The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan Page A

it. May I introduce Sebastian Malheur, my friend and cousin.
He won’t assume you’re as dreadful as rumor says, so long as you
give him the same credit.”
    Jane opened her mouth to agree. She almost
did, before she realized what he’d said—and what she’d almost
assented to. She had to physically yank her hand behind her back to
keep from offering it in friendship.
    “What are you talking about?” Her voice
sounded far too high. “I haven’t got a dreadful reputation. And
Malheur—isn’t he some kind of evolutionist? I have heard that his
lectures are entirely wild.”
    “I’d planned to call the work I’m preparing
now ‘Orgies of the Peppered Moth,’” Mr. Malheur said brightly.
“It’s a series of heated interrogations of winged insects,
completely unclothed, doing nothing but—”
    Mr. Marshall jabbed his friend with an
elbow.
    “What? Have you got some sort of vendetta
against moth-on-moth—”
    “Really, Sebastian.”
    His friend shrugged and then looked back at
Jane. “Only one way to find out,” he said. “Come to my next lecture
in a handful of months. I’ll start off with snapdragons and peas.
Nobody can object to a discussion of plant reproduction. If they
did, we’d require flowers to don petticoats instead of wandering
around, showing their reproductive parts to all and sundry.”
    Jane choked back a laugh. But Mr. Marshall
was watching her, a quizzical expression on his face.
    She swallowed and looked away.
    “Miss Fairfield,” Mr. Marshall said, “are you
familiar with chameleons?”
    “I dare say I was just reading about those,”
Jane said officiously, trying to regain her balance. “Those are a
species of flower?”
    Mr. Marshall didn’t even twitch at that, and
that made Jane feel all the more uneasy. He was supposed to smile
at her. Better yet, he was supposed to sneer.
    “Or maybe it was a hat,” she added.
    Not so much as a curl of his lip.
    “The chameleon,” Mr. Marshall said, “is a
species of lizard. It changes its coloration so that it hides in
its surroundings. When it darts across the sand, it is
sand-colored. When it slips through the forest, it is
tree-colored.”
    His eyes were the color of an unforgiving
winter sky, and Jane shifted uneasily in her tracks. “What a
curious creature.”
    “You,” he said, with a small gesture of his
hand, “are an anti-chameleon.”
    “I am an ant-eating what?”
    “An anti-chameleon. The opposite of a
chameleon,” he explained. “You change your colors, yes. But when
you are in sand, you fashion yourself a bright blue so that the
sand knows you are not a part of it. When you are in water, you
turn red so that everyone knows you are not liquid. Instead of
blending in, you change so that you stand out.”
    Jane swallowed hard.
    “Well, Sebastian,” Marshall said, turning
back to his friend, “what think you of that sort of adaptation?
What kind of creature tries to stand out from its
surroundings?”
    Mr. Malheur frowned and rubbed his forehead
as he considered the question. “Poisonous ones,” he finally said.
“Butterflies do it all the time. They are brightly colored so that
birds cannot confuse them with other creatures. ‘Don’t eat me,’ the
color shouts. ‘I’ll make you vomit.’” He frowned as he said this.
“But one ought not apply the principles of evolution to human
behavior. Individual choice is not the product of evolution.”
    And yet the comparison was all too apt. That
was precisely what Jane intended, even if she’d never thought of it
that way. She did want everyone to notice her—and she wanted
them to think her poisonous.
    “Well, then, Miss Fairfield. You have it
yourself, from Mr. Malheur’s mouth.” He gestured at his friend. “We
can conclude nothing.”
    “Mr. Cromwell…”
    Mr. Marshall held up a hand, cutting her off.
That frisson went through her again, tingling at the base of her
spine.
    “It’s Mr. Marshall,” he said quietly. “But I
think you’re clever