The Heiress Read online

  “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