The Heiress (14 page)

For the first time in his life, Jamie found himself trying to get the attention of a woman. And with Axia, he thought with half a smile, giving attention to Frances seemed to be the most certain way of getting Axia's attention.

An hour later, sitting around the campfire, Jamie turned to Frances, and smiling, he said lightly, meaning to tease her, “I wonder if the Maidenhall heiress looks like Perkin Maidenhall?”

Frances was so lost in thought that she did not think what she was saying, so her voice was sarcastic. “How would she know what he looks like? She's never met her father.”

Immediately, a deep silence descended around the fire, and Frances frantically tried to cover her error. “I mean that I have never met my father.”

“Never met your father?” Rhys asked. “Not once?”

Frances looked down at her plate to keep people from seeing her shining eyes. It had annoyed her that this man Rhys had ignored her since he had met her and given all his attention to Axia. There had been that one morning when he'd offered her some disgusting sweet as though she were a child, but since then he had not looked at her.

When Frances looked up, her eyes were sad. “It is true, he writes letters and sends messengers, but he has never come to me in person.”

Jamie could not help frowning as he looked in sympathy at Frances—as everyone was looking in sympathy at Frances.

“I have always envied others for having a family, as I have
had no mother or father,” Frances said as she looked across the fire. “The only family I have had is Axia. And Tode, of course.”

At that Axia opened her mouth to speak, but Tode put his hand on her arm and gave her a look that said that she was the one who had wanted to play this game.

Axia did not like anyone disparaging her father. Whatever he did, she was sure he had reasons for his behavior. If she did not know what they were, that was her problem, not his. “The Maidenhall heiress has had other things in life to compensate her.”

“Such as love?” Frances snapped, then she turned to Jamie, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “I do not ask for sympathy, but the cousin has never even given the heiress a Christmas gift, but the heiress always gives the cousin a gift. Is that not true, Axia? Tode?
You
can swear that what I say is true, can you not?” She looked directly at Tode.

“Yes, Frances, you are right,” he said coldly. “The cousin has never given the heiress anything. Nor has she ever shown gratitude for all the heiress has given her.”

Axia could now feel all eyes upon herself and realized she needed to defend herself. Or was it now Frances she was defending? She seemed to have lost track. “Perhaps the cousin could not afford a gift for the heiress. What could she give the daughter of the richest man in England?” It was what Frances had said to Axia a thousand times.

To Axia's disbelief, Frances began to laugh. “No money! Why Axia, you are the richest person on the estate.”

Confused, Axia could not say a word. Was Frances now going to tell everyone the truth?

Frances turned to Jamie, still laughing. “You have never seen anything like her. What do you think she did with the apples in the orchard? The berries? She sent them into the village to be sold, that's what!” Pausing for effect, she looked hard at Jamie. “Axia cut every flower on the estate to try to make perfume out of them. I tell you, she has the heart and soul of a greedy little merchant. She is no lady!!”

Calmly, Axia put her plate to the ground, then stood. “Frances, I'd rather eat a mouthful of needles than spend another minute in your company,” she said before walking off into the darkness.

When Frances looked back at the group in triumph, not one person was smiling at her and she couldn't understand why. James Montgomery was an
earl
and hadn't he said the word
tradesman
with disgust? She had seen how offended he'd been when he'd seen the way the wagon had been painted. He hated the lower classes, the merchants, didn't he?

It was Thomas who spoke first. Standing, he stretched and said he thought he would go to bed so they could get an early start in the morning, and minutes later, Rhys said the same thing.

When she was left alone with Jamie, Frances put her hands over her face and said softly, “They do not like me. I know they do not.”

Jamie knelt before her; he hated to see anything female cry. “of course they do. I am sure they like you very much.”

“No, they like Axia. Since I was thirteen years old, everyone has
liked
Axia better than they liked me. You cannot imagine what my life has been like. My father imprisoned me and kept me away from all the world, and people only care about my
money, nothing else.”

“Like me?” he asked softly. “You know that I have had every intention of marrying your father's gold.”

Lightly, she clasped her hands behind his neck, her face very close to his. “Is it truly only my father's gold that you care about? Do you not find me even a bit attractive?”

“Yes, of course,” he said and moved his lips close to hers to kiss her.

But his lips did not reach hers because Axia kicked at a burning branch so hard it went flying through the air and landed on the ground near Jamie's leg, where it promptly set the edge of his doublet on fire.

All hell broke out as Tode and one of the drivers helped put out Jamie's burning clothing, with Rhys and Thomas leaping out of the tents, swords drawn.

When at last he was safe, unharmed, Jamie, shaking with rage, looked down at Axia.

“So sorry,” she said, smiling at him. “I must have kicked a bit too hard. I hope I did not disturb your courting of my rich cousin.”

“Axia,” Frances said under her breath, “I will get you for this.”

Jamie was beginning to recover his power of speech. “Tonight you sleep in my tent with me. I will watch that you do nothing else to harm anyone.”

She smiled at him. “I'd rather spend a week buried up to my neck in horse manure than spend one night in the same tent with you.”

Jamie took a step toward her, but Tode put his body between them. “I will watch over her and protect her.”

“Protect her?” Jamie gasped. “And who will protect
us
from
her?”

“I am not hurt,” Rhys said. “Are you injured, Thomas?”

Thomas gave a tiny one-sided grin. His own father was a merchant, what Frances the heiress had referred to with so much disgust, so he wanted to take Axia's side. “I am not injured in any way. Perhaps only one man in this company has been injured by this daughter-of-a-merchant.”

Blinking, Axia looked up at the two men with love in her eyes.

Jamie threw up his hands. “Go to bed all of you. I do not care where anyone sleeps.”

And with that they dispersed for the night into two tents and two wagons.

W
ake up,” Axia whispered to Tode. He was sleeping under the painted wagon, next to the driver Roger, while Axia had the interior to herself. She had a bed on top of the bolts of cloth they'd stored there as part of their disguise.

Sleepily, Tode roused himself. “Axia, it is not daylight yet. Nor will it be for hours by the look of it. Go back to bed.”

“Where are all these wagons going?”

With half-closed eyes Tode looked at the many wagons slowly making their way down the road but a few yards from their camp. “I do not know. I have never been here before. Go to bed.”

“If you do not tell me, I will ask
them.”
Meaning that she would cause a commotion and wake up the entire camp, then no one would get any sleep.

“I would assume it is market day in this village, and they are going to sell their wares,” he answered, then lay back down again.

Standing, Axia looked at the wagons. Market day! She'd always wanted to see market day in a village. What Frances had said so nastily was true: Axia did send produce to the village, and afterward she asked hundreds of questions of the vendor.

Bending, she shook Tode awake again. “Get up. We are going to the market.”

“I …” Tode began, frowning.

She knew what his worry was. He did not like to be seen by people. “Oh, do not fret. You will stand inside the wagon, and no one will see you.”

Slowly, painfully, he crawled out from under the wagon. “You cannot do this. He will be very angry.”

“He
already hates me, so what does it matter?”

“Axia …” Tode began in warning.

“Please,” she whispered. “You know what awaits me. Do you think my new husband will allow me to attend the village market day? Or will he exhibit me like a freak? The Maidenhall heiress!” She said the last as though it were something vile and dirty.

The words
exhibit
and
freak
made Tode agree. “But he will hear and—”

“Not over the noise of the other wagons. Oh, Tode, please. I cannot allow this man to lock me away from all life. Maybe he will hear, but at least we can
try.”

Tode grinned, something he did only with Axia. “We can try to seize the day, can we not?”

On impulse, she threw her arms around his neck and gave him a quick, fierce hug. “Thank you so much.”

Axia didn't spare the time to see the way her hug had affected Tode but scrambled under the wagon to wake Roger and try to silently escape the everwatchful eyes of James Montgomery.

“She has gone,” Jamie said under his breath. His anger would not allow him to speak out loud, or he'd bellow so the stars would fall from the sky.

Rhys, just crawling out of his tent, looked at the place where the big painted wagon had been last night. Over the last days he'd grown to like the firebreathing dragon and the lion that Jamie—a still nearly nude Jamie—was ready to slay. Under normal circumstances, he would have worried, would have suspected a kidnapping, but now he knew without a doubt that if there was a domestic problem, Axia would solve it. Yawning, he wondered what delicious thing she'd bring back for supper.

“Wonder where she has taken it?” Thomas asked as he looked about as though the big wagon might be hiding behind a rock.

Only Jamie was in a rage. “I see that neither of you think there has been foul play.”

“She is with Tode,” Thomas said. “He will see that she is safe. And I am sure she will return soon.”

Jamie looked at the two men as though they had lost their minds. They did not seem overly concerned that he had been commissioned to get the heiress safely to her fiancé. But this—this Axia thwarted him at every opportunity. “She must be
found.” Turning to the maid who was laying out bread and cheese on the little table from Jamie's tent, he said, “You must wake your mistress as—”

He broke off because Frances came slowly out of the wagon, and insignificantly, he thought that she did not look so beautiful first thing in the morning. “She has stolen a wagon and gone,” Jamie said, not explaining who “she” was. “And I must find her and bring her back.”

Frances did not like the early morning and especially did not like being confronted with Axia's misdeeds the first thing of the day. “She has taken the wagon into the village,” she said, reaching for a mug of cider from her maid. Her gown was wrinkled, and she was annoyed with Axia for not having seen that it was properly packed.

Jamie was too busy saddling his horse and too angry to hear her, but Rhys and Thomas, hands full of bread and cheese, turned to look at her. “Why did she want to go into the village?” Thomas asked.

“To make a penny, of course,” Frances answered.

When all three men looked at her in consternation, her lips tightened. When did she become Axia's keeper? Nodding toward the people on the road a few yards away, all of them walking or riding toward the village in the near distance, she said, “There is a merchant's fair, is there not? And money is exchanging hands?” Her voice was sarcastic. “If there is money to be made, then
that
is where Axia is.” She looked up at Jamie, her eyes narrowed. “I told you she had the heart and soul of a greedy little—”

She didn't finish the sentence because Jamie had mounted
his horse and was lost in a cloud of dust as he thundered toward the village.

As Jamie rode, he thought that he wasn't sure he believed Frances. Why would a gift who lived with the Maidenhall heiress want to go into a country village on market day? And even though he remembered Tode's words about Axia being good with money, he didn't believe that termagant was good at anything except drawing pictures. How could she be when she'd been locked away all her life?

No, he corrected himself, it was Frances who had been locked away. Axia had a father and sisters and had lived with them half her life and now visited them regularly.

“Have you seen a wagon with—?” Jamie started to ask as soon as he reached the outskirts of the village, but he broke off when someone pointed and said, “It's him. The dragonslayer. The lion killer. It's
him!”

Jamie, teeth gritted, reined his horse away from the man and into the crowd of people. Obviously, she was here and people had seen his picture on the side of that odious wagon.

Always, it seemed that Axia had the ability to humiliate him. For twenty-eight years he had conducted himself with dignity and pride, but since he had met her, his life had become a farce. “A Greek tragedy,” he said under his breath as he wove his horse through what seemed to be a few hundred people who were buying, trading, bartering, or just visiting each other.

“Dragonslayer!” he heard called out more than once. Cynically, he wondered how they recognized him, what with the scratches still visible on his cheeks and one of his eyes still bruised.

Toward one end of the town was a large crowd of people, and just above their heads he could see the colors of Axia's painted wagon. And, believe it or not, he could hear Axia's voice. How could such a small female be so loud?