The Heiress (27 page)

“But you want to, don't you?”

Jamie sat down on the chair to remove his leggings. “Are you jealous?”

“No, of course not. I have never been jealous of Frances.”

Turning away from him, she put her hands behind her head. “I was merely curious, 'tis all. Someday I shall have a husband, and I would like to know what to expect.” She looked back at him. “Is it wonderful?” As she asked the question, her mind filled with memories of her night with Jamie, his arms about her, his lips on her body.

Please remember me,
she wanted to say.
Remember that I am the woman you made love to. Or was that night no different from a thousand others, and so it meant nothing to you?

“Do not look at me like that, Axia,” Jamie whispered.

“Like what?” she said, and all her thoughts were in her voice.

For a moment, Jamie closed his eyes as though he were trying to gather his strength. “Axia, I am only human and you are …”

“What am I, Jamie?”

“Beautiful,” he said, then snatched a blanket from the bed, tossed it to the floor, and, like the soldier he was, rolled himself in it and turned away from her.

For several minutes, Axia lay staring up at the ceiling and smiling. “Beautiful,” she whispered. She wanted to stay that way forever, dreamy, enjoying what had just been said to her, feeling how nice it was to hear Jamie's soft breathing so near her. He did not snore, she thought, smiling to herself. But then she wasn't sure she'd mind if he did.

Moments later she was asleep.

“Please, Jamie,” she said, looking up at him with big eyes. “Please.” They were sitting in the dining room of the tavern, an enormous breakfast spread before them.

“Do not look at me like that and do not call me Jamie like that.”

“Do not call you Jamie? Oh, so now I am to call you
Lord
Jamie? After we spent the night together?”

That made him laugh as she'd meant it to. “You know very well that I never touched you, in spite of you, daughter of Eve, trying to entice me into your bed.”

“I did no such thing!” she sputtered. “I merely asked you some questions.”

“Mmmm. Now eat, so we can go.”

“I'm not going to get on that creature-from-hell again,” she said stubbornly.

“You are going to ride. You'll find that you're not nearly as sore as you—” He couldn't finish that sentence with a straight face because he'd had to help her down the stairs this morning, and she'd groaned with every step. “Well, it's not far now, and you will love my aunt. She will take very good care of you.”

“I want to go with
you.”

“We have been through this six times this morning. You cannot travel with me as I do not know where I am going. All I know is that a message is to be sent to me at my uncle's house, and I will then be told who has Frances and how much money is wanted for her. At that time I will go wherever I must.”

“Without me,” Axia said sulkily.

“Yes. Without you.” He put his hand on hers. “You will be happy there. My aunt is lovely. She will—will entertain you.
You can draw pictures for her.”

“Strangers. They are strangers to me.
Why
can't I go with you? Frances is
my
cousin, remember.”

“Axia, listen, I will have to move fast. You can't stay on a horse, and most of all, this may be dangerous. Whoever has Frances may—” Looking away, he didn't want to think on that. “This will be no place for you. You will be a hindrance.”

Axia toyed with the food on her plate. She hated the idea of being left behind, surrounded by strangers. Alone among strangers—it was her worst nightmare. And, truthfully, she hated the idea of being separated from Jamie. First losing Tode and now Jamie. She had not known Jamie for long, but now, sneaking a look at him while he ate, he seemed to have always been with her.

“Eat!” he commanded.

Axia started to say something, but a man's voice interrupted her. “It
is
you,” the man said, looking at Jamie. “I thought it was last night, but I wasn't sure.”

“And who may I ask do you think I am?” Jamie asked as he took a drink of his ale.

“The man on the wagon. The dragonslayer.”

Jamie nearly choked. “You've seen the wagon?” he gasped out. “When? Where?”

“Heading due south.”

“But that can't be,” he said. “I was told—” With a quick glance at Axia, he saw that she was thinking what he was. Lies. The message had said Jamie was to go west to his uncle's and wait there, but if the wagon was going south, they were getting farther away from it, not closer.

“Did you see who was driving it?” Jamie asked.

“Sure. A big man. And the woman was with him, you know, the lovely woman on the wagon. We were laughing because the man was no looker, but in the painting he'd been made handsome. That was the best painting I ever saw, and do you know that the lady herself painted it? She told us all about how she painted it.”

“I
painted that wagon,” Axia said. “Frances couldn't—”

Jamie put a strong hand on her shoulder, and painfully, Axia sat back down.

“We have been searching for those people,” Jamie said quietly, “and we'd appreciate whatever you could tell us.”

“You really did paint that wagon?” the man asked, looking at Axia.

Jamie took a deep breath. “She will draw a portrait of you and your friend if you will tell me all you know.” When the man kept looking at Axia, Jamie added, “As a knight. She'll draw you as a knight in full armor.”

“Saw it two days ago,” the man said quickly. “It must be long gone by now.”

“What of the woman? Was she well? Unhurt in any way?”

“Well enough to lie,” Axia muttered.

“Looked good to me. She seemed right pleasant. They was stopped by the road for the night, and the man was waitin' on her like she was the queen of England.”

“Now I am
sure
it is Frances,” Axia said.

Under the table, Jamie gave her a little kick to tell her to be quiet. “What was the man like? Other than big, what did he
look
like?”

The man shrugged. “Nothing remarkable. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Not much to look at, but not ugly either. I don't think I'd remember him if I saw him again.”

Frustrated, Jamie slumped against the bench. He still didn't know much more now than he had before.

“Except his ear,” said another man who'd just walked up.

“Oh yes,” the first man said, “he had half an ear. The top half was missing.”

For a moment, Jamie just sat there, then he grinned, then he put his head back and laughed. Laughed wildly while everyone in the inn stared at him.

When Jamie could at last control himself, he managed to say, “Henry Oliver,” as though that should mean something.

Jamie managed to collect himself long enough to thank the two men who had given him this very welcome information, then when they were gone, he turned back to his breakfast.

It took Axia a while to realize that he had no intention of explaining anything to her. “You are going to tell me nothing?” she gasped.

When he looked at her and smiled slowly, she knew he was well aware of her impatience.

“Tell me!” she hissed.

“Henry Oliver is harmless. Frances could not be in better hands. He will see that she is unhurt.”

“But he has kidnapped her. Surely there is some harm in that. He must want a ransom from the—” She looked about to make sure no one was listening. “From the Maidenhall heiress.”

“Henry cares nothing about money. He did this out of love.”

“He
loves
Frances?” Axia sounded as though this were the
most unbelievable thing she'd ever heard in her life.

“No, he loves my sister Berengaria. Since we were all children, he has been trying to get permission to marry her.”

“But you would not allow them to marry?”

“Oliver is stupid.”

“Ah, well, then he should love Frances. Kindred souls.”

“No, no, you do not understand. Oliver is genuinely, truly stupid. He believes anything anyone tells him, such as that money is found in caves in Africa. When we were children and playing hide-and-seek, he would hide by closing his eyes. He believed that if he could see no one, no one could see him.”

Axia had had too much of being the object of speculation. “But surely he has grown out of that. Perhaps now that he is an adult …”

Jamie looked at her with one eyebrow raised. “Last year he had a stone grain crib with a big hole in a wall, and rats kept getting in and taking the grain. So Oliver tore down the crib and burned the grain to keep the rats from getting it.”

“But why didn't he just patch the hole?” she asked, then paused. “Oh, I see.” Axia sipped her ale. “Would he like to buy some dragon cloth?”

Jamie laughed. “Oddly enough, he's not a bad businessman. When he makes up his mind, nothing on earth can sway him. There's no way a person can reason with him; there is no ‘appealing to his finer sensibilities,' so to speak. He makes up his mind about what he wants and what he will pay, and nothing in the world makes him change.”

“And now he wants your sister.”

“Always has, and knowing Oliver, he'll probably die wanting
her.”

“But he'll die without her, I guess.”

“As long as
I
live he'll never have her,” Jamie said fiercely.

“And she is
very
beautiful, is she not? The maid said that Oliver said Frances was the second most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.”

“Yes, Berengaria is beautiful.” Jamie smiled. “Henry Oliver will take care of her and give Frances the best of everything. He hasn't a mean bone in his body. My brother, Edward, used to play endless tricks on him, but Oliver never resented him or got angry. Oliver thought Edward liked him because he paid him so much attention.”

Axia grimaced. “I know too well that someone paying attention to you doesn't mean that he
likes
you.” As she said this, she gave Jamie her best sigh, trying to make him tell her that he liked her very much.

But Jamie only winked at her.

Two hours later, after she had drawn pictures of every man in the inn, Jamie said, “We should go.”

“Go where?” she demanded, stowing away her pens, which he had indeed packed.

“Henry will have taken Frances to his home, which is very near my home, so I am going there to get Frances. But first I am going to take you to my aunt, and please, Axia, do not argue more with me. I have decided.”

“True, and I am sure there is no appealing to
your
finer sensibilities.”

“None at all.”

“But
why
cannot I go with you? Especially now that you
know that it is only your Henry Oliver. You said there is no danger. Oh, please, Jamie, I will cause you no trouble at all.”

“You would cause me trouble even if you slept the whole trip. Axia, do not look at me like that. You must know that it is not seemly for us to travel together alone. Your guardian, Maidenhall, has given you to me in trust. How will it seem if we have been traveling all over England together, just the two of us? Last night was bad enough, both of us sharing the same room.”

“Maidenhall need not worry about
you
touching
me,”
she said in disgust. “You are only interested in Frances.”

At that Jamie took her hand and kissed the back of it. “There, my dear, you are mistaken,” he said softly. “If I were free and had no need of making an advantageous marriage, I would court you so hard you would think a mountain had fallen on you. Landlord! Our bill please.”

Axia was staring at Jamie with wide eyes. “Would you?” she whispered, but he was too busy handing out coins to the landlord to notice her. So Axia turned her mind to figuring out what to say to persuade him to take her with him.

“If I go with you, it will save you much time,” had no effect on him. Eyes full of tears and telling him that she did not want to stay with strangers did not move him. Telling him that she was afraid that Perkin Maidenhall would show up and take out his wrath on her didn't make him so much as blink. Threatening to escape and return to the waiting arms of Lachlan Teversham only made him laugh. Telling him she'd tie the bedsheets together and escape out the window of his uncle's house made him laugh harder.

It wasn't until the horses were standing waiting and he was about to toss her into the hated saddle that she realized she was indeed going to be stuck with an old man and woman who she was sure would prove horribly boring. There was no adventure in spending her days behind a sewing frame.

Standing at the side of the horse, she gave a great sigh, the force of which almost turned her lungs inside out. “I guess there is no hope that this aunt of yours has children that I can play with.”

Jamie snorted. “All of them grown.”

“Grandchildren?”

He had his hands cupped to help her onto the waiting horse. “No,” he said impatiently. “Aunt Mary has six grown sons, none of them married.”

“Oh?” Axia said, and for the first time, she thought that perhaps visiting his aunt Mary might not be so boring after all. She put her foot into Jamie's waiting hands, but he didn't lift her onto the horse. When she looked at him to see why, he had the oddest expression on his face.

“Jamie?” she asked. “Are you all right?” When he didn't answer, she said louder, “Jamie!?”

“You are going with me,” he said quickly, then tossed her into the saddle so fast and with so much force that she nearly went over the other side.

It didn't take Axia half a second to add up the facts. “No,” she said with resolution, “I think you are right. I
should
go to your aunt's house.”