The Heiress Read online

  “Is this true? Am I in danger?”

  “Only from your own imagination,” Axia snapped. “Yes, you will be kidnapped, in secret, of course, and Jamie will go after you.”

  “And you?” Frances asked archly. “While I am being bruised in a wagon, what will you be doing? Sitting in hot baths? Eating stuffed peacock?”

  “What does it matter to you if you are alone with your beloved James? I will …” She couldn’t think what she would do, for surely the letter identifying Frances as the heiress would make her father send someone who could identify Axia as his daughter. Or would he send Jamie a written description? “My daughter is the ugly one,” her father would write. “How could you have confused Frances with my plain, insignificant daughter?”

  Now, Axia looked at Frances, and the early morning sunlight creeping in between the shutters in the room touched Frances’s perfect cheek so it looked as though her skin were made from peaches. Her dress was bright blue satin trimmed in black, and Axia knew to the farthing how much it had cost. For herself, she never wore such gorgeous clothes, as it seemed that to adorn herself so was to put diamonds on a donkey. No matter how you dressed it up, it was still just a plain little donkey.

  “I hate it when you look at me like that,” Frances said. “You aren’t planning something horrible for me, are you? You and that dreadful Tode?”

  “Frances,” she said patiently, “you got us into this. I had nothing to do with it, but as always, I will be the one who has to repair the damage.” And bear the consequences, she thought, but she wasn’t going to let Frances see her growing misery. “I will get Tode to take you away, then Jamie will follow you. He will tell everyone here that you were called away to home, but he will know the truth, and he will go flying out of here, his men behind him in pursuit of you. Therefore, when my father’s men come they will—”

  Frances looked at her cousin. “They will take you,” she said softly.

  Axia turned away so that Frances could not see her face. “It does not matter. It was only a few weeks of freedom that I was to have. And I have seen much and eaten much and met people who were not paid by my father. It is enough. It is more than I had expected.” She would not allow herself to think about what was happening. “Here,” she said as she fished inside a leather case and withdrew a little bag from inside the lining. “This is gold. Take it and go ready yourself. You must put what clothes you have back into the wagon, the unpainted one. Make some excuse, then stay in sight so Tode can find you.”

  “Will he be wearing that awful hood again? I hate it when he wears that.”

  “You hate his face; you hate his face to be covered. Whatever Tode does you hate. But yes, he will be in disguise, his face hidden. Go to him, and he will have arranged everything. It will be soon. Do you understand me, Frances, soon?

  “Axia, why do you always have to be so bad tempered?”

  What had Axia expected? Gratitude? From Frances? Suddenly, she couldn’t bear the sight of her cousin. “Go!” she said, and when Frances did not move, she nearly yelled, “Go!”

  With that, Frances scurried from the room, closing the door loudly behind her.

  Axia started to get up, as she had much to do. But then it all hit her. Her tiny bit of freedom was over. Why had she not thought of what would happen if her father found out about the charade?

  But she knew why. Freedom had gone to her head and forced out all rational thought. And then, too, there had been Jamie. Her fights with him, the—Oh, heavens, but her lovemaking with him.

  Flopping back on the bed, she closed her eyes for a moment and remembered. That lovely night when she’d been in his arms. She’d told him she loved him, and he’d kissed her and held her. Had made love to her.

  But now that was all over. When he heard that his precious Maidenhall heiress was missing, he’d be out of here in seconds, and he’d never look back at Axia. After all, he thought that Axia had no money, and money was what he most wanted in the world.

  Axia wanted to cry, to indulge in feeling sorry for herself. But she had no time, as she needed to get up and tell Tode what must be done. But first she needed to see if his legs had recovered. She knew that he’d never stay in bed for more than one day, no matter how bad the pain. And the driver, she thought, she’d have to hire a driver. She’d have to do everything for her cousin because Frances was so dumb she’d wait inside the wagon until doomsday for someone to come fetch her.

  I must get up, was her last thought before she fell asleep.

  Chapter 15

  What have you done with Frances?”

  Axia was so hard asleep she couldn’t at first understand what was being said or who was saying it. She was draped across the bed sideways, her feet hanging over the edge. When she opened her eyes in the dark room, she smiled. “Mmmm, Jamie,” she murmured and closed her eyes again.

  At a groan from him, she opened her eyes again. He was lying on the bed beside her, not touching her, his eyes closed and an arm thrown across his face.

  “What is wrong?” she murmured and felt a surge of—of … Oh, dear, maybe it was just memory of that night they had been together. She so much wanted to kiss the skin of his neck, just above the soft velvet of his doublet.

  “Why are you trying to kill me?” he asked, his voice deep within his throat, his eyes still hidden, not looking at her.

  There had never been any sex play in Axia’s short life, but she knew when a man was angry with her and when he wasn’t. And right now Jamie Montgomery was not angry at her.

  Smiling, she rolled toward him and slipped the little dagger from its sheath at his side, then playfully held it to his throat. “Shall I do the job now? Take your life from you?”

  Slowly, he moved his arm from across his eyes and looked at her with such a hot stare that her breath caught in her throat. “You do not know what you play at.”

  “I think I know more than you believe I do,” she whispered, and for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her.

  Abruptly, he sat up and glared at her. “I am not one of your pastries!”

  “My what?” she said, smiling, leaning a bit toward him.

  “Axia, I warn you, stop that. You do not know what you do. You may think you want to taste everything, see everything, that you want to touch all that is in the world, but you cannot—” He broke off and looked at her, covered only by her undergarment, the long linen shift that went next to her skin. He knew that she had on nothing beneath that thin piece of linen. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  “Axia,” he said, and his voice was a moan.

  “Yes, Jamie,” she whispered, leaning toward him. One minute he was sitting away from her, his mind firmly made up in resolve that he was not going to touch her, then the next second he had her on her back on the bed, his mouth on hers.

  Even as he touched her, he wondered at the ferocity of his desire for her. This was Axia, the girl-woman who’d made his life hell ever since he’d first seen her, yet he’d never felt such desire in his life.

  His body was half on hers, his thigh pushing hers apart as his mouth devoured hers. Perhaps he could have controlled himself if she had offered even the least resistance, but she opened to him like a flower to a bee. Her mouth opened under his, her legs opened, her arms clasped him to her.

  His mouth, hot and searching, was on her neck, her cheeks, his hands clutched her breast, his thumb on her nipple, then his mouth descended lower, seeking her breast.

  “Axia?” came a whisper from the doorway. “Axia, are you in here?”

  “Just—” her voice broke as she tried to clear her brain and throat. “Just a minute.” Looking up at Jamie hovering above her, he looked as dazed as she felt.

  But only for a second. With a soldier’s sense of urgency, Jamie sprang off the bed, threw back the covers, tossed Axia under them, then he slipped behind the screen that was in one corner of the room.

  “Axia?” Tode said, silently stealing into the room, making sure no one in the brightly