The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)

“But it means nothing to you! To me, it would be…”

“Yes,” Jane said. “I know what it would mean to you.” She pointed the pistol directly at his forehead. “That’s why I want it back.”

Two people, both in evening dress, could not ride comfortably on one horse. Oliver cinched his arm around Jane for the fifteenth time in four minutes and shifted in the saddle behind her.

Jane’s skirts flapped voluminously in the breeze. Something sharp and protuberant in her skirts jabbed his thigh. And the beads sewn into her gown were itchy and uncomfortable.

Still, it wasn’t wholly awful. After all, Jane was warm and soft, and it was all too easy to breath in the scent of her. She smelled of familiar soap.

Twenty-four hours ago, he’d been reading in a comfortable chair at Clermont house, thinking about how to exert influence on the Members of Parliament that he knew.

Now he was on a horse, God knew how far from civilization, with an heiress of dubious reputation, plotting to kidnap a nineteen-year-old girl from her guardian. It was as if he had exited reality and found himself plopped into the middle of some kind of medieval tale of chivalry, one where he needed his wits and his sword to survive.

He’d planned out the course of his life years ago—quiet service, eventual recognition, a slow rise to power. There was no room in that story for the ridiculously impulsive actions he’d taken today: leaving London on a bare half hour’s notice, finding Jane, foiling abduction plots against impossible odds.

There would be plenty of time to come to his senses. He tightened his arms briefly around Jane, thinking of that dazzling moment when he’d first seen her on the stairs.

He had all the right emotions. He’d expected to fall in love one day. Just not like this. Not with her. He was in the wrong story with the wrong lady. Someone had made a mistake…and he very much feared it was him.

But Jane leaned back against him, and even though he could have written a list about all the ways that she was a mistake, she didn’t feel like one.

“It’s not fair,” Jane said, echoing his feelings so closely that he sucked in a breath. “This is supposed to be romantic. What woman does not want to have a man rush to her aid and sweep her away on his fiery stallion?”

Yes, they had definitely found themselves in the wrong story. “I would refer to this particular steed more as a ‘placid gelding’ than a ‘fiery stallion,’” Oliver said. “That’s the first problem.”

“In the books,” Jane said, “the man always clasps the woman lovingly to him, and she melts in his embrace.”

“My embrace isn’t loving enough for you?”

His arm was around her. But no matter his intentions and his emotions—and God, what a morass those were—he couldn’t call his clasp loving. It was more like a desperate attempt to keep her from sliding off the seat.

“I can’t speak for your embrace,” she replied. “But I don’t think my body is melting into yours. I feel more like a ship being tossed against the rocks.”

Oliver smiled again. “Friction is the very devil,” he replied. “Also, women who want loving embraces ought not to wear an arsenal of beads. Then there’s that thing that’s poking into my thigh.”

“Hmm?”

“Hard to think of romance with something that uncomfortable so close to my delicate parts,” Oliver said. “In fact, I have to exert some substantial effort just to make sure that my voice doesn’t go up an octave. That sharp pokey thing in your skirts is threatening to unman me.”

“What do you mean?” She reached behind her and groped his thigh—an action he wished he was in a better position to appreciate. “Oh. That’s just five hundred pounds in a roll. Stop whining, Oliver; it’s better than having it stuffed down a corset.” She sighed. “The stories never mention that saddles built for one rather than two make your backside go numb. Also” —she turned in the saddle, just enough that he had to hold her more tightly to keep from slipping—“did you know that your thighs are extremely hard? And I thought the squabs of the carriage were uncomfortable.”

“You’d like it even less if I had pillowy thighs,” Oliver replied.

She leaned back against him. “Mmm. Pillowy thighs. Those would be lovely right now. Thighs that I could shut my eyes and sink into. Your thighs are like oak logs. Very unrestful.”

“Yes, but here’s the problem. If I had pillowy thighs, I would have reached down to swing you atop my fiery gelding, and when I tried to heft you in the air, I would have dropped you. ‘Damn it!’ I’d proclaim. ‘I just threw out my back!’”

She laughed softly.

“All the stories are wrong,” he told her.

He meant it just how he said it—they were filled with falsehoods and euphemisms. But he also meant it how he didn’t say it: that they were wrong to be here.