The Heiress Effect

Miss Jane Fairfield can’t do anything right. When she’s in company, she always says the wrong thing—and rather too much of it. No matter how costly they are, her gowns fall on the unfortunate side of fashion. Even her immense dowry can’t save her from being an object of derision.

And that’s precisely what she wants. She’ll do anything, even risk humiliation, if it means she can stay unmarried and keep her sister safe.

Mr. Oliver Marshall has to do everything right. He’s the bastard son of a duke, raised in humble circumstances—and he intends to give voice and power to the common people. If he makes one false step, he’ll never get the chance to accomplish anything. He doesn’t need to come to the rescue of the wrong woman. He certainly doesn’t need to fall in love with her. But there’s something about the lovely, courageous Jane that he can’t resist…even though it could mean the ruin of them both.

It hurt his head, that pink, yet he couldn't look away.

It hurt his head, that pink, yet he couldn't look away.

And there had been a time when he'd been the one saying all the wrong things.

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."

He let his gaze drift down briefly, and then looking up at her. "Your gown, on the other hand..." He took a deep breath. "It makes me want to commit 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.

"You", he said with a small gesture of his hand, "are an anti-chameleon."
"I am an ant-eating what?"
"And anti-chameleon. The opposite of a chameleon," he explaine

"You", he said with a small gesture of his hand, "are an anti-chameleon."
"I am an ant-eating what?"
"And anti-chameleon. The opposite of a chameleon," he explained. "You change colors, yes. But when you are in sand, you fashion yourself a bight blue so that the sand knows that you are not part of it. When you are in water, you turn read so that everyone knows you are no liquid. Instead of blending in, you change so you stand out."
Jane swallowed hard.
"Well, Sebastian," Marshall said, turning back to his friend, what think you of that sort of adaption? What kind of creature tries to stand out from it's surroundings?"
Mr. Malheur frowned and rubbed his forehead as he considered the question. "Poisons ones," he finally said.

She would walk and smile, and nobody would know that she'd escaped the dreadful clutches of...of...
Not pirates. Not whalers. Not the czar of Russia.
"I've escaped the evil clutches of a nap", she announced to the road.

‘She was a blight. A poison. A pestilence. She was the enemy of all proper conversation. Grown men would rather be mauled to death by lions than converse with her.’

‘He'd started caring more about becoming the kind of person who could make a change than he cared about the change itself.’

‘...the great exesses had been slightly muted, changing her from utterly impossible to merly overly exuberant.

“When you keep quiet, people fill in their own most intelligent thoughts on your behalf.”

The Brother Sinister series by Courtney Milan. Four novels and three short novellas. (view spoiler)[


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The sly implication that Oliver didn’t belong, the even slyer one that he’d been subsumed into Bradenton’s goals instead of being a person in his own right…Bradenton reminded him of an old farmer, walking the perimeter of his property every day, testing the fences and peering suspiciously at this neighbors, making sure that his side and their side were clearly delineated.

The sly implication that Oliver didn’t belong, the even slyer one that he’d been subsumed into Bradenton’s goals instead of being a person in his own right…Bradenton reminded him of an old farmer, walking the perimeter of his property every day, testing the fences and peering suspiciously at this neighbors, making sure that his side and their side were clearly delineated.