The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)(62)

“Of course,” Oliver said, as congenially as he could. Everyone else trooped out with only a few scant glances behind. Strange; the fire seemed to dim as they left and the shadows of the furniture seemed to grow, now that there was no warm conversation to fill the empty spaces.

“You think you’re so clever,” Bradenton snarled as soon as they were alone.

“I? I hardly said anything at all.”

“You know what I mean. But you can’t win.” Bradenton stood and paced to the fireplace. “You can’t win,” he repeated.

Oliver forbore from pointing out that he had just done so.

“You can’t win,” Bradenton said a third time, turning to Oliver, his cheeks ruddy with anger. “You might achieve a few trifling little victories here and there, but that’s what it means to be you—that you can never stop trying. That every inch you win, you must fight to keep. As for me?” He threw his arms wide. “I am a marquess. No matter what you managed today, you spent weeks considering doing my bidding.”

“That much is true.”

“Men like me? I’m rare. I was born a victor. What I have cannot be given or taken away. What are you? You’re one of a thousand similar men. One of ten thousand. Faceless. Voiceless. It’s men like me that run the country.”

Bradenton nodded, as if he had just convinced himself, and Oliver let him rage in peace.

“It will give me great pleasure to vote against the Reform Act,” he said. “Great pleasure indeed.”

“I would never begrudge you your amusement,” Oliver said. “Especially not when you must savor it alone.”

The two men stared at each other until Bradenton’s lip curled away from his teeth in a snarl. “I do believe we are done with each other, Marshall. I won’t forget this.”

Oliver shrugged. “I told you Miss Fairfield would discover her place tonight, Bradenton. She did.”

Chapter Fourteen

There was only one woman Oliver wanted to see when he joined the company. Jane was sparkling. Not just the diamond bracelets that ringed her wrists. It was her laugh, too loud, and yet just right. Her smile, too broad, and yet exactly as friendly as it needed to be. The look in her eyes when she turned and saw Oliver.

She was magnificent.

He greeted her politely and then leaned in to whisper. “Can you meet me afterward? I want to…”

There were too many ways to finish that sentence. He wanted to kiss her. Congratulate her. He wanted to slip that gown off her shoulders and have her legs around his waist. Her eyes slipped to her chaperone, sitting against the wall. “Northwest corner of the park,” she replied sotto voce. “After I leave.”

His pulse leapt at the thought. His imagination came alive. But he nodded to her politely, as if he’d not just arranged for an illicit rendezvous with her.

She arrived half an hour after him.

“You would not believe who I had to bribe,” she said by way of breathless greeting. “I have half an hour until Alice returns with her beau.”

She was beautiful, glowing with the victory she’d obtained.

“I would believe anything of you.”

Only a hint of light spilled into the park from a distant street lamp; moldering leaves crunched underfoot as he walked to her.

“You can’t imagine how I feel. I don’t have to pretend any longer. I’ll need a new way to not get married.” She laughed. “I’ll think of something. Maybe this time I’ll just say no.”

“I’ve heard that works wonders.” He couldn’t stop smiling at her. But his smile felt so false, for all that he couldn’t contain it.

“Maybe you’ll meet someone,” he said softly. “And maybe…”

She lifted her head and took a step toward him. “Oliver.”

He didn’t want her to meet anyone. He didn’t want anyone to have her but himself. But… He hadn’t asked her here to dally with her, no matter how dazzled he felt at the moment.

“I’m leaving,” he heard himself say. “Parliament is sitting in less than two weeks, and there’s a great deal left to do. I must get back to London.”

Her eyes grew wide. “I see.”

There was nobody else about, and so he did what he’d wanted to do for an age. He turned to her, and then ever so slowly, reached out and set his hands on her sides and drew her to him.

“I see,” she repeated, her voice trembling. “I wish I didn’t see at all.”

With his hands at her waist, their bodies touching ever so slightly, he could feel her breath. Her chest rose, brushing his; a few moments later, her shoulders fell, and that point of contact diminished. A puff of warm air against his collar marked her exhalation.

“I haven’t been counting,” she said quietly.

It seemed an intimate confession, whispered in that low tone of voice. He didn’t say anything in response. He leaned down until his lips brushed her forehead. It wasn’t a kiss he gave her. Not a kiss, but something close.

“I don’t know when I ceased counting days,” she said. “When I did not, at the time when night came, look up at the ceiling and say, ‘there’s another one down; tomorrow will be four hundred and whatever it is. I’ll have to count once again.’”