The Heiress Read online

  “And welcome you are,” Rhys said, sitting up, then wincing with the pain. “Tell me what has been found. Any news on Frances?”

  “Nothing yet, but that is not why I am here. Come, come, you must forget that, or your leg will never stop aching. Let me tell you an amusing story I heard.”

  Two hours later, Tode left Rhys’s room, and he was smiling beneath his hood. It had not been difficult to get Rhys to talk about extraordinary people he had known in his life.

  “But no one is dumber than Henry Oliver,” Rhys had said after the first hour of gossip and stories. “He thought he was deaf because he had only half an ear.” When questioned, he told how Jamie’s older brother, when they were children, had hit Oliver on the side of the head with a sword, and when the top half of his ear had fallen off, Oliver had cried that now he would be deaf.

  “To this day, I think he still believes he can’t hear well out of that side of his head.”

  “And what sort of man is this Henry Oliver?” Tode asked, trying not to sound frantic. “Dangerous?”

  “Oliver? No, not at all, unless blind stupidity makes a man dangerous. He loves Jamie’s sister, and he’s been trying for years to force Jamie’s family into allowing them to marry.”

  “Force them?” Tode was glad Rhys was getting drunk so that he couldn’t hear the rising panic in Tode’s voice.

  “For years he tried to buy her from Jamie’s older brother, and Edward would have sold her, but Jamie’s father looked up from his books long enough to say no, that he didn’t think that was a suitable match.” Rhys chuckled. “I think this decision was influenced by Berengaria saying she’d throw herself off the roof before she married Henry Oliver. And since the death of the brother and father, Oliver has offered Jamie some lands that flood every spring, a few run-down cottages, and some ancient horses in return for Berengaria’s hand.” Rhys took a deep swig of the wine. “And once he tried to kidnap Berengaria.”

  “Kidnap her?” Tode asked, unable to breathe.

  “Well, at least he threw a sack over her and carried her off.”

  “What happened?” Tode asked.

  Rhys could hardly contain his laughter. “Somehow—Oliver has very poor eyesight—he got the other sister in the bag. Joby. You don’t know her, but believe me, no man wants to rile that girl. I’d rather open a bag full of Scottish wildcats than one that contained an angry Joby.”

  “Like Axia,” Tode said softly.

  Rhys smiled in a dreamy way. “No, they are not at all alike. Axia is a terror to one man only. Joby makes everyone’s life difficult. Except for Jamie’s and Berengaria’s. Let me tell you what she used to do to her brother Edward.”

  And with those words, he launched into a completely different story, but Tode had his information, so now it was going to be an easy matter to find out where this Henry Oliver lived and easier still to guess where he was going. No doubt he was taking Frances to his home. No wonder Jamie had not understood his message: “You took my woman so now I’ll take yours.” In Jamie’s eyes his sister never had and never would belong to Henry Oliver, but obviously Oliver thought differently.

  So now, leaving Rhys’s room, Tode was smiling. He’d found out a great deal, but what could he do with this information? Take it to Jamie? But he knew what Jamie would do, he’d run after Frances and leave Axia behind, as was right. But Tode knew that it was Axia who needed protection, and Tode knew that if Jamie knew that, he would protect her with his life.

  How could he get Axia and Jamie away from the Teversham estate before Jamie found out what Tode knew? How could he get Jamie to protect Axia and leave Frances to Tode?

  Chapter 18

  Jamie angrily crumpled the message into a tiny ball. He was going to show this to no one. With every passing minute he felt more stupid, more helpless, as he couldn’t figure out what he should know. Who had taken Frances? From the way the first message was worded, it seemed that he was supposed to know, but he didn’t.

  He hadn’t slept in two days now, and his chin was black with whiskers, but he wasn’t going to rest until he found out something. There had to be a clue somewhere. He’d just told Thomas to bring him the stable lad again when this second message had arrived. It said that Jamie was to go west to his uncle’s house and wait there for another message.

  But what bothered Jamie was that at the bottom of the message was written, “Better take care of your women.”

  Not “woman,” but “women.” Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe the writer’s pen slipped. Maybe he meant that only Frances was in danger and no other woman.

  And too, Jamie was bothered that he’d found the message on his bed, which meant that it had come from inside the Teversham household. It had been put there by someone who was inside the castle, someone so familiar his presence would interest no one.

  Jamie could not lose much time in contemplation. He would go to his uncle’s house and await further instruction. In the meantime, to make sure she was safe, he’d send Axia away with Tode and Thomas; they were the only people he could trust.

  Thirty minutes later, Jamie was cursing, for both Thomas and Tode were down with a debilitating flux. Clutching his stomach as he ran to the garderobe in agony, Thomas was ashen, his guts gripping.

  As for Tode, he was so weak he could hardly look up as he clung to Jamie’s arm. “Do not let the kidnapper take Axia. You must protect her. I fear that she is not safe here. That man took Frances with everyone looking on. He could do it again.”

  Tode echoed Jamie’s worst thoughts. As Axia had told him, people knew that Frances was the Maidenhall heiress, and perhaps because Axia was traveling with them, they would think that she had something to do with all that gold as well.

  Because Jamie had not slept in days, he was not aware of time, was unaware that it was the middle of the night when he burst into Axia’s room. Frowning, he was instantly aware that there was no maid sleeping in her room. She was unprotected.

  When he touched her shoulder, she snuggled deeper under the covers, so deep in fact that he had to reach down under them and pull her up.

  “Axia,” he said softly, “I want you to get up. I want you to go with me.”

  “Sleep,” she murmured, keeping her eyes closed.

  “No, not sleep. You have to get up. Where is the maid to help you dress?”

  “Jamie helps me dress.”

  Tired as he was, he smiled at that, then gave her a little shake. “We are going to my uncle’s. He has a very nice wife named Mary, and she will take care of you.”

  Yawning, Axia was beginning to wake up. “What are you doing in my room again?” she asked. “Why are you always in my room?”

  “I’m a soldier, remember? I go where the danger is.”

  Axia tried not to smile but couldn’t prevent it. “Have you found Frances?”

  “No, but I’ve received a second note, and I’m to leave here at once and go west to my uncle’s. It is about a day’s ride from here, and you are to come with me.”

  “Why?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “Both Thomas and Tode are ill, so they can’t take care of you, and since there is no one else, you must go with me.”

  He was not prepared for the suddenness of her leap from bed. As she flung the covers back on him, one corner caught him on the eye. Pushing the covers off his body, his hand to his eye, he wasn’t surprised to see a spot of blood on his finger.

  With a hand to his eye, he pivoted on one foot and, stretching, caught Axia by the arm before she ran out the door in her nightclothes.

  “Tode!” she gasped, pulling against him with all her strength. “I must go to him if he is ill.”

  Jamie held her easily. “Axia, I am tired; I am worried; do not make my life more difficult. Now come here and see if you have blinded me.”

  Turning, she saw a tiny spot of blood at the edge of his eye. That didn’t bother her, but when he sat down on a chair by the bed, she saw his shoulders sag, and that posture made her see the burden