The Heiress Effect

Jane had it right: He’d traded his bravery for his ambition.

And if he didn’t make this right—if he didn’t learn to suppress that memory of pain and reach in and grab hold of the coals in front of him, he’d be locked up for life in the chains of his own silence. He’d let too much go already: Jane, his sister, even that time with Bradenton. He’d let Jane do most of the talking. He hadn’t even told Bradenton to his face how disgusting he was.

With that, at least one thing came clear. Oliver stood. He didn’t know how to make things right with Jane yet, but Bradenton…

Bradenton owed him a vote, and Oliver was going to collect.

He set the book down, retrieved his coat. He went down the staircase and out into the main entry.

And with a great effort—with the effort of a man uprooting everything he had made of himself—Oliver put one foot outside into the warm May sunshine.

It was half an hour later when Oliver was shown into the Marquess of Bradenton’s study. The man looked extremely annoyed. He shook his head as he sat at his desk, tapping Oliver’s card against the wood.

“I had three-quarters of a mind not to see you,” he said.

“Of course you did.” Oliver said. “But your curiosity got the better of you.”

“But then,” Bradenton said, “I recalled that Parliament would be voting, and I wanted to work on a speech. One about farmers and governesses. I figured I needed to study my source material.”

Was that supposed to be offensive?

“Save your insinuations,” Oliver said. “And your sly jabs. You’ll need your breath to cast your vote to extend the franchise.”

Bradenton laughed. “You can’t be serious. With what you did to me, you think to win my vote?”

“Of course not,” Oliver said. “How could I win your vote? You’re a marquess, and I’m just one man out of a hundred. One man out of a thousand.” He let his smile spread as he tapped his fingers on the table. “One man out of, say, a hundred thousand.”

Bradenton frowned. “One hundred thousand?”

“More than that, actually. Did you go to Hyde Park a few weeks ago? I did. There was an infectious joy, an exuberance in the air. The people gathered. The people won. I read the estimates of the crowds in the paper later, and yes, that was the lowest number I saw bruited about. One hundred thousand.”

Bradenton shifted uneasily in his chair.

“It’s precisely as you’ve pointed out before,” Oliver said. “There’s one of you, and one hundred thousand of me. You seem to find that comforting. I can’t figure out why.” Oliver leaned forward and smiled. “They’re terrible odds, after all.”

“I’m entirely unmoved by the protestations of rabble.” But Bradenton spoke swiftly, refusing to look Oliver in the eyes. “I have my seat in the House of Lords by birth. I don’t have to bow to what the common people desire.”

“Then you won’t mind when the headlines proclaim that the Reform Bill was blocked once again, and this time by a margin that included the Marquess of Bradenton.”

Bradenton’s eyes widened and he sucked in a breath. But a moment later, he shook his head with vehemence. “I wouldn’t be the only one.”

“No. But think how good your name would sound in a headline. Bradenton Blocks Bill. It’s alliterative.”

Bradenton clenched his fists. “Stop it, Marshall. This isn’t funny!”

“Of course it isn’t. You’re unmoved by the protestations of the rabble. When they gather outside your house, massed in numbers larger than you can count, you’ll laugh in their faces.”

“Shut up, Marshall,” Bradenton growled. “Shut up.”

“Yes, that’s a good one. Tell them that while they’re chanting. ‘Shut up.’ That might work. Maybe they’ll listen. Or maybe they’ll stop talking and start throwing rocks. Did you know they played the Marseillaise near the end of the demonstration?”

“Shut up! The constables—they’ll throw the lot of them in prison.”

“Oh, I saw constables on the day of the Reform League’s gathering,” Oliver said. “All two of them. They would make a lovely barricade, those two solitary blue uniforms arrayed in front of your house, their truncheons gleaming as they faced a crowd of ten thousand. They might stop a charge for ones of seconds.”

“Shut up!”

“No,” Oliver mused, “you’re right. They wouldn’t last that long. Because more than half the constables can’t vote, either.”

He let the silence stretch. Bradenton sat back in his chair, his breathing heavy.

“So you see, Bradenton, you are going to vote to extend the franchise. Because there are thousands of me and one of you, and we are not quiet any longer.”

“Shut up,” Bradenton said again. But his hands shook and his voice was weak.

“No,” Oliver said. “That’s the whole point. You have had all this time to shut me up. To make me follow your rules. I am done with shutting up. It’s your turn.”

Chapter Thirty

“I want something big.” Jane was seated on the sofa in the front parlor of the rooms she’d leased in London with Genevieve Johnson seated next to her. “Something utterly huge. Something as loud and as impossible to ignore as my gowns are. But this time, I want it to have purpose.”

“Do you have something in mind?” Genevieve asked. “And what has this to do with me?”

Jane swallowed. “You told me once you wished you had a husband only for the reason that you would take great pleasure in spending your husband’s money on charitable works. How do you feel about taking mine?”

Genevieve blinked. “Oh, my goodness,” she said, leaning forward. “Tell me more.”

“I’m offering you a position,” Jane said. “A paid position on the Board of Advisers for the Fairfield Charitable Trusts.”

Genevieve’s eyes grew round.

“It doesn’t exist yet,” Jane told her, “but it will. I don’t want to economize. I want to act. To do things.”

“What kind of things?”

Jane shrugged. “I’ve always wanted a hospital. Or a school. Or maybe a hospital and a school in one, one that sets standards for the rest of the country. So we can stop charlatans from conducting medical experiments on the unsuspecting, for one.”