The Heiress Effect (3 page)

One of those earrings would buy his parents’
farm three times over.

“Thank you so much for the invitation,” she
said. As she spoke, she folded her cloak.

One of the gray-liveried servants should have
stepped forward and relieved her of the burden. But they, like
everyone else, had been momentarily stunned by the hideousness of
her apparel.

Miss Fairfield didn’t seem to notice. Without
once looking to her side—without even glancing at Oliver—she handed
him her cloak. His fingers took hold of it before he could register
what she’d done. She turned away from him, greeted Hapford and
Whitting, her voice pleasant, the back of her neck taunting him
with little curls.

She’d handed him her cloak. As if he were a
servant. A footman came up to Oliver, apologetically taking the
unwanted burden from him, but it was too late. He could see the
horrified smile on Whitting’s face, the one he didn’t quite seem
able to repress. Bradenton, too, gave Oliver a too-amused
smile.

He was long past the point of getting angry
at little slights, and this one hadn’t even been intentional. But
God, she was a disaster. He almost felt sorry for her.

Bradenton gestured behind Oliver. “Miss
Fairfield,” he said, “there is another man here to whom you have
not yet been introduced.”

“There is?” Miss Fairfield turned and finally
set eyes on Oliver. “Goodness. I didn’t even see you when I came
in.”

She’d seen him. She’d just thought he was a
servant. A simple mistake; nothing more.

“Miss Fairfield,” Oliver said smoothly. “A
pleasure.”

“Miss Jane Fairfield, this is Mr. Oliver
Marshall,” Bradenton said.

She put her head to one side and looked at
him. She
was
pretty. That annoying part of his brain
couldn’t stop noticing it in spite of the garish way she’d rigged
herself out. Pretty, if you liked the healthy glowing English rose
sort of woman. Normally, Oliver did.

He wondered when she was going to realize her
error. Her eyes narrowed in concentration, and a frown left a
furrow on her chin.

“But we’ve met,” she said.

This was not what he had expected her to
realize. Oliver blinked uncertainly.

“I’m sure we’ve met,” she continued. “You
look familiar. There’s something about you, something…” Miss
Fairfield tapped her lip with a finger, shaking her head as she
did. “No,” she concluded sadly. “No. I am wrong. It’s simply that
you look so common with that hair and those glasses that I mistook
you.”

He looked
common?

Another woman delivering an insult of that
magnitude would have emphasized the word just to be sure that her
intent was not mistaken. Miss Fairfield, though, didn’t act as if
she was delivering a set-down. She sounded as if she were remarking
on the number of pups in a litter.

“I beg your pardon.” He found himself
standing just a little taller, looking at her with a hint of frost
in his expression.

“Oh, no need to beg my anything,” she said
with a smile. “You can’t help your looks, I’m sure. I would never
hold them against you.” She nodded at him, as graciously as a
queen, as if she were doing him a tremendous favor. And then she
frowned. “I’m so sorry, but would you repeat your name again?”

Oliver gave her his stiffest bow. “Mr. Oliver
Marshall. At your service.”
Don’t take that literally,
he
almost added.

Her eyes widened. “Oliver. Were you named,
perchance, after Oliver Cromwell?”

That was definitely
not
a genuine
smile on his lips. His forgery nearly cracked under the strain.
“No, Miss Fairfield. I wasn’t.”

“You weren’t named after the one-time Lord
Protector of England? Why, I should have thought that he would be
an example that your parents would have wished you to emulate. He
started out common like you, didn’t he?”

“The name implies nothing so grand,” he
managed to get out. “My mother’s father was named Oliver.”

“Perhaps
he
was named—”

“No,” Oliver interrupted. “Nobody in my
family had hopes for my posthumous execution, I assure you.”

He almost thought she smiled at that, but the
twitch at the corner of her lips disappeared before he was even
sure it was there. There the conversation ground to a halt.

One, two, three…

As a boy, Oliver had gone back and forth
between two worlds—between the heights of the upper class, so
freezingly polite, and the more cheerful working class world that
his parents inhabited. There was a frozen silence that Oliver
associated with these moments of upper-class awkwardness. It was
that moment when every man around made a calculation based on
manners, and decided to hold his thoughts to himself rather than
speak aloud and risk rudeness. He’d been on the receiving end of
that silence all too often as a boy: when he’d admitted that he’d
spent a summer in manual labor, when he’d referred to his father’s
former occupation as a pugilist… In fact, for those first years
until he’d learned the rules, silence had followed just about every
time he had opened his mouth.

For all that it was supposedly born of
manners, that silence could cut. Oliver had been on the outside of
it often enough to know precisely how deeply. He glanced over at
Miss Fairfield.

…
four, five, six…

Her lips were smoothed into placid
acceptance. Her smile was open and honest. There was no sign that
she even noticed the tension.

“Who else will be joining us this evening?”
she asked. “Cadford? Willton?”

“Not, uh—” Hapford glanced around. “Not
Willton, he’s…indisposed.”

“Is that one of those—what do you call that
thing, that thing someone says in order to avoid telling the
truth?” Miss Fairfield shook her head, her diamond earbobs shaking.
“The word for it is on the tip of my tongue. I can feel it. It’s
a…a…” She raised her chin, her eyes suddenly bright. “Euphemism!”
She snapped her fingers. “That’s a euphemism, isn’t it? Tell me, is
he really just bosky from last night?”

The men exchanged glances. “Right,” Hapford
said slowly. “Miss Fairfield, if you’ll take my arm…” He led her
away.

“Poor man,” Whitting said. “He used to make
fun, until Miss Johnson made him stop. He’s no fun now that he’s
besotted.”

Oliver didn’t generally approve of mocking
people behind their backs. It was cowardly and cruel, and he knew
from personal experience that it was never as unobserved as the
mockers supposed.

Poor Miss Fairfield. She had the opposite of
conversation, the opposite of taste. They were going to rip her to
shreds, and Oliver was going to have to watch.

Dinner proved to be more painful than Oliver
had imagined.

Miss Fairfield talked too loudly, and what
she said…

She asked Whitting about his studies, and
when he made a wry comment about preferring to concentrate his
efforts on the study of liquids, she stared at him.

“How surprising.” Her eyes were very round.
“I had not thought you to have the capacity of intellect to read
physics!”

Whitting stared at her. “Did you—” The man
seemed to grasp hold of his amazement with a visible struggle. A
gentleman would never ask a lady if she had intended to call him
stupid. Whitting took several deep breaths and addressed Miss
Fairfield once more. “Yes. I do not have the sort of personality to
enjoy the study of physics. As to my capacity…” He shrugged, and
gave her a forced smile. “I must have misunderstood you.”

In the lexicon of English gentlemen—a
language of euphemism and false politeness—this was one of the more
stinging insults. “I must have misunderstood you” usually
translated into, “Hold your tongue.” Oliver steepled his fingers
and tried to look anywhere but at the two.

Miss Fairfield didn’t seem the least
troubled. “Did you misunderstand me?” she asked in tones of
solicitousness. “I am
so
sorry. I should have realized the
sentence construction was too complex for your capacity.” She
leaned toward him and spoke again, this time raising her voice and
slowing her words as if she were talking to an aging grandfather.
“What I meant was that I had not thought that you were intelligent.
That would make the study of the physical world difficult.”

Whitting turned red. “But—that is—”

“Perhaps I am wrong,” she said cheerily.
“
Do
you enjoy the study of the physical world?”

“Well, no, but—”

She patted his hand comfortingly. “There’s no
need to worry,” she confided. “Not everyone has that capability.
You make up for any lack of intellect by being so kind.”

Whitting sat back in his chair, his mouth
working.

From another woman, that would have been an
unforgivable insult. If Miss Fairfield had shown the slightest
indication that she was being devastatingly awful on purpose, she
would have been ostracized. As it was, when she patted Whitting’s
hand, comforting him on his stupidity, she seemed actually to feel
sorry for him.

She asked Hapford if he was going to take
elocution lessons, and when he said no, hastened to assure him that
nobody worth knowing would hold the quietness of his speech against
him.

“Lemon juice,” she said, speaking to Oliver
across the table, “would do wonders for your freckles. Have you
considered it?”

“Would you know, my aunt says the same
thing?” he murmured. “And I have yet to try it.”

“Oh, of course.” She looked stricken. “How
thoughtless of me! I suppose it would be difficult to obtain enough
lemons, especially for one in your position.”

Oliver didn’t ask what his position was
supposed to be.

After that, she complimented the Marquess of
Bradenton on the cut of his coat, assuring him that his unfortunate
slope-shoulders were “almost unnoticeable.”

And when he sputtered in response and turned
away, she set down her serviette.

“Don’t feel embarrassed,” she said. “It’s
acceptable to lose the flow of conversation. Not everyone is clever
enough to think of something to say immediately.”

Bradenton’s lips thinned.

“And you’re a marquess,” she added. “Maybe
there
are
deficiencies in your understanding, but nobody
will ever notice them so long as you make absolutely certain to
introduce yourself as a marquess first.”

Bradenton’s nostrils flared, but she was
already turning back to address Oliver.

“Mr. Cromwell,” she said, “do tell me how you
spend your days. You’re an…accountant, if that’s what I recall
hearing.”

The truth was far more complicated. Besides,
no matter what he said in reply, a woman who confused him with the
long-dead Oliver Cromwell was unlikely to care about details. “I
studied law at Cambridge,” he finally said. “But I have no need to
practice, so I—”

“Oh, so you’re something like a solicitor,
then? Perhaps you could explain something for me. How does a
solicitor differ from an accountant? I had always thought they were
cut from the same cloth.”

No, he wasn’t going to react. “A
solicitor—”

“Because that’s all my solicitor ever does,”
she said innocently. “Send me accounts. Do you do things besides
send accounts, Mr. Cromwell?”

Oliver looked down the table at Miss
Fairfield’s earnest face, her diamond earbobs flashing in the
lamplight, and admitted defeat. There was no way to explain even
the basics of the world to someone who was impervious to reality,
and he had no wish to insult her while trying. “No, Miss
Fairfield,” he said politely. “I think you have the general idea.”
He looked away.

But she must have seen him grimace. She
leaned forward. “Oh, poor Mr. Cromwell,” she said in kindly tones.
“Are you in pain?”

He almost couldn’t make himself look back at
her—but it would be impolite to ignore her. He turned, slowly,
wondering what she was about to say.

She was looking at him with deep concern.

“That noise you just made. It reminded me of
our gardener. He has lumbago. There’s a poultice I make for him
when he’s at his worst. Would you like the receipt?”

“I don’t have lumbago.” The words came out of
his mouth a little too curtly.

“That’s precisely what our gardener says, but
after the poultice, he always feels so much better. Do let me send
it to you, Mr. Cromwell. It will be no trouble at all. You seem
rather young for lumbago, but since you’re in service, such
afflictions must come on early.”

He swallowed. He thought of telling her that
his father didn’t suffer from lumbago despite years spent farming.
He thought of explaining. He might even have burst into laughter,
but that would have embarrassed her.

Instead, he inclined his head. “I’d be
delighted to receive it, Miss Fairfield. Send it to my London
address—Oliver Cromwell, care of the Tower, London, England.”