The Heiress Read online

  In the garden they stopped behind a rose trellis where Berengaria knew they wouldn’t be seen. “What is she writing? Why did Mother laugh?”

  “Wait a minute,” Joby said as she ran back into the castle. A moment later a child from the kitchens came out and asked Axia to return with him. As soon as Axia was out of sight, Joby picked up the pages that Axia had tossed onto the bench. As usual, their mother ignored them. She lived in a world all her own, and no one could pierce it. Not violence, not emotional drama, nothing ever took her from her own world. At least not usually. Not until today.

  “What are they?” Berengaria said anxiously.

  It took Joby a moment as she looked at the drawings one by one. “They are all pictures of Jamie,” she said in a voice of wonder, for she had never seen anything like the drawings. They were so lifelike that she could almost feel the warmth of her brother’s skin.

  “Yes,” Berengaria said impatiently, “but what about them made Mother laugh?”

  As Joby looked from one drawing to the other, she could not repress a smile, then she began to describe them to her sister. “They are Jamie as we know him,” she said. “In this one he is drawing his sword on some villagers as he “rescues” Axia from greedy-looking merchants. And in this one …” She trailed off, smiling.

  “Yes! What is it?”

  “Jamie is furious as he is looking up at a wagon, and on the side of the wagon is a picture of himself. And he seems to be fighting a lion. In this one Jamie is looking perplexed as two women quarrel with each other. One of the women is Axia, but the other is quite beautiful.”

  “That must be the heiress,” Berengaria said. “What else?”

  “Here is Jamie rubbing oil on the deformed legs of a man, but only his legs are deformed, as the rest of him is large and well shaped. His face is turned to one side so I can only see half of it, but he looks to be quite handsome. And this one is—”

  “Is what?” Berengaria encouraged.

  Joby lowered her voice. “It is Jamie lying in a field of flowers, daydreaming, and there is a look of … I have never seen him look like this.”

  “Describe it to me!” Berengaria commanded.

  “He looks silly, ridiculous actually,” she said, but she did not really mean it, for she well knew that it was the look of a man in love.

  “Have you spied enough?” Axia asked from behind Joby. “Have you finished laughing at me?”

  “I wasn’t spying, I was merely …”

  “Yes?” Axia asked, hands on her hips. When Joby said nothing, she started to gather up her drawings. “You have made it quite clear that you do not want me here, and I will go soon enough. You do not have to worry about that. Now, if you will excuse me, I’ll leave you and—”

  She broke off because Jamie’s mother had put her hands over her face and begun to cry. Immediately, Axia sat down on the bench and put her arm about her mother-in-law’s shoulders. “Now look what you have done,” she said to Joby, then turned and began to soothe the woman. “Here, I will draw more. Would you like to see Jamie as a dragonslayer?”

  Joby and Berengaria were speechless as their mother quieted and grew calm again. They had not seen her cry or show any emotion for years.

  As Axia began to draw, she described every stroke she was making as she drew Jamie with his clothes torn and ragged from the exertion of his fight, then she made the dragon with its long tail and fiery breath. It took a moment for Joby to realize that Axia’s drawing was for their mother, but the explanation was for Berengaria. And when Joby looked at her sister, she could see Berengaria’s face was alive with interest. Joby didn’t recognize the emotion for what it was, but jealousy surged through her. Berengaria was hers and hers alone!

  “Berengaria can smell the dragon,” their mother said, and it was rare to hear her voice, at least in a coherent sentence.

  Berengaria laughed. “Yes, I can smell it. It has iridescent green scales that change color in the sunlight. I can smell the char of its breath. And I can smell the sweat of Jamie. He is worried and afraid, but his honor will force him to do what he thinks is right. I can smell his bravery.”

  Axia stopped drawing and looked at Berengaria. “Can you really smell things? Better than other people?”

  Joby spoke before her sister could. “Berengaria is only blind, but she has her other senses intact, better than most people. She is not a freak.”

  “Neither am I!” Axia shot back in a tone just as nasty.

  At this exchange, Berengaria stood stone still in fascination. No one ever told Joby off! For all that Joby was kind and thoughtful to her family, to outsiders she was a terror, and people were afraid of her. But obviously this Axia was not. It was Berengaria’s guess that Axia had done a bit of terrorizing herself.

  Joby was not put off by this unusual retaliation. “Did you trick my brother into marriage?”

  “Yes!” Axia answered immediately. “I put on an alluring gown and used my fatal beauty to ensnare him. After all, he was such a marvelous catch. Not a penny to his name and three women to support. Of course, there is that beauty of his, and that certainly puts bread on the table. Tell me, how do you people make it through a winter here? I have never seen such mismanagement in a kitchen as in yours. And just look at these fruit trees! They haven’t been pruned in ten years, so you’ll get half the crop you should have. And look at those flowers. They’re a waste of space. Since you have so little land, you should use all of it for what you need. Put beans in there or onions.”

  It took Joby a moment to catch her breath. “The flowers are for Berengaria. She happens to like them. She has little enough in life, so she can at least have flowers to smell.”

  “Heavens above, but your sister is merely blind, there is nothing wrong with her. She’ll like the smell of a good bean porridge this winter more than all the roses in the world this summer.”

  “How dare you—”

  Berengaria’s laugh cut her off. “Joby, I think you have met your match. I think—” She cocked her ear, as she could hear someone coming.

  With a smug look directed toward Axia to let her know that she understood Berengaria even if she didn’t finish her sentences, Joby turned and ran through the gates. Berengaria knew the steps of every person on the estate and when there was a stranger, she was the first to know.

  “What a truly horrid child,” Axia said the minute Joby was out of sight.

  Feeling a bit of a traitor, Berengaria could not help giving a small smile. “I am sorry—”

  Axia cut her off as she did not want to hear what she had to say. There was part of her that wanted to tell them the truth of who she was, but she did not want to be hated because she did not have money, then loved because she did—if she hadn’t already been disinherited, for surely her father had heard of her defection by now.

  Joby was not going to leave her sister alone with the usurper, so she was back in seconds with a message. “It is from Jamie, and he says that he needs to stay longer. Oliver will not release the heiress.”

  “There was nothing else?” Axia asked, hating herself for lack of pride, but she so wanted to hear from Jamie, and now she wished that he had sent something personal to her. It seemed years ago that they had made love and he had held her in his arms.

  “Nothing,” Joby said in triumph as she handed the letter to her blind sister.

  Watching, Axia saw Berengaria run her hands over the letter. “He is lying,” Berengaria said. “Jamie is in danger. He wants us to get help.”

  “I will send a messenger to the Montgomerys, and they will come to us,” Joby began. “And we will—”

  Axia was silent as she thought about what had just happened, that Berengaria could feel a piece of paper and know what the writer was feeling when he wrote it. She was nearly faint with the implications of such a talent. “You can tell if someone is lying or not?” she whispered in awe. “Do you know how much money you could make with such a knowledge?”

  Joby turned on her. “Beren