The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)(103)

Right now, she wanted to be the one who comforted him.

“I’ll…”

“Think about it, Oliver.”

Jane bit her lip and looked away, trying not to feel the sting of it. They had agreed, after all. And he was upset. She really didn’t have a place in his life, and it was the work of a moment—one soul-squeezing moment—to forgive him the small pain he caused her.

“I’ll see,” he said.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Oliver knew what was coming the instant he closed the door after his mother. He didn’t even want to turn around. Didn’t want to have to look at Jane and see what he had done.

But he did. He went and found her where she was still seated on a bench in the dressing room. She was wearing petticoats and a corset and was gazing off into space. She looked up as he came in.

“Good,” she said. “You’re here. I suppose we need to…” She trailed off and looked at her hands in her lap.

“Jane.” He felt a lump in his throat as he faced her.

“I need someone to help me put on my dress.” She pointed to a blue silk with red ribbons. “That one.”

“Jane…”

“I’m not going to have this discussion with you when I’m half-dressed,” she said, and so he helped her put it on. It was agonizing, to brush her soft skin. To want to kiss her shoulder, as he smoothed fabric over it. He wanted so much with her…but he suspected that this was the end, the donning of this dress, and not a beginning.

When he had finished to the best of his ability, she turned back to him.

“I can…” No. He couldn’t exonerate himself.

“Explain?” she asked. “You don’t need to explain. You already have. I am the last woman in the world you want to marry. You’re upset because of your aunt. Why would you introduce me to your family? You haven’t said anything I don’t already know.”

He took a step forward. “It’s not that.”

“Oh?” There was just enough of a dubious quality in her voice.

“It is that,” he said, “But it’s so much more. I love you, Jane.”

She tilted her head. “What?”

“I love you. And if I let you share in this—if I bring you in at this moment—I don’t know how I could ever let you go. You’d be a part of me. A part of my family.”

She already was. There was some part of him that felt as if he were still on a dark forest road with her. With nobody else around—just the two of them against the rest of the world.

She had not said anything yet.

“I want that,” he said. “It hurts how much I want that. Come with me, Jane. Not as my lover, but as my fiancée.”

She didn’t say anything.

“I know there will be difficulties, but we can work them out. Minnie can sponsor you; she could get the Dowager Duchess of Clermont to train you. And—”

“Train me?” Jane said. “What am I, a horse?”

Oliver winced. “No. Of course not. But a few lessons…”

“A few lessons on what?” Jane’s chin came up, but her lips trembled. “On how to act, how to behave, how to dress. Is that what you mean?”

He couldn’t say anything.

“Tell me, Oliver, how long do you think it will take me to learn to hold my tongue? To talk quietly? To dress as everyone else does?”

“I—Jane…”

“If you want a wren, marry one. Don’t ask me.”

He shut his eyes. “I know. I know. It’s such a horrid thing to ask. But…” He paused, trying to regroup. Trying to explain. “I’ve made a career of keeping quiet. Someone from my background has to be particularly careful. My brother can advocate whatever he wishes; I have to be cautious. To make sure that when people think of me, they think of a reasonable man. Someone who is just like them. Someone who…”

“Someone who doesn’t have an awful wife,” Jane said. Her voice was thick.

“Yes,” he whispered. And then seeing that flash in her eyes, he shook his head. “No. That’s not what I meant. It’s just what everyone else would think.”

She stood up. “It’s just as well, because I…” She stopped, biting her lip, and then shook her head. “No, never mind. You’ve just been told that your aunt has passed away. I don’t need to add to your burdens.”

“Just say it,” he snapped, “and spare me your pity.”

Her chin rose. “It’s just as well you don’t want an awful wife,” she told him, “because I had hoped for a husband with a little courage.”

Oh, that hurt. He wasn’t choosing between acceptance and Jane, between a ballroom filled with happy friendship and that dark road alone with Jane. He was choosing between a dark, lonely road with her, and one without her.

“You didn’t go to Eton,” he said to her. “You didn’t go to Cambridge. You didn’t spend years slowly fashioning yourself into the kind of person who could fit in and thus make a difference. Don’t tell me this doesn’t take courage. Don’t tell me that.” His voice rose with every word. “Don’t tell me it wasn’t courage that brought me back again and again, after every attempt to toss me out. Being like me takes courage, damn it.”