The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)

He crossed the floor, treading as softly as he could in hopes that the floor would not squeak. It didn’t, but the clothespress door made a soft noise of protest when he opened it.

There were a few items of clothing inside, scattered about in a mess, but no valise. Oliver returned to the window. “Is your sister generally a tidy person?”

“Yes.”

“Because someone has tossed her things around. Much of it, I gather, is gone. There is no valise, and what clothing remains is strewn about. It looks like someone packed in a hurry.”

“Oh, God.” On the ground, he could hear the fear in Jane’s voice. “On the desk—look on her desk. Is there a small green cactus?”

“No.”

“She’s really gone. Oliver. What are we going to do?”

He’d never met her sister, but he’d have panicked if any of his sisters had been in similar straits.

“In an hour or so,” Jane was saying, “Dorling will arrive back in Nottingham. It’s only a matter of time until Titus gets a telegram. He’ll know that I’ve disappeared.”

Oliver shook his head. “I am going to climb down. And then we are going to talk. Rationally. For one, if he’s already removed your sister, it doesn’t matter what he knows of you. The strategy changes.”

“Right.” She nodded. “Right.”

He started making his way down.

He could see her pacing on the ground out of the corner of his vision.

“This morning… What was I thinking?”

“Wouldn’t have made any difference,” he said, shifting so that he could brace himself against the side of the house.

“But if we had—”

“We couldn’t have made the trains run any faster, and we were on the first one out. Don’t blame yourself whatever has happened.” Coming down was trickier; he couldn’t see his footholds, and it made for slower going. But when he was within a few feet of the ground, he pushed off the wall, jumping the last little bit.

He landed and turned to Jane. It was wrong, what was going through his head. He should have been in full sympathy with her, for whatever it was that had happened to her sister.

But he didn’t feel sorry. He was selfish, so damned selfish. He didn’t care about her sister at all.

All he could think was that she’d said this would last until they found Emily. It’s not over. It’s not over yet. He’d have more of Jane.

“But if I—”

He took her hand. It’s not over yet. It’s not over yet. He shouldn’t be smiling. And yet he couldn’t keep a hint of triumph from his voice.

“Maybe the worst has happened,” he said, “and maybe she’s been put away. But what has been done can be undone. All we need to do is find out where he’s sent your sister, and from there…”

“Titus will never tell me,” Jane said. “And even if he did, how would we proceed?”

“There are ways of finding out,” Oliver said. “But in this case, I think the direct route might work best. We’ll just have someone ask him. Someone who could get the whole story on the matter.”

Jane frowned up at him. “But there is no such person.”

It isn’t over. It isn’t over.

Oliver smiled. “Actually, there is.”

“…So you see,” Oliver told Sebastian, “what we really need is to find Titus Fairfield, to trap him into a situation where he feels he cannot just walk away. Ask him where Jane’s sister is being held. And…”

Sebastian was examining his nails as Oliver spoke, but he had a small smile on his face. He didn’t look well. He hadn’t shaved yet, although it was three in the afternoon, and there was a bloodshot quality to his eyes.

But if he had been up late the night before, it didn’t show on anything other than his features.

“And trick him into telling you where she’s being kept?” Sebastian shrugged. “I can do it. I’m giving a lecture this evening. I’ll invite him, and then we’ll see.”

“Thank you,” Jane told him. They were the first words she’d spoken since the initial greeting, but she said them fervently. “Thank you so much, Mr. Malheur.”

But he simply shook his head at her. “No, Miss Fairfield,” he said. “Don’t thank me yet. Hasn’t Oliver told you that my help always comes at a cost?”

She shook her head. “Whatever it is, I’ll pay—”

“Not that kind of cost. When you ask me for help, you get help.” His smile widened. “You get help my way.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

The lecture seemed interminably long. Perhaps it was because Oliver knew what the stakes were. He’d caught a glimpse of Titus Fairfield in the back rows of the hall.

Perhaps it was because at the moment, Oliver could not dredge up the least interest in what Sebastian was saying about peas and snapdragons and the color of cats.