The Heiress Read online

  “My father’s money doesn’t allow me freedom,” she said aloud. The freedom to walk through a village fair and watch a puppet show, the freedom to have someone like or dislike me according to who I am.

  “The right to have a normal marriage,” she whispered and had to swallow tears. Any man who would imprison his only child so that the mystery of her would enhance her worth was not going to waste her on a strong, healthy husband. She wasn’t sure what was wrong with Gregory Bolingbrooke, but she knew something was. Every time she asked one of her father’s emissaries what her betrothed was like, the man’s eyes skidded to one side. It was her guess that he was mad. Or evil. Or diseased. Or maybe all three. Whatever he was, his father was willing to pay Perkin Maidenhall a fortune to bring the Maidenhall heiress into the family, with the stipulation, of course, that upon Perkin’s death his daughter was to inherit everything.

  Of course, Axia knew her father better than other people did. It wouldn’t surprise her to hear that her father had sold everything just before he died and buried all the proceeds where no one could find them. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to take it with him, but he could prevent others from getting it. And Axia knew better than anyone that he loved to lock his possessions away.

  So now, tomorrow, she was to start on the greatest adventure she was ever going to have in her life. She had no illusions that her life as the wife of Gregory Bolingbrooke would be any freer than her life had been so far. At least her father allowed her painting and drawing materials. What if her husband—or his father who seemed to control everything—believed that women should sew and pray and nothing else?

  “Aaaargh!” Axia said, again beating her fists against the bed. So far she’d done well. She’d arranged to escape being the Maidenhall heiress for the entire journey. Oh, in the last day, the men and women on the estate had taken delight in not opening doors for her; the cook had chased her out of the kitchen, and one of the servants had snapped at her to get out of the way, but nothing really awful had happened. No, they were just pleased to be able to pretend that she was an “ordinary” person.

  But in Axia’s eyes she was ordinary. “Ordinary as a weed in a flower patch,” Frances had said once when they were children. “And just as strong,” Axia said before she pushed Frances backward into a newly manured flowerbed.

  “Ordinary,” she said aloud now. “Ordinary, but not free.”

  So, she thought, what would an ordinary person do now? She would apologize to James Montgomery and get on his good side is what she thought. Her immediate response to that thought was, I’d rather eat dirt.

  Her nails bit into her hands at the memory of how he’d looked at the beautiful Frances. Yesterday he’d been looking at her, Axia, with interest, and the next day he was swooning over the rich Frances.

  As for what he did afterward, Axia refused to remember. The many snickers she’d heard throughout the estate might have something to do with why she’d been hiding, er, resting in her room most of today.

  “Damn him!” she said aloud. He never even asked, just assumed she was jealous, spiteful, and … and was capable of murder!

  The tears returned, but she made herself sit up and clear her eyes. Just in front of her was an embroidered plaque, Carpe diem. Seize the day. It was her motto. Take everything you could get from every day. Take the sunshine; take the raspberry tart off the windowsill; steal a kiss if you could; stay up all night and let the next day take care of itself. Tode said such a motto was going to get her into trouble someday, but Axia had laughed and said, “I hope so. Just so I am not bored.”

  Trouble is what I want, she thought now, then giggled at a thought. “I ought to show up on Gregory’s doorstep pregnant. That would break the contract.” She stopped smiling and grimaced. “Or at least prevent me from having a madman’s mad baby.”

  Abruptly, she realized it had grown dark, and no one had come in to light her candles. She realized that this night people were showing the Maidenhall heiress that they were just as good as she was.

  Frowning, feeling sorry for herself, Axia got off the bed, rearranged her clothing, combed her hair, and started to leave the room. On impulse, she turned back and snatched a pretty little embroidered cap off the wooden stand on the table under the window. It was the only thing she possessed that had belonged to her mother: several layers of dark blue silk embroidered all over with fantastic beasts such as dragons and unicorns and griffins. As a child Axia had spent hours contemplating the cap, and now it was her most precious possession. She rarely wore it and only when she needed comfort—which she did now.

  Outside it was a cool spring evening, but the budding trees made the air fragrant. If she wouldn’t miss any of the people from the estate, she’d miss her garden, she thought as she ran across the grounds, securely pinning her mother’s cap onto her thick hair. Because most of the staff were inside having their supper, Axia had nearly all the garden to herself.

  Walking along the north wall, farthest from the house, she noticed the top of one of the walls had been damaged and the guarding spikes were missing. As she made a mental note to tell someone to fix it, she saw fresh cuts on the overhanging branch of an oak tree. Puzzled for a moment, she wondered what the gardeners had been doing to create such marks.

  “That’s how he got in,” she said in wonder, then looked to see if anyone had heard her. No one was about. She could see now that he’d thrown a rope over the branch and swung up and over. Simple when you knew how to do it.

  Axia didn’t hesitate but lifted her skirts and ran for the nearest garden shed to get a length of rope. Fifteen minutes later, after very little struggle, she was over the wall.

  For a moment, Axia leaned back against the bricks, still warm from the day’s sun and looked about her. In the growing dark, she could see across fields to houses, to pastures. She could see people—strangers, people who were not paid by her father—walking down lanes. Her heart was pounding, and she almost grabbed the rope to swing back inside the safety of the walls.

  But her fear soon turned to curiosity when she heard voices around the corner of the wall to her left. Slowly, tiptoeing so as not to make noise, she crept around the wall to see three tents there, one of them flying a flag of three gold leopards.

  “Maybe if I shoved a barrel of sugar down his throat, that would sweeten his temper,” she heard a man say, and Axia flattened herself but not before she saw that they were the two men who’d been with him. That man who’d—She was not going to remember that!

  “With or without the barrel?” the other man said.

  “With. Staves and all. Wide end first.”

  Who were they talking about, Axia wondered. Whose temper needed sweetening? Not hers? Please, not her. But no, the first man had said he.

  “Something set him off,” the second man said, and he had a nice, pleasant voice. He sounded older than the other man.

  “Couldn’t be the heiress. What a beauty. Sweet tempered, gentle, shy. No wonder her father kept her hidden away.”

  Axia’s fingers were biting into the rough brick behind her.

  “I think it’s more the other one who’s bothering him,” the second man said.

  The first man snorted. “The pretty little one. It’s true she has a bosom to make a man weep, but a man would be insane to take on a temper like hers. Ah, there he is. Hide.”

  Axia’s eyes were so wide they hurt. A bosom to make a man weep? Was this her bosom? Was she the “other one”? She looked down as though seeing her own chest for the first time. She did have a great deal of trouble sleeping on her stomach. But she wasn’t sure how she compared to women in the world at large.

  It was nearly full dark now, but Axia’s eyes were adjusting. She saw the slim boy, one of the guards her father had hired, slip out of the tent with the leopard pennant and hurry away toward the road leading into the village. And a moment later she saw him leave the tent and disappear into the darkness.

  Overwhelmed with curiosity, Axia ran toward the tent