The Heiress Read online

  “Wait!” Rhys said, coming around the tables to join the group in the middle of the room. “I have some land from my father. I am not rich, but I too would like to marry you. If you will consider me.”

  “Like hell you will,” Lachlan said as he reached for Axia.

  But Jamie was faster than either man as he shoved Axia behind him. “This girl is under my protection and I must—”

  “I am not under his protection. He didn’t even want me to come on this journey. His only duty is to get the Mai—er, ah, Frances to her beloved fiancé. Besides, he’s trying to marry Frances himself.”

  At that everyone turned to Frances, who was eating and doing her best to ignore all of them. Wherever Axia was, she managed to pull the attention onto herself. Frances would very much like to get rid of Axia. If Axia married this man Lachlan, who Frances had already discovered had no title and whose sons had the manners of wolf cubs, then Frances would be alone with Jamie.

  “You forget, dear cousin,” Frances said sweetly, “that your father left you in my care. And I give permission for you to marry either of these men. Now. Today, if you’d like.” She gave her most beautiful smile to her cousin.

  Wonder what’s wrong with him? Axia thought, looking up at Lachlan. Frances was as anxious to marry and find herself a home as she, Axia, was, so what was wrong with this Lachlan? It never occurred to Axia that Lachlan had not first asked Frances to marry him and been turned down.

  But the truth was that Lachlan had been widowed for two years now, and he’d had several opportunities to marry, but he wanted more in a woman than just a pretty face. He needed a woman who could control his unruly, headstrong boys, and he wanted wine without sand in it. He’d been raised with a strong mother and had thought he wanted a dainty wife so he’d married a fragile flower of a woman. But ten years of nursing an invalid had made him want a second wife with a whip in one hand and a crossbow in the other. He was sure it was the only thing that could control those boys of his.

  Lachlan went to one knee, making his head level with Axia’s. “Marry me. What is mine is yours. Come, boys!” he commanded. “Beg this sweet lady to be your new mother.”

  The boys had no idea what was going on, but they knew better than to disobey a direct order from their father. Usually, he didn’t pay much attention to what they were doing, but when he did give an order, they obeyed. Flinging themselves on Axia, they wrapped their strong young arms about her waist, her thighs, her hips. “Please,” they cried. “Please be our mother.”

  Axia was delighted. Touching other humans was something so wonderful, so delicious, and these beautiful boys—

  Jamie put a stop to that though.

  With his hands firmly on her shoulders, he extricated her from the clutching children, then turned her toward the stairs and pushed her up the first steps, all the while hissing in her ear. “Do you forget that this is supposed to be a secret enterprise? I do not want the world to discover who your cousin is.”

  “And how has my marriage anything to do with the secrecy of your marriage? You could leave me here with your dear, handsome friend, and it would not matter one way or the other.” Oh, but she liked the anger in his voice. Could it be jealousy? But then, how could it be when he was engaged to marry someone else? “Or do you think I should marry Rhys? They are both handsome men, are they not? But if I were like you, I would go with the one with the most money and forget feelings.” She paused on the stairs. “Which man do you think I should marry?”

  “Neither!” he said emphatically. “I’m to take you to your—”

  “My what? To my intended?” She smiled at him smugly. “As you said, there is no reason for me to go with you.”

  “You are Frances’s companion.”

  At that, Axia laughed with such good nature at the ridiculousness of his statement that Jamie also smiled, but only for a second. “You are under my care and that is that. Until I have received instructions from Maidenhall, you will be allowed to do nothing except what I say. Certainly, you are to marry no man.” Turning her around, he made her continue up the stairs.

  “Yet Frances can marry someone other than the one chosen for her by her father. Is that true? She is engaged, but she is still free to choose. I am engaged to no one, but I am not free to choose. Do I have my facts right?”

  “You ask too many questions. Perhaps Maidenhall will not agree to your marriage. If you are related to him and your father is dead, then you must be his ward and he has the right to decide your future. And I might remind you that I am not yet married to Frances.”

  “Is there hope in your voice that you may yet be saved? Or do you crave the beauteous Frances in your bed?”

  “What do you know of beds?” he asked, sounding like a prim old lady as he opened the door to the room that had been assigned to her. Inside were three men with heavy buckets of hot water, and they were filling a big wooden tub for her.

  “More than you think,” she said, trying to sound mysterious, then she saw the tub of hot water and knew without a doubt that he was responsible for this great luxury. “Oh, Jamie,” she whispered, feeling every bit of her cold, clammy skin and her dirty dress and hair.

  When she turned to look up at him, he was smiling in a way that made him so handsome she had to take hold of the bedpost to keep from falling. It wasn’t the smile she’d seen him give to women when he was flirting with them, but it was a little-boy smile of happiness filled with delight that he had pleased her. He looked like the young son who presented his mother with the broken and crushed head of a flower and his mother had told him she loved him best in the world.

  “I thought you might like to take a bath,” he said hesitantly. “But if you’d rather not …”

  Knowing that what he wanted was more praise, she said, “Pearls could not have pleased me more.” The sincerity of her words made him almost blush with pleasure. “I shall soak until my skin peels off. Oh, please tell them to make the water very hot.” She had seen Frances do this, ask a man to give an order that she could very well do herself, and it never failed to please the men. To her utter amazement, she watched as Jamie told the servants how to adjust her bath water. “I shall wash my hair,” she said in a voice that told how much she looked forward to that treat.

  Jamie nodded toward the side of the bath. “Camomile soap and a rosemary rinse water. I hope it is all right.”

  “Yes,” she said, looking up at him. She didn’t know what would have happened if the men had not at that moment announced that the bath was ready. But they did, and the moment was gone.

  “I will leave you then,” Jamie said, giving her a weak smile before he left the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

  For a moment, Axia whirled about the room. Oh,how lovely freedom is, she thought. Two men had asked her to marry them and now Jamie was—was … Well, she didn’t know what he was up to, but she was certainly enjoying it.

  In the next instant, she peeled off her clothes, her undergarments still wet, and gingerly stepped into the very hot bath water. As the warmth soaked into her skin, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

  “He sent the letter!” Frances nearly shouted at Axia as she lay back in the big wooden tub full of hot water. “Did you hear me? He sent the letter.”

  Because Axia had not slept all night, the hot water had soothed her into a delicious and much-needed sleep. “Who sent what letter?” she asked tiredly. She did, of course, know who the “he” was, but not what letter. Now that Frances had ruined her bath, Axia began to soap her hair.

  Frances plopped down on a stool at the foot of the bed. “The letter to your father. Lord James sent a letter to him asking to marry his daughter, Frances. Not you. Frances. Me.”

  Axia was so tired that it took her a moment to comprehend. Then her eyes opened in horror. “Jamie sent a letter to my father?” she whispered. Putting her hand to her forehead, she tried to think. After Frances had so proudly announced that she and Jamie were to be secretly married, Ax