The Heiress (13 page)

“What do you know of her?” Jamie snapped.

“She came to me as she knew you were with the Maidenhall estate. Poor ugly thing, her face all—” Axia took a breath. “Foolish girl, she thought you loved her. But you love only the Maidenhall gold, do you not?”

Jamie turned away so Axia could not see his face. That night with that girl haunted him. He seemed to remember the smell of her hair, the feel of her skin. “What has happened to her? I left money for her,” he said softly.

“Do you think I was going to send her to
your
family? I sent her to—”
Where?
Axia thought, then remembered she was supposed to be Frances. “I sent her to my family, to my father and sisters.” Now she watched Jamie's face carefully. Why couldn't he see that she was Diana? And what did he feel for her? Why was he so gentle to Diana and so harsh to Axia?

Taking a deep breath, Axia gave him her coldest look. “As for your sermon on my behavior, yes, I will stay away from you. But for Frances, she has been under my care for years, and as you can see, she has come to no harm. As for you, in truth, nothing will please me more than to forget that you are alive.” As she stepped past him, she moved her skirts aside. “To me, sir, you are dead.” With that she left the room.

Jamie collapsed onto the window seat. All his life he'd been blessed with having
no
problems with women. Really, none at all. His sister Joby, who plagued every other male she met, only amused Jamie, and when she did get too outrageous, he merely had to lift an eyebrow to bring her back into line. Berengaria was an angel. The queen, who gave so many problems to so many men, smiled at Jamie and danced with him.

It seemed that all over the world women smiled at him. But not this girl with the big brown eyes and hair that had to be the thickest, most luxurious, most—

“Hell and damnation!” he said, then purposefully touched his swollen eye so a shaft of pain shot through his face. She wasn't human! She'd tried to kill her more beautiful cousin, had made him and her cousin into a public freak show, had ridiculed him, taunted him, embarrassed him. The list never seemed to end.

And now she'd interfered with Diana, his sweet, funny Diana, who'd given him a wonderful gift.

“Damn her!” Jamie said aloud. All he'd wanted of her was her word of honor—if she knew what that meant—that she would behave on the journey. Why did she have to dramatize everything? And what did she mean that he was dead to her?

When the door opened and he saw Rhys, Jamie knew his time for reflection was over. Frances, he thought. He must think of Frances and what his family needed. It didn't help any that that brat Axia had said what Jamie felt, that he was courting the Maidenhall gold.

“The wagons are ready for your inspection.”

“Yes, of course,” Jamie said, rising. They would leave early in the morning, and there was much to see to. At the door, he paused. “Rhys, do you know anything about women?”

“Not a drop in the ocean,” he said pleasantly. “And if any man says he does, he's a liar.”

“Mmmm,” was all Jamie could say in agreement as he left the room.

T
hree days, Axia thought, stretching in the delicious sunshine. She was sitting on a little ridge, the wagons below and behind her. Before her was a field of wildflowers, a pretty little village in the distance. If she were a landscape painter, this is what she'd paint, but now she wanted to sit here alone and look at the world, or at least this tiny bit of it.

She'd had three days and two nights of freedom, of seeing something besides what was inside brick walls. There'd been villages with houses with the upper floor hanging over the street. There were shops full of goods she'd never seen before, such as religious relics and children's toys.

There was food: cream cakes, honey cakes, sugared currant buns. The Maidenhall cooks had been adequate, but none of them had ever been creative. When Axia saw a baker's shop with a loaf of bread in the front that had been shaped into a standing, roaring bear, a snarling dog before it, she nearly swooned with delight.

And Rhys had bought the loaf for her.
Dear Rhys,
she thought now. Both he and Thomas had been so kind and generous to her these last days.

After that horrible lecture by the traitor, James Montgomery, the day before they left, Axia had vowed never to speak to him again except when it could not be helped. And so far she'd not had to address a word to him. In the first wagon was Frances, her maid, Violet, and the driver, George. In the second wagon was Axia, Tode, and their driver, Roger. Jamie and his two men rode along on horseback.

From the first day the journey had been joyous to Axia. For the first half of that day she'd said not a word but had gasped at people and houses, at the rutted road, at dilapidated carts carrying goods. On the first afternoon they had stopped to water the horses, and there were three boys playing with a hoop. Another child held a wooden cup that had a ball attached to a string; the child was trying to bounce the ball into the cup. Curious, Axia went toward the children, and because she was small and not much older than they were, she was soon taking lessons from all four of them on hoops and ball bouncing. When Rhys came to fetch her, he informed all of them he was the champion ball bouncer and was soon trying to prove it. When Thomas came to fetch Rhys, Thomas said he could twirl a hoop the best of anyone in the world and started to show them. When Jamie came to get all of them, he found four children and three adults laughing hilariously and playing children's games. Smiling, Jamie went toward them, but Axia froze, handed the cup back to the child, and walked
away, her back stiff. And that abruptly ended the laughter.

After that day, Axia and Rhys and Thomas had become great friends, the men riding their horses on either side of her and answering all of Axia's questions. Tode liked to drive the wagon when there were no people near, so Roger went inside and slept. And the four of them made a merry group, laughing, telling riddles, trying to dredge up every children's game they could remember. Because Axia had spent the first several years of her life exclusively with adults, she had missed most childish activities. The first child Axia remembered seeing was Tode when he was already twelve and the second one was Frances, who had certainly never been any fun.

In the evenings she drew portraits. Each night they had pulled their wagons into a field, and under Axia's direction, the drivers had built a camp fire and hung the cast iron pot full of a stew made from meat purchased in the nearest village.

During the day Rhys and Thomas fed Axia. When the road passed through a village, one of the men would stop at the local bakery or sweet shop, the butcher's, or even the grog shop to see what he could find that perhaps Axia had not eaten or drunk before. At first they'd bought two of everything and had offered one to Frances; after all, she was the heiress, the one who'd been locked away all her life. But Frances looked at the men as though they were daft. “How can I eat that now?” she asked, annoyed. “My hands would be sticky.”

They never tried Frances again after the morning of the second day, but they delighted in feeding Axia anything they could find. And in the evening she rewarded them by sketching events of the day. It was as though her mind memorized everything she saw in perfect detail. There was Rhys reaching
for a bun, the baker's wife's spoon just about to come down on his hand. There was Thomas puzzling over a wooden toy and a little girl looking up at him in impatience because he could not figure the toy out. There was Tode driving the wagon, showing only the unscarred side of his face, and smiling. There was Roger asleep and snoring, a fly hovering over his lips.

“And what of Jamie?” Thomas asked softly, marveling at her drawings.

After a quick look at Jamie, standing some feet away, Axia dipped her pen into ink and sketched quickly. In minutes she showed the drawing. There was Frances's beautiful face, but her body was only a pile of bags of gold. Jamie leaned over her, his face leering, kissing her fingers that peeped out of the bags, his other hand behind his back holding a certificate of marriage.

No one meant to laugh. It was a hateful drawing and they knew it, but Roger the driver thought it was hilarious, and when he howled with laughter, so did the others.

And, of course, that was when Jamie chose to walk over to see what everyone was enjoying.

With a smug little smile, Axia handed him the drawing, even though Tode nearly fell into the fire as he tried to catch it before it reached Jamie's hands.

“So that is what you think of me,” he said before handing the drawing back to her, then walking away.

So now Axia was alone, enjoying her freedom, and it seemed that every part of her body was tingling. Leaning back on her arms, she put her head back and breathed deeply of the clear, cool air. How different this air felt than that inside the walls of
her father's estate.

Carpe diem,
she thought. Seize the day, and with each precious minute, her short time of freedom was ending. Three days were already gone, and it seemed that she had done very little except eat half of England. Throwing out her arms, she thought that she wanted to try more, to fly. “Yes,” she said aloud, “I want to fly. I want to …” Yes, what did she want most in the world?

“I want to prove that I am more than money,” she said to the wind. Ever since she was a child, she had been reminded constantly that she was the Maidenhall heiress. Frances never missed an opportunity. “If he likes you, then I am sure it is because of your money,” Frances had said a hundred times. “She is being nice to you because of your money.” Again and again, always her father's money!

“Am I not worth more than my father's gold?” she asked. “Why is it never questioned that no one wants anything except gold from me? Why—?”

She stopped because she heard Tode's whistle, his call that she was to come to him. Slowly, she went down the hill toward the wagons.

“What is she doing up there?” Jamie asked Tode, his voice showing his annoyance. “She is the strangest person I have ever met. One minute I hate her and the next I—”

“The next you are intrigued by her,” Tode finished for him, then saw Jamie give a reluctant nod of agreement. “Axia has been isolated all her life; she does not know the ways of the world. Everything is new to her.”

“As she has made abundantly clear as she makes fools of
my men,” he said tightly.

Tode shook his head. “I think that you will find Axia quite a, ah, useful person.”

“Ah yes, she does help about the camp.”

Tode smiled, something he rarely did because it made him look more grotesque than usual. “I think you will find Axia is a bit more useful than flavoring the stew. Axia is quite knowledgeable about money.”

Jamie gave a snort of disbelief. “Only a fool would allow that brainless harridan to touch his money.”

“Blood will tell.”

“What did you say?” Jamie asked quickly.

Tode cleared his throat. “I said that only time will tell.”

Jamie grimaced and walked away, but Tode's words affected him. Unfortunately, yes, he
was
intrigued by Axia. And it was true, she was unlike anyone he'd ever met. First of all, she seemed to have no understanding of the class system. Her relationship with a man as rich as Maidenhall would naturally give her some rights, but Axia didn't seem to understand this. Whereas Frances seemed to thoroughly understand her place as the leading actress in a play, Axia just seemed to do what needed to be done, whether it was washing dishes in a stream or helping Frances find a ring she'd misplaced.

What Axia did, he thought, was make everyone's life easier. The first night they had camped he'd found the three servants going about their duties silently and efficiently. In his experience new servants stood about scratching themselves until someone told them exactly what their duties were. Upon questioning, he found that Axia had given them instructions before they'd halted for the night.

At first he'd resented her presumption. She wasn't going to control
him
as she did poor Frances, he'd vowed. But then he'd found the rabbit stew flavored with wild thyme Axia had gathered during the midday halt, and there was always fresh bread for supper, so he forgot about “control.”

And the oddest thing was the way she took care of Frances. From what Jamie had seen and heard, he'd feared that Axia would creep into Frances's wagon at night to do her harm, but it was quite the opposite. Axia directed Frances's maid about what Frances liked to wear, to eat, even to how she liked her bedding arranged. Jamie would have thought Axia was an excellent lady-in-waiting except for the frequent barbs sent in Frances's direction.

All in all, after three days it was becoming more and more difficult to reconcile what he knew about Axia and what he saw. And what he heard. Already, the camp was beginning to echo with, “Ask Axia.” She seemed to know where everything in the wagons was stored, knew that Rhys liked dark meat and Thomas, white. When bread was bought, she insisted on caraway buns for Frances. And Tode! Princes of the realm had not been treated with as much attention as Axia routinely and efficiently gave to him.

The only person she neglected was Jamie. Although Axia saw to the setting up of the tent Rhys and Thomas shared, Jamie had to direct—each night— that his tent be erected. Each morning Axia took a little brush to the clothes of the other men, but Jamie had the same dirt on him for days. She drew pictures of the others, even Frances, but Jamie might as well have stayed behind for all the notice she took of him.

And heaven help him, but her neglect of him made him
unable to take his eyes off her. There was no rational thought behind his feeling, of course, but he noticed everything she did for the others and resented everything she did not do for him.