Jane raised her chin. She’d beaten Bradenton, by God, and he was stronger than Titus.
She could still feel Oliver’s kiss on her lips. She imagined a box made of carbonized steel—steel as strong as the girders of a steamship, steel as thick as an engine boiler, able to withstand the heat and pressure of a thousand infernos. She could lock all Titus’s ineffectual rage away forever inside such strength.
She put the feeling of Oliver’s kiss inside the box and closed it tightly so that nothing could happen to it. While she could remember what it felt like, she was not alone. He’d said so, and she believed it.
She lifted her head and stared into her uncle’s eyes. Her greatest fear had come true, but…this was freedom, not disaster. She had no need to pretend any longer. Not with anyone. She held Oliver’s kiss close, until she drove the tremor from her hands. Until she was calm enough to speak without croaking.
“No,” she said softly. “That is not what is going to happen.”
He blinked at her in confusion. “You can say no all you wish, but you have no legal power.”
“No,” Jane repeated. “You are wrong. You’re Emily’s guardian, but you aren’t mine. You have no way to control what I do.”
He gave her a haughty look. “Speak sense for once, because I do not take your meaning.”
He couldn’t win. Why had she never seen it before? She’d been so busy hiding in the shadows that she’d ceded all her best weapons.
“I don’t have to go to our aunt’s house,” Jane said. “I have money. I can do anything I wish. You haven’t noticed because all I’ve wished for is my sister’s happiness and wellbeing. You’re so set on believing me disobedient. You’ve not realized that I have been trying to obey your edicts. Think what I could do, if I chose to be difficult.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“If I wished, I could purchase a house next to this one. I could live there with a string of lovers. I could purchase an advertisement in the newspaper announcing that you suffered from a malady of the brain.”
As she spoke, he turned white. “You wouldn’t.”
She leaned forward. “I could tell everyone I met about your sordid medical practices. I’d let them know how unfit a guardian you were. I could make your life impossible. That’s who I am, if you haven’t noticed. I’m an impossible girl, and you cannot rid yourself of me. Not with threats. Not with words. Those are my terms.”
He stared at her in mute, baffled confusion, as if she had suddenly transformed into a bear and he didn’t know whether to scream and run or fetch a rifle. “I will not have you in my household.”
“Then it’ll be the newspaper,” she said with a shrug. “And—”
“But you may visit,” he squeaked. “Once a month?”
She stopped and looked at him, and he managed a weak smile.
“I can’t keep you out of Cambridge,” he said, looking down at the desk, “but I can dictate who Emily sees.”
If Jane bought a house in Cambridge, that would mean the end of any freedom at all for Emily. Their uncle would be guarding her too closely, trying to keep them apart. And—Jane realized—she couldn’t really carry out her threats. If she did, she’d have no leverage on him. Even Titus might prove dangerous if he had nothing to lose.
The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)
Courtney Milan's books
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