The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)(108)

“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.”

Genevieve’s eyes were shining. “A charity hospital,” she said, “one with a reputation for major advancements. One that people will fight to sponsor, to be a part of. Oh, I’m going to have to take notes.”

“I’ll call for paper.” But as soon as Jane picked up the bell—it had scarcely even made a noise—the door opened.

“Miss Fairfield,” the footman said, “you have a visitor.”

“Who is it?” she asked.

But suddenly she knew. Behind the footman, she saw a form. Her heart stopped and then started once more, beating with a ponderous weight that seemed to tear her equanimity to pieces. Jane stood, clutching her hands together, as Oliver came out of the shadowed hall. His spectacles gleamed in the late afternoon sun. His hair seemed to be made of fire. But it wasn’t his face that riveted her attention, nor even the direct, demanding look in his eyes.

He walked in and suddenly—suddenly—she couldn’t breathe.

“Oliver.” She managed that word, and that word alone.

“Jane.”

“What…” She swallowed, smoothing out her skirts, and shook her head. “Oliver,” she finally choked out, “What in God’s name is the color of your waistcoat?”

He smiled. No, it was too little to say that he smiled. The expression on his face was like sunlight after a dark cave—utterly blinding.

“Would you know,” he said, “that on my way here, I was stopped by three men of my acquaintance, all of whom asked me the same question?”

She shook her head helplessly. “What did you tell them?”

“What do you think?” He gave her a smile. “I told them it was fuchsine.”

“And? What did they say?” Her voice was low, her heart beating rapidly.

“And I found it strangely liberating,” he said. “As if I’d just made a declaration.” He was looking into her eyes, focused entirely on her.

“Precisely how liberated were you?” She could scarcely recognize her own voice.

“Jane, you are not a blight. You are not a disease. You are not a pestilence or a poison. You’re a beautiful, brilliant, bold woman, the best I have ever met. I should never have implied that you were lacking. The fault was in me. I didn’t think I was strong enough to stand at your side.”