The sun was well into the sky by the time Axia left Tode. Only after he had a.s.sured her that he could take care of himself did she leave him. Truthfully, all she wanted to do was take a bath and sleep. She"d had all the trauma she could take for one day.
Axia didn"t know her way around this walled estate, and it was drizzling rain so she couldn"t see very well, but she knew she didn"t want to enter through the front. No doubt the tables for breakfast would be set up, and everyone would be eating. Looking as she did, the last thing she wanted was to encounter Frances and Jamie, both of them, no doubt, dressed in clothes made of sunbeams and starlight.
Making her way to the back of the castle, to what had to be the oldest part, she went in through the kitchens-and as soon as she saw them the sleepiness left her.
Chaos was the general air of the place. No one could walk for the number of people in the kitchen: a couple of enormously fat cooks; boys running around with pans and kettles; children chasing each other; men shouting over the heads of others; women screaming at children to behave; dogs rooting in the garbage shoot.
Waste! she thought, looking about her. Incredible waste!
On the floor were great bags of flour, fresh from the mill but open to rats and pilferage; herbs and vegetables had fallen off the center table and were being trampled underfoot. And all the people in the kitchen seemed to be eating anything that came out of the ovens as fast as they could be opened. Axia was nearly knocked down by a man carrying half a cow carca.s.s on his way into the larder, the cold room for meat.
No one noticed her as she slipped past them, where she saw unlocked spice cabinets that could be ransacked by anyone and meat that could be used for soup and stew bases thrown to the dogs. In the b.u.t.tery, she saw open kegs of beer and imported wines that were free for the taking. The pantry contained great crocks of pickles and salted meats that had been opened and were now being left to ruin.
"Disgusting," she muttered. "Truly disgusting." Whoever owned this place was paying twice as much for food as he needed to. There was no order, no organization, and as far as she could tell, no one in charge.
In spite of her exhaustion, Axia had an urge to take a broom, or perhaps a sword, and clear out these superfluous people and stop all this waste. With management, she thought, more people could be fed and less money spent.
"Look out!" she heard just in time to step aside as a piece of meat landed at her feet. To her disbelief, she saw that the meat was an entire cow"s liver, and in the blink of an eye, two dogs had eaten it.
"Aren"t you a tasty bit," said a man with two hog"s heads in his arms, eyeing Axia up and down, but when she turned on him with a look of fury in her eyes, he backed off. "Sorry," he mumbled and went into the larder.
Axia didn"t know what made her angrier than waste and the misuse of funds, and this was worse than she"d ever seen before. However, she did not stop to think that this was the only estate she"d ever seen besides her own and that maybe all of them were run this way. Such horror was unimaginable to her.
As she made her way down the corridor from the kitchens to the Great Hall, she saw that the rushes on the floor had not been changed in many months and that, all in all, the place needed a thorough cleaning. If this man, this Lachlan Teversham was feeding all these people, why wasn"t he putting them to work?
As she stepped into the Great Hall, she saw as much chaos as she"d seen in the kitchen. More dogs (how many did this man have?) nosing about under the tables for sc.r.a.ps, dusty pennants hanging from the ceiling, tables with too much food on them. The tables were set in a semicircle, and in the middle of them, wrestling on the floor, were four or five little boys, a bit tattered, but dressed well enough that Axia a.s.sumed they were the sons of the owner. If he had children, where was his wife that she could allow such disorder in her house?
Standing in the doorway, Axia saw that Frances was the center of attention, sitting in the middle of the high table, a big good-looking man who was no doubt Lachlan Teversham leaning over her, attentive to everything she had to say. On the other side of her was Jamie, also leaning toward her. He was wearing a dark green velvet doublet, and he was as clean as Axia was dirty, as fresh as she was tired.
Sure that no one would notice her, Axia walked into the middle of the room and into the melee of boys and began grabbing shirt collars as she attempted to pull them apart.
However, she miscalculated the size of the boys, or perhaps her own lack of size was her underestimation. The boys, not used to any form of discipline imposed on them, thought she wanted to play with them. One grabbed her ankle, and with a scream, Axia went down into the middle of them. In seconds, she was nearly smothered by a tumbling, laughing heap of arms and legs and sweaty torsos.
She had no idea what would have happened if someone had not lifted the largest boy off of her. On her back, her arms over her face in protection, Axia looked up to see the smiling face of a big, handsome man, gray at his temples, the man who had seconds before been giving all his attention to Frances. She couldn"t help herself, but she smiled back up at him.
The next second, she was grabbed about the waist and lifted, then slung across Jamie Montgomery"s hip like a lumpy bag of beans. Her hair had come unbraided during the tussle and now surrounded her so she was like a fish caught in a net. If she moved her arms, she pulled her own hair.
"Jamie, my lad, what do you have there?" Lachlan asked.
"Put me down, you great buffoon!" Axia shouted at him or tried to shout as her lungs were nearly cut in half by his hip and his strong right arm.
"An imp. Satan"s very own imp," Jamie said casually but then yelped when Axia bit him on the leg, and he almost dropped her.
It took Axia a moment to right herself, get her hair out of her eyes, spit it out of her mouth, and look up at the big, red-haired man. He was very nice looking, not at all gorgeous like Jamie, but then who was? However, she did like the way he was looking at her.
"Axia Mai-" she began, but Jamie grabbed her upper arm tightly. "Ow!"
"Matthews," Jamie said plainly. "A cousin to Frances. Isn"t that right?"
Behind this big man were standing four handsome little boys, their eyes bright with interest at what was happening.
"Children," Axia said calmly, "if I give you swords, will you kill this man for me?"
At that the children"s eyes widened as they looked up at Jamie. Their father roared with laughter.
"What"s this, Jamie? Do I hear aright? This is a woman who does not love you at first sight?"
Jamie grimaced. "Shall I show you my scars?"
Lachlan was looking her up and down and Axia found that she was warming to the way he was looking at her. "I do not think she could give me scars," he said softly.
Dropping Axia"s arm, Jamie smiled knowingly. "You, my innocent friend, do not know her. I saw you," he said to Axia, "come through the kitchens and I saw your anger. Tell my poor, naive friend what is on your mind."
With a smug expression, Jamie looked at Lachlan as he waited for Axia to speak.
Axia well knew what Jamie was doing. Taking a deep breath, she tightened her lips. She was not going to hide what she was! "Waste is what I saw," she said, looking Lachlan Teversham in the eyes. "Food thrown to the dogs, trampled in the floor, too many people, filth everywhere." She took a step toward him. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself for the way this place is run. Look at it! Dirt everywhere, your children with the discipline of puppies. You should be ashamed of yourself."
She was advancing on him now, warming to her subject. She had no idea what a scene she presented; though she was rumpled and dirty, her body was small and trim within her pretty, big-eyed face and her hair like a lush curtain. With her hands on her hips, she faced Lachlan, as big as a bear but looking at her with an expression as though he were a schoolboy being chastised by his teacher.
"And your wife should be doubly ashamed of herself. How can she show her face with such mismanagement? You should be running this place with half the expense. Have you no care for your future? Are you so rich that you can waste what other people need? Are you-?"
She stopped because Jamie had taken her by the upper arms and was pulling her back from his friend. There was a look on Jamie"s face that said, See what I mean?
But Lachlan was staring at Axia in wonder, as were his sons behind him.
Then, suddenly, Lachlan grabbed Axia"s face in his hands and gave her a hard kiss on the mouth.
Everyone in the hall, all of whom (except Frances) had stopped eating and were watching the scene in the middle of the room as though it were the most fascinating play they"d ever seen, blinked in wonder at Lachlan"s reaction. But no one was more surprised than Jamie.
"I have no wife," Lachlan said when he released Axia. "Will you marry me?"
"Yes," Axia said at once. "I"d like that."
"You will not!" Jamie roared, startling everyone out of their motionlessness.
"I most certainly will," Axia said, turning on him. "I can marry whom I wish. It is no concern of yours."
"Your father-"
She well knew that he thought her father was Frances"s father. "Died last year," she said quickly.
"I thought he was alive," Jamie said, confused, trying to think.
"You never asked. Plague. Body buried in a pit. Dissolved in lime. I never even said good-bye."
"Wait!" Rhys said, coming around the tables to join the group in the middle of the room. "I have some land from my father. I am not rich, but I too would like to marry you. If you will consider me."
"Like h.e.l.l you will," Lachlan said as he reached for Axia.
But Jamie was faster than either man as he shoved Axia behind him. "This girl is under my protection and I must-"
"I am not under his protection. He didn"t even want me to come on this journey. His only duty is to get the Mai-er, ah, Frances to her beloved fiance. Besides, he"s trying to marry Frances himself."
At that everyone turned to Frances, who was eating and doing her best to ignore all of them. Wherever Axia was, she managed to pull the attention onto herself. Frances would very much like to get rid of Axia. If Axia married this man Lachlan, who Frances had already discovered had no t.i.tle and whose sons had the manners of wolf cubs, then Frances would be alone with Jamie.
"You forget, dear cousin," Frances said sweetly, "that your father left you in my care. And I give permission for you to marry either of these men. Now. Today, if you"d like." She gave her most beautiful smile to her cousin.
Wonder what"s wrong with him? Axia thought, looking up at Lachlan. Frances was as anxious to marry and find herself a home as she, Axia, was, so what was wrong with this Lachlan? It never occurred to Axia that Lachlan had not first asked Frances to marry him and been turned down.
But the truth was that Lachlan had been widowed for two years now, and he"d had several opportunities to marry, but he wanted more in a woman than just a pretty face. He needed a woman who could control his unruly, headstrong boys, and he wanted wine without sand in it. He"d been raised with a strong mother and had thought he wanted a dainty wife so he"d married a fragile flower of a woman. But ten years of nursing an invalid had made him want a second wife with a whip in one hand and a crossbow in the other. He was sure it was the only thing that could control those boys of his.
Lachlan went to one knee, making his head level with Axia"s. "Marry me. What is mine is yours. Come, boys!" he commanded. "Beg this sweet lady to be your new mother."
The boys had no idea what was going on, but they knew better than to disobey a direct order from their father. Usually, he didn"t pay much attention to what they were doing, but when he did give an order, they obeyed. Flinging themselves on Axia, they wrapped their strong young arms about her waist, her thighs, her hips. "Please," they cried. "Please be our mother."
Axia was delighted. Touching other humans was something so wonderful, so delicious, and these beautiful boys- Jamie put a stop to that though.
With his hands firmly on her shoulders, he extricated her from the clutching children, then turned her toward the stairs and pushed her up the first steps, all the while hissing in her ear. "Do you forget that this is supposed to be a secret enterprise? I do not want the world to discover who your cousin is."
"And how has my marriage anything to do with the secrecy of your marriage? You could leave me here with your dear, handsome friend, and it would not matter one way or the other." Oh, but she liked the anger in his voice. Could it be jealousy? But then, how could it be when he was engaged to marry someone else? "Or do you think I should marry Rhys? They are both handsome men, are they not? But if I were like you, I would go with the one with the most money and forget feelings." She paused on the stairs. "Which man do you think I should marry?"
"Neither!" he said emphatically. "I"m to take you to your-"
"My what? To my intended?" She smiled at him smugly. "As you said, there is no reason for me to go with you."
"You are Frances"s companion."
At that, Axia laughed with such good nature at the ridiculousness of his statement that Jamie also smiled, but only for a second. "You are under my care and that is that. Until I have received instructions from Maidenhall, you will be allowed to do nothing except what I say. Certainly, you are to marry no man." Turning her around, he made her continue up the stairs.
"Yet Frances can marry someone other than the one chosen for her by her father. Is that true? She is engaged, but she is still free to choose. I am engaged to no one, but I am not free to choose. Do I have my facts right?"
"You ask too many questions. Perhaps Maidenhall will not agree to your marriage. If you are related to him and your father is dead, then you must be his ward and he has the right to decide your future. And I might remind you that I am not yet married to Frances."
"Is there hope in your voice that you may yet be saved? Or do you crave the beauteous Frances in your bed?"
"What do you know of beds?" he asked, sounding like a prim old lady as he opened the door to the room that had been a.s.signed to her. Inside were three men with heavy buckets of hot water, and they were filling a big wooden tub for her.
"More than you think," she said, trying to sound mysterious, then she saw the tub of hot water and knew without a doubt that he was responsible for this great luxury. "Oh, Jamie," she whispered, feeling every bit of her cold, clammy skin and her dirty dress and hair.
When she turned to look up at him, he was smiling in a way that made him so handsome she had to take hold of the bedpost to keep from falling. It wasn"t the smile she"d seen him give to women when he was flirting with them, but it was a little-boy smile of happiness filled with delight that he had pleased her. He looked like the young son who presented his mother with the broken and crushed head of a flower and his mother had told him she loved him best in the world.
"I thought you might like to take a bath," he said hesitantly. "But if you"d rather not..."
Knowing that what he wanted was more praise, she said, "Pearls could not have pleased me more." The sincerity of her words made him almost blush with pleasure. "I shall soak until my skin peels off. Oh, please tell them to make the water very hot." She had seen Frances do this, ask a man to give an order that she could very well do herself, and it never failed to please the men. To her utter amazement, she watched as Jamie told the servants how to adjust her bath water. "I shall wash my hair," she said in a voice that told how much she looked forward to that treat.
Jamie nodded toward the side of the bath. "Chamomile soap and a rosemary rinse water. I hope it is all right."
"Yes," she said, looking up at him. She didn"t know what would have happened if the men had not at that moment announced that the bath was ready. But they did, and the moment was gone.
"I will leave you then," Jamie said, giving her a weak smile before he left the room, pulling the door closed behind him.
For a moment, Axia whirled about the room. Oh, how lovely freedom is , she thought. Two men had asked her to marry them and now Jamie was -was... Well, she didn"t know what he was up to, but she was certainly enjoying it.
In the next instant, she peeled off her clothes, her undergarments still wet, and gingerly stepped into the very hot bath water. As the warmth soaked into her skin, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
"He sent the letter!" Frances nearly shouted at Axia as she lay back in the big wooden tub full of hot water. "Did you hear me? He sent the letter."
Because Axia had not slept all night, the hot water had soothed her into a delicious and much-needed sleep. "Who sent what letter?" she asked tiredly. She did, of course, know who the "he" was, but not what letter. Now that Frances had ruined her bath, Axia began to soap her hair.
Frances plopped down on a stool at the foot of the bed. "The letter to your father. Lord James sent a letter to him asking to marry his daughter, Frances. Not you. Frances. Me."
Axia was so tired that it took her a moment to comprehend. Then her eyes opened in horror. "Jamie sent a letter to my father?" she whispered. Putting her hand to her forehead, she tried to think. After Frances had so proudly announced that she and Jamie were to be secretly married, Axia had been too angry to think. She had not looked too deeply into her reasons for her anger, but whatever the reason, it blocked out all rational thought. Why hadn"t she asked Frances questions at the time? "Tell me everything," she said softly.
"I wanted a secret marriage, with no one else involved, but Lord James said that his honor forced him to ask your father for permission-"
"Now he is my father," Axia muttered.
Frances ignored her. "I agreed, of course. What else could I do?"
"Oh yes, your trickery of the man must make you very thorough in your lies."
Frances"s eyes flashed anger. "Axia, I have done all this for you."
"You have what?" Axia"s eyes were wide.
"I can see that you are attracted to him, and if you married him in secret, your father would disinherit you."
For a moment Axia could not speak. "So you thought to make yourself into Lady Frances in order to save me? I do apologize for ever having had an ungenerous thought about you. Frances, you are the very personification of kindness."
Frances looked at Axia to see if she was telling the truth or not. With Axia, one could never really tell.
Axia leaned forward, her eyes narrowed. "Please spare me your fairy tales of all you have done for me. I want to know about this letter to my father!"
Frances should have known better than to think Axia would believe anything she said. "As I said, Lord James wanted to send a letter to your father asking permission to marry his daughter, only it would be me, Frances, who was the daughter. I couldn"t very well say no, so I said that I would write a letter too and we"d send them together. And then, of course, I would never send the letters."
Axia was staring at her cousin in disbelief. "Did you think he would not notice when there was no reply? Or were you planning to write the reply in my father"s hand?"
Truthfully, Frances hadn"t thought that far ahead, but she"d die before she told Axia that. "None of that matters now. His letter has been sent to your father, and it asks for permission to marry his daughter." Frances"s mouth tightened, something she did not do often as she knew facial movement would give her early wrinkles. Her voice lowered. "What do you think your father is going to do when he reads that I am his daughter and not you?"
Axia did not like to think about any of this. It was difficult to control her anger at Frances. "I do not know. Perhaps he will yawn and say, "My goodness, there must have been some mistake." Or do you think he will send an army to fetch me? To escort me under military rule to my beloved fiance"s house?" She took a deep breath. "And you, dear cousin, what do you think he will do with you? My guess is that he will dump you naked in the mud at the side of the road. Let us see what your beauty will attract then."
For a second Axia closed her eyes; she needed time to think. "Dump that bucket of hot water over my head so I can rinse."
Frances stiffened. "For all that you might think it, I am not your maid."
"All right then," Axia said sweetly, "you can use your brain to come up with a solution to this problem."
Frances only hesitated for a second before lifting the heavy bucket and sending water cascading over Axia"s soapy hair.