Free The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan

knew it.
    Bradenton was right; he could break her. He
knew exactly how it was done.
    It was that memory—one that made him break
out in an uneasy sweat—that had brought him out into the cold. It
was possible to break someone who was alone. It was easy to break
someone if you gave them a support, allowed them to lean on it…and
then swept it all away.
    Oliver had no answers, which is why he was
standing outside in the middle of a January night. The chill
brought no clarity of mind. Cold stone and cold walls surrounded
him in the middle of this cold city. The verandah was little more
than a square space of outdoors a few paces wide. He’d grown up on
a farm; this was hardly any room at all.
    Hardly a surprise. Cambridge always made him
feel caged.
    The outside door opened behind him. He didn’t
turn.
    Miss Fairfield came to stand beside him.
    Her beads clacked as she moved, her brocade
glittering in the dim light in a garish imitation of military
braid. It was the ugliest gown he’d ever seen, and she wore it like
the shield that it was. She set her hands on the balustrade,
gripping it tightly, not saying a word. Her breath was ragged, as
if she had climbed three flights of stairs. As if even the thought
of trusting another person had her heart racing.
    It should race. She should walk away. But he
didn’t say that. He just regarded her, watched her watching him
back.
    “Well, impossible girl?” he asked. “What’s it
to be?”
    She took another breath. “I count,” she
finally said.
    It took him a moment to remember their
previous conversation.
    She twisted her hands together. “I count
every day as it passes.”
    He didn’t say anything. He wanted to comfort
her, but that seemed cruel, given the possibilities of what lay
between them.
    “I am afraid to even speak to you,” she said.
“If I open my mouth, I’m afraid it will all spill out. I’ll talk
and talk and talk and never be able to stop it all. There’s too
much.”
    He tilted his head and looked at her. “Did I
sound like a man with a moderate number of complaints?”
    “No. No.” She shook her head, and then threw
her arms in the air helplessly. “I don’t know what you want. I know
what everyone else desires, but you… I don’t know about you.”
    Oliver thought of Bradenton, dangling his
vote in the Reform Act before him—dangling it like the tempting
bait that it was. He thought about what it would mean for his
chances at achieving office. He thought about the marquess,
believing that Oliver was his for the purchase.
    Nobody shoved Oliver around. Nobody.
    “I went to school with Bradenton,” Oliver
finally said. “He was an ass back then, until…” He paused. “He’s
better at hiding it now, that’s all.”
    She didn’t say anything.
    “I want him to pay,” Oliver said. “For every
filthy assumption he’s made.”
    He turned to her. She was watching him, her
eyes wide.
    “It’s that simple,” he said. “You’re annoying
him. Good for you. I don’t want you to feel alone.”
    Her breath caught.
    God, that had been a cruel thing to say. The
prospect of friendship was a hell of a thing to dangle in front of
a woman who felt she had no choice but to drive everyone away. He
had no idea what she was facing, but he’d wager that whatever it
was, it was a lonely path.
    And there was the fact that he didn’t know his own mind. Maybe he meant every word he was saying. But if
he’d wanted to take Bradenton up on his filthy offer, he’d have
started this same damned way—by earning her trust.
    For all that he rejected the idea of doing
Bradenton’s bidding, there was a vicious symmetry to using the
marquess. To fooling him into thinking that Oliver was complacent,
that Oliver would do whatever he wanted. It would mean something,
to boost himself with Bradenton’s help. To exceed his power and
then pay him back years later.
    He wanted that so badly he could taste
it.
    She let out a shaky breath. “Say it again,”
she