The Heiress Read online

  He laughed again. She was unlike anyone he had ever met before. It was as though she knew none of the rules of behavior. “Yes,” he murmured and began to move within her.

  Axia’s eyes widened in surprise. She’d thought his being inside of her was all there was, but now … Oh, now, this was even lovelier. Closing her eyes, she instinctively arched her hips upward and felt his silken strokes. And when he began to move faster and deeper, she flung both her legs and arms around him and pulled him as close to her body as she could.

  Then he seemed to stop, shudder, and in the next moment he collapsed on top of her and she thought how sweet and tender he felt. He’d been so heavy and strong moments before, but now he was as light as a child.

  Gently, she stroked his hair, glad she had been able to give him this pleasure.

  “Did I hurt you much?” he asked softly.

  “No, not at all,” she said honestly, then had a horrible thought. “I must go.” Tode would be looking for her, and if he didn’t find her, there would be an alarm sounded.

  “No!” he said sharply. He’d moved so he was only half on her, his arm tightly around her waist. Relaxing his grip, he turned his head away from her. “Yes, of course, you must go.”

  Let them look for me, she thought. In truth, what did she care if they found her? How were they going to punish her? Lock her up for the rest of her life?

  Wiggling her body back under his, she stroked his face so he turned toward her. “What plagues you?” she whispered. “Tell me.”

  After days of worry, it felt good to Jamie to be so relaxed. “I do not know how to protect her,” he said, knowing the woman would have no idea what he was talking about.

  “Ah, yes,” Axia said. “The heiress.” Her arm was under his neck, his cheek on her shoulder, one of his heavy thighs across hers. How intimate, yet how right, she thought. “Is she so valuable to you?”

  “I cannot fail. People depend on me. But the wagons …” He was feeling drowsy.

  “Yes, the wagons,” Axia said with a grimace. She had dreamed of a trip across England without people gawking at her—or now it was Frances—because of the Maidenhall name. But her father had sent those heavy wagons that were no doubt full of untold wealth, and all along the journey they would create curiosity. She gave a great sigh. “Were I the Maidenhall heiress I would want to be someone else.”

  He gave a sleepy smile. “And who would be greater than she? The Queen of England?”

  “No, of course not. I would be … someone ordinary. A merchant’s wife mayhaps. Staying at inns or in a tent like this one. I would want no one to know who I was.”

  “Yes, but people have seen her.”

  “Who?” she asked. “I have heard she’s been a prisoner all her life. Never allowed out of the gates. It is my guess that she has never seen the world, never seen a puppet show, never seen a cathedral, never met anyone who was not properly introduced to her, never—”

  Jamie chuckled. “You do have an imagination. Frances is so beautiful she would call attention to herself wherever she went. If I traveled alone with her, I’d have trouble protecting her.”

  “Shall I infect her with smallpox?” Axia asked helpfully.

  Jamie laughed again. “I wish I could take you with me. You please me. You give me ease.”

  “Oh yes! I would like that,” she said, sounding like a child.

  “Alas,” he said sadly, “I cannot.”

  “Why? Because I am so ugly? You would be ashamed of me?”

  He didn’t know how he’d feel to see her in daylight, but that was not his worry. “She might try to kill you.”

  “Who? Why would anyone try to kill me?”

  “The heiress’s cousin. Frances, the heiress, is a sweet-tempered, lovely woman, but she has a cousin who is eaten with jealousy.”

  “Oh?” Axia’s voice cracked. “How do you know she does not have cause for her—her misdeeds? Sometimes women appear one way to a man and another way to a woman.”

  “Like you? Do you appear attractive to me yet hideous to others?”

  “Sometimes. But what of the cousin? Does she have nothing to recommend her?”

  “I thought she did, but no, she is not what I thought. I do not like liars.”

  “But perhaps there were reasons why she lied.” Her voice was rising above a whisper.

  Jamie raised himself on his elbow. “You sound as though you know her.”

  “No, of course not. How could someone like me know her? But I know what it is to have a beautiful older sister.”

  “And how do you know that the cousin is not beautiful?”

  Axia’s mouth was a tight line. “From the way you speak of her. There is a different tone in your voice when you speak of the beauteous Frances than when you speak of the cousin. I have heard that tone all my life when people speak of my sister. But never have I heard it addressed to me.”

  “Sometimes a woman needs more than beauty,” he said, thinking of Berengaria. Axia could feel a change in him. “You shall go to my sister,” he said softly, as though this were a great honor.

  “Go to your sister? Why? What—?”

  “I will not leave you to your fate. I feel responsibility toward you after tonight. Yes,” he said, and she could feel that he was smiling, pleased with his idea. “I will leave money and a letter with the Maidenhall steward, and tomorrow you shall leave. I will write my sisters and tell them you are to arrive.”

  For a moment Axia was overwhelmed by his generosity. No one gave gifts to one as rich as she. At Christmas she was expected to hand out gifts to everyone, but only Tode ever gave her anything in return. Frances had never once given her a gift. But this man, a stranger really, was asking to take on responsibility for her entire life. Were all poor people so kind and generous to one another? She had always fantasized about poor people’s lives of loving each other, helping each other. Every year Frances went home to her family for one month, and Axia dreamed of what it would be like to have a family.

  “Your sister is beautiful?” Axia asked. “As you are?”

  “How do you know what I look like?” He had his hand on her stomach, touching her, feeling her thighs, moving up toward her breasts.

  Axia was having trouble thinking. “I have seen you. You are—”

  He kissed her. “Do not say it. I do not want to be judged by my looks any more than you do.”

  She smiled. Turning, she let her arms slide around him. “Make love to me again. Please.”

  “Yes,” was all he said before his mouth covered hers.

  This time he was slower, and Axia enjoyed their union very much, but what she loved most was the closeness, the feeling of not being alone.

  When at last he collapsed on her, she knew that this time he was going to fall into a heavy sleep, but she also knew that she had to leave. After planting many kisses on his sleeping face, she struggled out of strong arms that held her to him as tightly as her father held onto his gold. Quietly, she found her clothes and dressed, but look as she could, she could not find her little embroidered cap. Her mother’s cap, she thought in a panic. She’d rather lose anything than that. Including her virginity, she thought and couldn’t suppress a giggle.

  “What was that?”

  Axia froze as she heard the man’s voice outside the tent.

  “All this gold makes me nervous. If a shadow moves, I may kill it before I see what it is.”

  That statement made Axia realize that she had to get out quickly. Now that she was no longer in Jamie’s arms, she was beginning to wonder what her father would do if he found out she’d surrendered her virginity to someone he had not chosen. If Jamie did leave money for the woman he knew as Diana, maybe he’d leave the cap also.

  “Farewell, my love,” she said and silently left the tent.

  Her eyes were adjusted to the dark, and the guards were carrying lanterns so she was able to slip past them without being seen. For a few moments she panicked when she couldn’t find the rope hangin