Oliver’s fists clenched. Stop playing with fire, you foolish girl, before you hurt yourself.
“Good God,” said a woman near him. “Even her gloves match.”
Sebastian had said that nature chose its most brilliant colors as a warning: Don’t eat me. I’m poison. If that were the case, Miss Fairfield had just announced that she was the most poisonous butterfly ever to grace the drawing rooms of Cambridge. She flitted about the room, leaving dazed looks and cruel titters behind her.
By the time she made her way to him, he had a headache. Hell, he didn’t need Bradenton to offer him his vote. He might have pushed her away just so he wouldn’t have to listen to everyone laugh.
“Mr. Marshall,” she said.
He took her hand and inhaled. And that, perhaps, was what brought him back to himself. Amidst all that was unfamiliar, there was one thing he recognized—the smell of her soap, that mixed scent of lavender and mint. It spelled instant comfort, and it made his course of action quite clear.
He’d promised not to lie to her. That was all he had to do now—not lie.
“Miss Fairfield,” he said in a voice pitched normally. “You look well today.”
She dimpled at him.
He let his gaze drift down briefly, and then looked up at her. “Your gown, on the other hand…” He took in a deep breath. “It makes me want to commit an act of murder, and I do not consider myself a violent man. What are you wearing?”
“It’s an evening gown.” She spread her outrageously gloved hands over her hips.
“It is the most hideous shade of pink that I have ever seen in my life. Is it actually glowing?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” But the smile on her face seemed more genuine.
“I fear it may be contagious,” he continued. “It is setting all my preternatural urges on edge, whispering that the color must be catching. I feel an uncontrollable urge to run swiftly as far as I can in the other direction, lest my waistcoat fall prey next.”
She actually laughed at that and brushed her shoulder. “This would make a lovely waistcoat, don’t you think? But don’t worry; the color isn’t virulent. Yet.”
“What does one call a color like that?”
She smiled at him. “Fuchsine.”
“It even sounds like a filthy word,” Oliver replied. “Tell me, what sort of devilry is fuchsine?”
She glanced around them, ascertained that nobody was near enough to hear. “It’s a dye,” she said, as if that were not obvious. “A new one, a synthetic one, made from some kind of coal tar, I believe. Some brilliant chemist with a talent for experimentation and no sense of propriety came up with this.”
“It’s…” There were still no words for it. “It’s malevolent,” he managed. “Truly.”
She leaned in. “You’re maligning the shade,” she whispered. “Don’t. I actually love it. And I wager that everyone else here would, too, if it had been someone else wearing it first.”
He swallowed. “Maybe. That other person might have been wearing it in greater moderation.”
“I had it made up specially. The gloves, the lace. I thought about having little brilliants sewn all over the bodice in sparkly patterns, but…” She shrugged expressively.
“You decided you didn’t actually want to be responsible for blinding the entire gathering. Thank you.”
“No. I decided that I would save that for the virulently green dress.” She gave him a waggle of the eyebrow. “There must be some escalation, after all. What’s the point in being an heiress, if you aren’t allowed to make anyone cringe?”
Oliver simply shook his head. “Yes, but…”
“It’s the most amazing thing. I don a gown like this, and you’re the only one who tells me to my face how utterly hideous it is. Everyone else has been giving me the most contrived compliments. Here comes someone else, no doubt to compliment me on the extraordinary color.”
He shook his head. “That must take some calculation, Miss Fairfield. Determining precisely the line you must walk to prevent yourself from being bodily hurled from the assembly.”
She smiled. “No calculation at all. They put up with me for one reason, and one reason only. I call it the heiress effect.”
The heiress effect. Maybe that was it—that was what stood between those ugly whispers and the prickle of hair on the back of his neck. He managed a halfhearted smile.
“Miss Fairfield, you frighten me. You and your wardrobe.”
She tapped his wrist with the fan. “That,” she said briskly, “is the point. This way, I can repel dozens of men in one fell swoop, all without even opening my mouth. And nobody can say it’s not demure. I’m even wearing pearls.”
He glanced down. If anyone asked, he was looking at her pearls. Definitely looking at her pearls, which were displayed to admirable effect by her bosom. That lovely swell of sweet flesh, so soft-looking. Her br**sts made even the pernicious pink fabric that framed them appear touchably good.
“Miss Fairfield,” he said, after a moment of silence that stretched a little too long. “I would ask you to dance, but I fear our last conversation was interrupted.”
The smile slowly slid off her face, and her brow crinkled in little lines of worry. “There’s a verandah,” she finally said. “We could go out. It is a little cold, but… Other people are getting air. Not many of them, but we’ll be in sight of the company. If anyone asks, you can claim that you were doing the assembly a favor. Ridding them of the horror of looking at me for a quarter hour.”
She smiled as she said it. She sounded perfectly serious.
And Oliver… Oliver felt a twinge deep inside him. He wasn’t that man. He wasn’t going to humiliate her. He wasn’t.
You will, his gut whispered back.
“You’re not horrid,” he said. “Your gown is.”
“I can guess,” Mr. Marshall said a little later, as they made their way onto the verandah, away from the press of other people, “as to why you are doing this.” His gesture encompassed her gown of fuchsine.
Jane had expected as much. He seemed a clever man; he wouldn’t have missed the import of the conversation he’d overheard. But she looked away, concentrating on the gray Portland stone of the verandah, the stone balustrade ringed by naked trees, cast in flickering shadows.
“Is it your sister?”