The Heiress Read online

  “Stinking, lying, murdering—” Joby started.

  “Yes,” Jamie interrupted, “but what have they actually done?”

  Estate management was not a strong point of any of the new owners. Terrorizing peasants seemed to be their only real passion. They burned crops and houses, raped any nubile girl they could find, ran their horses over newly planted fields.

  When Jamie heard that Joby had calmed the peasants by telling them that when Jamie returned he’d fix everything, Jamie nearly choked.

  “It is no longer my land,” he pointed out.

  Berengaria shrugged. “Montgomerys have owned that land for hundreds of years, so how does your responsibility cease after a mere two years?”

  “By the exchange of gold, that’s how,” Jamie nearly shouted, but they knew he felt the weight of all those hundreds of years on his shoulders.

  “Speaking of gold,” Joby said, then nodded to a servant standing in back of Jamie.

  Later, Jamie thought that if he hadn’t been drunk, he would have jumped out a window and kept on running. It had been only two weeks ago that he’d accepted this job of escorting this extremely wealthy young woman across England, but during that time his sisters had organized all three of the tiny villages that used to be on Montgomery land, land that Edward had sold.

  Thinking of what must have been said, Jamie’s face turned scarlet. His men had laughed so much they’d had to leave the room. It seemed that his two sisters had “sold” their brother.

  “Just your beauty,” Berengaria tried to reassure him—as though that would help.

  “You know, like a stallion or a prize bull,” Joby’d said, then laughed when Jamie tried to catch her as she darted out of his reach.

  Last night, one by one, a representative of every village house had come to the old hall and shown what wealth he’d managed to save or—Jamie suspected—steal. There were parts of silver spoons, a handle from a gold ewer, coins with faces of long dead kings, bags of goose down that could be sold, piglets (one of which tried to join Jamie in getting drunk), leather pelts, a belt buckle, a few buttons from a rich lady’s dress. The list seemed endless.

  “And what, pray tell, is all this for?” Jamie asked, looking over the heaping table and the piles on the floor. The inquisitive piglet had overturned every wooden goblet on the table and drunk all the remains. What men found unpalatable, he found delicious.

  “We are going to make you a fine wardrobe,” Berengaria said. “We shall dress you as an earthly prince, and the Maidenhall heiress will fall in love with you at first sight.”

  At that absurdity, Jamie threw his head back and laughed, and the piglet, now by Jamie’s wrist, looked up at him and began to laugh too.

  When Jamie looked about him, he was surprised to see that no one else in the room, now probably a hundred people (some of whom had obviously never had a bath), was laughing.

  “Jamie, you are our only hope,” Berengaria said. “You could make any woman fall in love with you.”

  “No!” he said, setting his cup down with a splash and nearly hitting the piglet’s tiny hoof. He was holding the stem of the cracked mug so hard he did not feel the piglet climb onto his hand and stick its face into the mug.

  “I will not do this! The woman is to marry another. Her father would never give permission.” He would have liked to have said that he meant to marry for love, but poor, landless earls could not afford such a luxury. But when he did marry, he wanted it to be in an honorable manner. He had no money, but he did have titles. Perhaps a rich merchant’s daughter …

  Which, of course, described the Maidenhall heiress perfectly. Not that many people had seen her to describe her in any way except as “rich.” She was as elusive as a lady in a fairy story. Some said she was as beautiful as a goddess. Some said she was deformed and hideous. Whatever she was, she stood to inherit millions.

  “I cannot. I will not. No. Absolutely not.”

  That’s what he’d said last night, but today he was being measured and fitted. He was not going to ask where or how his sisters and the villagers had obtained such extraordinary fabrics. He suspected that Edward’s coffers had been regularly emptied, and since he recognized some of the women as having worked in the manor house that had once been theirs, he figured the new owner was also missing some articles of clothing.

  But he wasn’t going to ask because he didn’t want to know.

  “Mmed eig!” he said through the pins, his arms outstretched.

  Joby removed them. “Yes, dear brother?”

  “Get this damned pig out from under my feet!”

  “But it loves you,” Joby said, everyone in the room trying to suppress their laughter. They all felt happy because they knew that Jamie would solve all their problems. How could any woman not love him? Six feet tall, two hundred pounds, with broad shoulders; a slim waist; huge, muscular thighs; and a face like a dark angel: beautiful dark green eyes, black hair, honey-colored skin, lips sculpted like those on a marble statue. It wasn’t unusual for women to be struck dumb at the sight of him.

  “The piglet is female,” Berengaria said, and everyone released their pent-up laughter in shouts.

  “Enough!” Jamie roared above the people falling all over themselves in laughter, then gave a pull to the black velvet jacket that swathed him. With a cry of pain, he pulled back, two pins embedded in his palm, and waited impatiently as Joby removed the pins.

  Grabbing his own old, worn clothing from atop a chest, he started for the door, not bothering to dress, when the piglet ran under his feet and nearly tripped him. Angry, Jamie grabbed the animal up and started to toss it out the third-story window. But as he did, he looked into its eyes.

  “Hell and damnation,” he muttered and slipped the fat creature under his arm. As he slammed the door behind him, he heard gales of laughter. “Women!” he muttered and practically ran down the ancient stone stairs.

  Chapter 3

  Axia neither saw nor heard the man before he threw one strong arm about her waist and a big hand across her mouth and dragged her to a secluded spot behind the hedges. With her heart racing, she told herself, I must remain calm. At all costs, I must remain calm. And in that flash of a moment she forgave her father everything. This was why she’d lived all her life behind high walls, why she’d spent her life in near imprisonment. In another flash she thought, How did he get into the garden? The wall was topped with sharp iron spikes; dogs ran freely to give alarm at any intruder; workers were everywhere.

  It seemed to take an eternity as the man pulled her to the back of the hedge. One minute she’d been sketching a portrait of her beautiful cousin Frances—what surely must be the twentieth portrait this year—and the next she was being kidnapped. How did he know? she wondered. How did he know who I am?

  The man stopped, holding Axia close to his body, her back to his front, his muscular arm tight under her breasts. She’d never been this close to a man before. Her household was full of her father’s spies, and if a man, a gardener, a steward, whoever, so much as smiled at her, she’d find him gone within days.

  “If I remove my hand, will you promise not to give an alarm?”

  His breath was in her ear.

  “Perhaps you will not believe me, but I mean you no harm. I merely want some information.”

  At that Axia almost relaxed. Of course. All men wanted information from her. How much gold did her father have in the house? How many estates did he own? What was her marriage portion to be? People’s desire for knowledge about her father’s wealth was endless.

  She nodded. Of course she’d tell him all she knew. She’d tell anyone all she knew—which was exactly nothing.

  But the man didn’t remove his hand from her mouth right away. Instead, for a few seconds Axia was aware that he was looking down at her. Her neck was bent backward, the top of her head nestled into his shoulder; his cheek was pressed against her forehead.

  “You’re a nice little handful,” he said, and for the first time Axia