The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)

The servant didn’t answer and Oliver took the envelope in bemusement.

The flimsy paper inside contained three lines

NOBODY ELSE I CAN TURN TO

AM IN NOTTINGHAM

TOMORROW I WILL

That was it. That was the entirety of the message. It seemed curiously abbreviated, and the last line—he hesitated to call it a sentence when even in the truncated language of telegrams it lacked necessary parts of speech—made no sense. Tomorrow I will…who was this I?

Oliver had no idea.

Eat, drink, and be merry, some amused part of him whispered, for tomorrow I will…

He looked the paper over. He didn’t know anyone in Nottingham. And the only person who would send him a message asking for help, aside from his family, was…

He stared at the paper and reread it.

Jane Fairfield.

He licked his lips.

“Robert,” he said, “tell me if I am wrong, but this would be a most inconvenient time to leave town, would it not?”

There were ongoing debates in Parliament. Details were being settled on a regular basis. But the thought of staying—of going to yet another dinner with yet more people who made him feel strange inside his skin—seemed impossibly wrong.

Free hadn’t needed him. She hadn’t even asked for him. But Jane…

“Oliver,” Robert said, “is everything well? It’s not your sister again, is it?”

“No,” Oliver said, almost dazedly. “It’s not my sister.”

He could go to Jane. If it was Jane who had sent this message.

A stupid idea. He tried to dispel it with logic.

The world didn’t turn on Jane, he lectured himself, and everything would alter if the voting reforms were watered down. What were one woman’s problems when compared with the entire world? He wasn’t even in love with her. This might not even have come from her.

But for one second, he imagined seeing her again. He imagined spending a few days with a colorful, square block—a few blissful days without a single round hole in sight.

“I’m going to Nottingham,” he said.

And for the first time in four months, he felt right—as if he’d turned toward home after a long journey in a foreign land.

Robert blinked.

Oliver laughed, feeling almost giddy with relief. “I don’t know what I’m doing there,” he said. “Or why I need to go, or how long it will take. But I’m going.”

“You’re going now?”

Now seemed like a good time. An excellent time. After all, the sooner he went, the sooner he could come back. And maybe, just maybe, when he saw her, he could figure out how she managed to keep from being worn down. Maybe he needed a little dose of the impossible.

That was it. He wasn’t in love with her, but… God, he ached to see her.

“I’m going,” Oliver said, “as soon as I can put together a few things.”

He repeated that mantra on the train, chanted it in time with the rushing clack-clack-clack of the wheels.

He wasn’t in love with her; he was just fulfilling a promise.

He wasn’t in love with her; he was merely going to visit an old friend.

He wasn’t in love with her; he was simply going to set right a wrong.

The train steamed on through the afternoon, and Oliver let himself believe every word.

He wasn’t in love with her. He just wasn’t.

When he asked casually at the inn upon arrival, he was told there would be an assembly that night—starting in a mere fifteen minutes—and that all the eligible young ladies would attend. “Including,” the maid said, “an heiress.” She blinked at him. “I hear she has the most outrageous gowns. I do wish I could see them.”

So did Oliver. It had been her telegram, then. She needed him. He was going to see her, and the thought of it filled him with an electric anticipation. He wasn’t in love with her. He was just smiling because he knew she’d appreciate being called outrageous.

He wasn’t in love with her; he was just going to the assembly without taking the time to unpack his valise. Nothing wrong with that, was there?

He made excuse after excuse as he dressed, as he made sure his coat pockets contained all the necessary things one would need if a woman ended up in danger—money and a pistol pretty much covered it.

He wasn’t in love with her; he was just being careful.

He told himself those same lies when he joined the throng in the assembly. He was just looking for her—a perfectly normal thing to do, wasn’t it? To look for a woman you’d traveled a hundred miles to see. It was normal that his breath seemed heavy in his lungs, that the seconds without her seemed to weigh on his shoulders.