The Heiress Effect
He hadn’t known how to write a proper letter, either. He was technically three months older than Oliver, but Oliver had always felt like the elder.
Look, Robert, this is how you do it. This is how you behave like a proper human being.
In turn, Oliver knew how important he was to Robert. Oliver had sisters and a father and a mother. Robert had…well, he had Oliver and Minnie.
Oliver was an ass for thinking that he should lay something as foolish as his inchoate feelings before his brother. Robert had other things to worry about.
“Oliver,” Robert said. He paused and tilted his head. “What is it?”
Robert had an uncanny ability to figure out when someone was upset. He was terrible at guessing why someone was upset, as a general rule—but he could tell when something was wrong. It was an extremely annoying skill.
“Robert, I…”
He didn’t know how to have this conversation. He only knew that he had to say something. He paced across the room and then turned to face the couple.
“I don’t feel like I belong here,” Oliver finally said.
If his brother was excellent at knowing when others were upset, it was almost impossible to tell when he was hurt. Oliver had learned to look for those tiny signs—the slight tensing of his muscles, the way Robert drew himself back. The way his wife’s hand curled around his.
“I don’t want you to feel that way,” Robert finally said. “What can I do?”
Oliver shook his head. “It’s not anything that you’re doing or not doing. I don’t know why things have changed. I just… I need to be…” If he knew how to complete that sentence, he wouldn’t even be here. He wanted to go back to a time when he’d belonged. Back to the time when he still had Jane ahead of him. “I don’t feel like I belong anywhere.”
Robert nodded and took a deep breath. “How long have you been feeling this way? Maybe we can determine the cause of it.”
Since January, he wanted to say. But then he remembered Jane. That late, fateful night, when he’d convinced her to trust him by spilling out his own wants and ambitions. He’d tasted bitterness, knowing what he didn’t have, and had recognized in her a kindred spirit.
Oliver looked away. “I think I have always felt this way.”
This time, he didn’t have to try to see his brother’s flinch. He knew, damn it, he knew what Robert was like. So hesitant, so careful, always afraid that someone was going to walk away from him.
“It’s not you,” Oliver told him. “You’ve always made me feel welcome. Whatever you think, don’t doubt that. You’re my brother and you always will be. I just… I just don’t know. And I hate not knowing.”
“Is there something that precipitated this?” Minnie looked at him. “You’ve seemed…distant since you returned from Cambridge.”
Cambridge. That word tightened around him like a fist clenching, gripping him with a bitter nostalgia. Cambridge. There was a word that whispered of walks along a green in the day and in a park at night. Of a woman who didn’t flinch at anyone’s proclamations.
Jane was the most fearless woman Oliver had ever met. Sometimes, Oliver thought that society was like an infant trying to shove a square, colored block through a round hole. When it didn’t go, the child pounded harder. Oliver had been shoved through round holes so often that he’d scarcely even noticed that his edges had become rounded. But Jane…Jane persisted in being angular and square. The harder she was pushed, the more square—and the more colorful—she became.
It was a good thing Oliver wasn’t in love with her. If he had been so foolish as to admire her that much, he wasn’t sure how he could ever find his way out.
“Did something happen with Sebastian?” Robert asked.
“Yes,” he said. “But…not what you think.” He sat down on a chair across from them. “I don’t know what it is,” he finally said. “You always know who you are and what you want. And right now, I’m a total muddle.”
Robert stood up and crossed to him. “Muddles,” he said, “I understand.” He put his hand on Oliver’s shoulder. “If you’re feeling muddled, I don’t know what I can say. Except…don’t question whether you have a place here.”
Oliver shook his head.
“You’re my brother.” Robert hesitated, and then, just a little more quietly, said, “I love you. I will always love you. You have a place here. You just don’t have to use it.”
Oliver looked up.
“Stop moping,” Robert said, punching his shoulder. “Maybe it’s simply that with the Reform Act creeping its way through Parliament, you’re needing a new project. You’ve worked on this for how long now? It can be a surprising letdown to see something you’ve worked for come to fruition. It leaves an emptiness in your life.”
“That’s precisely what it is.” Oliver shut his eyes. “An emptiness in my life. I’m just not sure what would fill it.”
There was a tap behind them. Oliver turned to see a servant standing in the doorway.
“Sir,” he said, bowing to Oliver. “A telegram has come for you.”
“Oh, lovely,” Oliver said aloud. “I wonder what Free has done now?”
The servant didn’t answer and Oliver took the envelope in bemusement.
The flimsy paper inside contained three lines
NOBODY ELSE I CAN TURN TO
AM IN NOTTINGHAM
TOMORROW I WILL
That was it. That was the entirety of the message. It seemed curiously abbreviated, and the last line—he hesitated to call it a sentence when even in the truncated language of telegrams it lacked necessary parts of speech—made no sense. Tomorrow I will…who was this I?
Oliver had no idea.
Eat, drink, and be merry, some amused part of him whispered, for tomorrow I will…
He looked the paper over. He didn’t know anyone in Nottingham. And the only person who would send him a message asking for help, aside from his family, was…
He stared at the paper and reread it.
Jane Fairfield.
He licked his lips.
“Robert,” he said, “tell me if I am wrong, but this would be a most inconvenient time to leave town, would it not?”
There were ongoing debates in Parliament. Details were being settled on a regular basis. But the thought of staying—of going to yet another dinner with yet more people who made him feel strange inside his skin—seemed impossibly wrong.