The Heiress Read online

  It was two hours after he’d hidden behind the screen in Axia’s room, and during that time he’d been through hell. Rhys had been shot through the leg with an arrow while attempting to follow the painted wagon out of Lachlan’s land. It was only by chance that he’d seen the wagon when he was returning from a day’s hawking with Lachlan. His first thought was that the wagon was being sent for repairs, but he decided to make sure.

  He was still a hundred yards from the wagon when he was brought down by an arrow, an arrow with a crudely written message attached to it.

  “You took my woman so I will take yours,” the message read.

  Jamie quickly ascertained that his man was not in life-threatening danger, but he still didn’t know who had taken Frances. How could a man walk into the gates and in the midst of a few hundred people take her without anyone noticing? Surely the man had to make a threat or cause some commotion to get Frances to go with him? Surely Frances would have raised an alarm. Her sense of self-preservation would undoubtedly cause her to do something to let people know she was in danger.

  Jamie reread the message and knew it made no sense to him. Who had done this thing? Was it something personal to him, or did it have to do with the Maidenhall heiress?

  All Jamie knew for sure was that Tode and Axia knew a great deal more than they were telling. Now, standing while they sat, he paced in front of them. “You have two seconds to tell me everything.”

  “Or you will do what?” Axia taunted, her arms folded. “I would rather eat live frogs than tell you anything at all. Not that I know anything, but I am sick of being blamed for everything. I had nothing to do with Rhys being shot. If you’ll remember, Rhys asked me to marry him, and I think I might. I think I will nurse him back to health and marry him. Then—”

  “Axia and Frances planned to fake a kidnapping,” Tode said tiredly.

  “Tode!!” Axia gasped, looking at him with hurt eyes for his betrayal.

  He didn’t turn to her, but she could see that his eyes were furious. “Do you not yet realize that Frances has actually been kidnapped? We do not know where she is, and if the villain knows that she is the Maidenhall heiress, he could ransom her piece by piece.”

  As though a mountain had dropped on her head, Axia suddenly realized that Frances could very well be in danger. And if anything did happen to Frances, it would be her fault. Frances had said that if she posed as the heiress, she would be the one in danger.

  “Why?” Jamie said, looking at Tode, trying to keep his anger under control.

  “The letter,” Tode answered, not looking at Axia. “You said you were going to write and ask permission of Perkin Maidenhall to marry his daughter. Frances thought she could prevent you from sending such a letter because she knew that her father would never agree to her marrying anyone other than the man he’s chosen for her. She desperately wants to get out of her marriage to Gregory Bolingbrooke any way she can, and she thought that if she could trick you into a secret marriage …”

  Trailing off, he looked at Jamie, his eyes dark as he stared at Tode. Until now Jamie had been gentle and kind, but now Tode could see how he’d become a renowned soldier. Tode ran his hand about his neck as the room seemed to have become suddenly very hot. “When Frances found out that you’d sent the letter, she was afraid her father would send men. So we decided that I was to take Frances away, and we thought that you would follow so neither of you would be here when Maidenhall’s men arrived.”

  “So you planned a fake kidnapping,” Jamie said flatly.

  “No,” Axia said heavily, “I planned everything. Tode had nothing to do with it. I was going to put the plan into execution, but I fell asleep.”

  For the first time since he’d entered the room, Tode looked at Axia. If nothing else, she was brave. But now all he seemed to remember was James Montgomery pushing down that screen in her room and walking across it. Axia had been behind that screen dressing. What had they been doing in the room before he entered?

  “What other secrets do you have?” Jamie asked calmly.

  “None that have any bearing on the matter at hand,” she said honestly for Frances’s safety was all that mattered now.

  “It is not her fault,” Tode said quickly before Jamie could ask another question of Axia. “She was trying to save Frances. Can you not think what Maidenhall will do to Axia? He thinks that the cousins should look out for each other.” Tode swallowed as he thought of Maidenhall’s wrath when he found out about the switch. “It was Frances who was trying to trick you into a marriage that her father would no doubt have annulled even if he had to buy half of London to achieve it.”

  “I see,” Jamie said after a moment. “Every one has secrets, but now Frances really is kidnapped and we don’t know by whom.”

  “And it is all my fault,” Axia said, her heart in her eyes. “If Frances is killed, it will be my fault.”

  As Tode watched, Jamie went to her and knelt before her. “Come on now, imp, don’t lose courage on me now. Whoever has her will probably fall in love with her at first sight.” He put his fingertips under her chin. “And, besides, if this is anyone’s fault, it is mine. The note said, ‘You took my woman so I will take yours.’ But the truth is, he should have given his name and his full address so I could distinguish him from all the other cuckolded men from my past.”

  When anger at those words replaced the misery in Axia’s eyes, Jamie smiled at her, then stood, and he was serious once again. “You may sit, Tode,” he said graciously. “I am sure your legs could use the rest. It looks to me as though I must find a solution to this,” he said, but in the next moment the door burst open, and Thomas shoved two people into the room. One was a pretty little maid, the other, a stable lad by the smell of him, and from the color of their faces, it was easy to guess what they had been doing when Thomas found them.

  “Tell him,” Thomas said quietly but in a voice of command.

  The girl sat on the floor, threw her apron over her face, and began to cry loudly. The boy looked as though he wanted to go to her, but he was shaking too badly.

  After a confirming glance at Thomas, Jamie went to the girl and held out his hand to her. That was all that was needed to calm her. Between Jamie’s looks, his beautiful clothes, and the very elegance of him, her tears dried instantly.

  And when he spoke, his voice was as soft as honey, and Axia had heard that tone only once before: on the night she had been Diana. “No one is going to hurt you, and there will be no punishments. I just want you to tell me what you know.”

  The boy, still sitting on the floor, looked up at Jamie with jealousy. Standing, he moved toward Axia. “You mean about the lady? The beautiful lady? The most beautiful lady in the world? That lady?”

  Turning his back to the girl, Jamie gave the boy a look that quelled him, then he returned to the girl. “Tell me what you know.”

  After a smug look at the boy, she looked up into Jamie’s eyes. “She came to the stables by the wagons, the wagons you brung.”

  “Frances?” Jamie asked.

  “Yes, that one. I was there to escape the heat of the kitchens if you know what I mean.”

  “Ha!” the boy said. “That’s not why she was there.”

  The girl didn’t even look at him but concentrated on Jamie’s eyes. “The lady looked very upset and asked me which wagon it was to be, but then she said I wouldn’t know. Which I didn’t.”

  Axia gave Tode a look. Frances couldn’t even remember which wagon she was to be kidnapped in.

  The girl continued. “I, ah, I stepped behind the stable wall for a moment and—”

  The boy gave a derisive snort at that.

  “But I could hear everything, and since I wasn’t very busy …” She paused to give a triumphant look at the boy who had been trying to keep her very busy. “I happened to see this big man, quite huge he was. I like a big man,” she said, looking up dreamily at Jamie, “not little men or boys.”

  “Get on with it, girl!” Thomas snapped.