The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)(60)

He felt a twinge of something stronger than anticipation looking at her. At the lips he hadn’t kissed, the veins in her wrist that he’d not examined with his fingertips. Of the smooth swell of her br**sts, no longer occluded even by black lace.

Don’t touch.

And so he didn’t. He inclined his head to her as if she were a trifling little acquaintance, and then let her go talk to the others. She wasn’t his, after all. They were just…

Friends.

Yes, he thought. That. How had they come to be just that?

For once, her heavy gown was almost unobjectionable. Yes, her wrists blazed with sparkling stones, and the brocade at her hem was a little too colorful. But the great excesses had been slightly muted, changing her from utterly impossible to merely overly exuberant.

Bradenton returned to her side with a lemonade. She took it—and then, when he offered his arm—took that too. Oliver watched as the man introduced his set—Canterly, Ellisford, Rockway—one after the other, running through the names so swiftly that nobody would have been able to recall them. Jane, of course, had been coached. She greeted everyone politely by name. She smiled. And—oh, yes—she wasn’t perfect. She flubbed Lord James Ward’s title—he was Lord James, as his father was a duke, not Lord Ward—but one of the Johnson twins, who flanked her, whispered in her ear and she flushed and apologized prettily.

He could almost see her as one of them. Almost, if he ignored the over-long stares the other women gave her. If he refused to admit that her voice carried over everyone else’s.

They sat down to dinner.

She didn’t interrupt anyone’s conversation or insult anyone’s clothing. The twins spoke almost as much as she did.

In the end, it was Lord James who brought up politics.

“So,” he said, “I had a visit from the Countess of Branford. She said the women have been talking about the Contagious Diseases Act, of all things.”

“Ah, ah,” Bradenton said, wagging a finger. “Look about.” He inclined his head an inch to the left, indicating the Johnson twins.

The discussion of politics wasn’t always allowed in polite company, but in a group like this—men who thought of nothing else for much of the year—it was inevitable. More than half the women present were political wives or sisters and were used to such discussions at the table.

Lord James blinked in surprise. “I’m sorry, my lord,” he finally said. “I had thought Miss Johnson—but never mind.”

“Oh,” Miss Fairfield interrupted, two feet down the table from him, “please don’t stop on our account. I do so wish to hear everyone’s opinion. Starting with yours, Lord Bradenton.”

Bradenton looked up. Oliver could almost see him weighing the matter. He stroked his chin once, then twice.

“Humor Miss Fairfield,” Oliver said, with a pointed raise of his eyebrow at Bradenton.

Bradenton smiled broadly after a half-second’s hesitation. “Of course,” he said. “We all know how I feel—that the Act must go on, however harsh the consequences—and I gather we are in general agreement. But why don’t you tell us your opinion on the Contagious Diseases Act, Miss Fairfield? I’m sure you have a great deal to say.”

“Why, yes,” Miss Fairfield told him. “I do. I believe we should expand the scope of the Contagious Diseases Act. Radically.”

Bradenton blinked and glanced at her. The entire table was shocked into silence.

“How radical do you mean?” Lord James asked.”

Canterly nodded. “You’d extend it to more cities? Or would you, ah, hold suspects longer? Or—” He stopped, glancing at Jane, at the two sisters who were seated up the table from her.

Bradenton smiled more broadly, perhaps as if he thought he knew Oliver’s plan. Lure her into talking about sexual matters. Start a rumor, perhaps. The gossip would run amuck from there. Young virgins simply did not engage in frank conversations about the government’s policy of locking up prostitutes. The disgruntled mutters about Miss Fairfield would turn into outrage.

“It’s simple,” Jane insisted. “I know just how to do it. Instead of just locking up the women who are suspected of being ill, we should lock up all the women. That way, the ones who are well can never get sick.”

At the foot of the table, Whitting scratched his head. “But…how would men use their services?”

“What do men have to do with it?” Jane asked.

“Um.” Lord James looked down. “I take your point, Bradenton. This is…perhaps not the best conversation to be having at the moment.”

“After all,” Jane continued, “if men were capable of infecting women, our government in its infinite wisdom would never choose to lock up only the women. That would be pointless, since without any constraint on men, the spread of contagion would never stop. It would also be unjust to confine women for the sin of being infected by men.” She smiled triumphantly. “And since our very good Marquess of Bradenton supports the Act, that could never be the case. He would never sign on to such manifest injustice.”

There was a longer pause at that.

Bradenton had listened to this speech in stony silence, his lips pressing more and more closely together. He glanced over at Oliver, a warning in his glittering eyes.

“Yes, well,” he said tersely.