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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
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 hanging over the wall. After she found it, it took her three mighty swings before she could get enough height to get over. She knew she"d made noise and she heard the guards, but by that time she was on the other side of the wall, leaning against it, her heart pounding.
"Must have been a squirrel," a guard said.
"A squirrel the size of a man," the other guard said before they left.
When all was silent again, Axia ran through the dark, across the orchard, and back to her own bedchamber.
She did not see Tode rise from his huddled place in the deepest, darkest corner of the wall and, frowning, slowly and stiffly go to his own bed, his head bent in thought.
Chapter 8.
"He is here!" Frances said as she burst into Axia"s room and threw back the bed curtains. Because the window curtains had not been drawn the night before, sunlight hit Axia square in the face. "Oh, he is divine, so kind, so considerate. Manners like a prince. And he is the most handsome man on earth."
There was no need whatever to say who "he" was. "And my lover," Axia muttered, only reluctantly waking up. "What? What was it my poor cousin said?"
"Nothing, Frances. Why are you up so early? And what do you have on?"
"Yellow silk. Is it not divine? I have been saving it." Axia grimaced. Her father often used the estate as a stopping point for his wagons of goods traveling across the country. Whenever a load of silks came from France or leather from Italy, Frances helped herself. Of course she told the steward to report that the fabric had been used for the heiress. As for Axia, she found that stiff silk impeded her climbing of ladders to pick apples. And paint did not wash out of satin. Truthfully, clothes had never been of much interest to Axia.
"Saving it?" Axia asked, yawning. "And how many other gowns have you "saved" for this journey? A queen"s wardrobe perhaps?" Both of them knew that Axia knew to a penny how much Frances spent or took.
Frances looked at herself in the mirror on the little stand on the table under the window. "You should hear his plan," she said, watching Axia in the mirror. "I am to be his wife." To Frances"s great satisfaction, Axia sat bolt upright in bed.
"His what?"
Turning, Frances gave her cousin a sweetly catty smile. "Oh, my, it is getting late. I must run. I am so glad you slept late, cousin, as you have given James and me time to become such good friends this morning." With that, she slipped out the door.
Axia looked about her for something to throw at the door and found only her shoes, which made an unsatisfyingly weak sound when they hit the door. However, Frances must have been listening because her laugh rang out loud and clear before she ran down the hall.
Throwing back the covers, Axia thought, His wife? Now what has Frances been up to? And how can anyone cause so much trouble in so little time?
She dressed quickly, pulling her own laces together, gave a regretful glance toward the stand where her mother"s cap usually sat, then ran from the room. How her life had changed! First last night and now today! Today she was to start the most wonderful journey of her life. As she ran down the stairs, tying her hair into a tidy knot, she thought, What will I see on this journey? Who will I meet? What food have I not tasted? What smells will be new to me? What sounds are to be heard?
When she opened the door of the withdrawing chamber, she stopped short. He was there, standing so the sunlight hit the back of his head, playing on the dark curls of his hair, then running down his warm neck that she"d kissed so many times last night and onto his shoulders, so broad and strong. He was standing by a table, a map in his hands.
At the sight-and memory-of his hands, Axia had to catch herself against the door jamb. Would he recognize her? Would his spirit know who she was?
Blinking, she looked away from Jamie, bent so intently over the map, to see that both Tode and Frances were staring at her, Frances with a smirk on her face. Axia forced herself to remove the expression from her face. She wasn"t going to let anyone know what she was feeling.
"Good morning," she said lightly. Tode nodded at her silently, still looking at her in an odd way; Frances continued smirking, and Jamie looked up frowning.
"You sleep late, I see," Jamie said flatly, as though he now had further proof of her worthlessness.
From the way he glared at her, she knew that he did not recognize her from the night before. "Not usually," she began, because he made her sound as though she were lazy. "Usually I-"
"No matter." He cut her off, and looking back at the map, he continued as though she were of no consequence. "We will meet the wagons here and here-"
"What are you doing?" Axia asked, leaning over the map as close to Jamie as possible. Tode had moved to stand on the other side of her.
"Lord James has the most marvelous plan," Frances purred. "Oh, please, do tell her," she pleaded prettily.
Involuntarily, Axia smiled. Frances would do anything to get a man"s attention, pretend to be stupid, helpless, whatever. Axia had seen her ask men shorter than she was to reach for things for her. Frances could gag a person, but the men all seemed to love whatever she did.
Frances batted her lashes at Jamie. "Please," she repeated.
With obvious reluctance, Jamie turned to Axia. "I have sent a messenger to my relatives to send guards for the wagons. Anyone who sees them will think they carry the Maidenhall heiress and her dowry. But in truth I have hired someone else to take her role."
"And you will never guess who is to be me," Frances said as she put her hand on Jamie"s forearm.
"Me?" Axia asked tentatively. Was she to be the heiress playing someone playing the heiress?
"Of course not!" Jamie snapped as though she had offended him. "I do not risk women, and any woman traveling in those gaudy wagons is at risk."
Axia was glad he did not mean for her to be harmed, but the way he was looking at her made her think he hated her.
"Smith!" Frances burst out. "The tall boy who Father hired is to be me."
It took Axia a moment to remember that "Father" was actually her father. She gave a weak smile, but she didn"t like the way Jamie was staring at her.
"Tell her the rest," Frances urged. "It is such a brilliant plan."
Jamie began rolling up the map, obviously very reluctant to tell Axia anything. "I and my two men will take another two wagons. We are to be cloth merchants, and Mistress Maidenhall will travel as my wife. That way, I will be able to protect her, free of the Maidenhall name."
Thrusting the map under his arm, he looked at Axia, almost sneering at her. "Is there anything else?"
Axia swallowed. Why was he looking at her with such anger? "How do I travel?"
He gave her a look up and down. "You do not. You remain here."
For a moment Axia could not speak. It was as though the bottom of her world had fallen out. Not to go? To remain here?
"You are not necessary," Jamie was saying. "I was hired to protect the Maidenhall heiress, and you are one of the dangers. You have shown your jealousy and the lengths to which you carry it."
Axia was in such a state of shock that it was as though her soul left her body and, hovering above the room, she could look down on everything and everyone. Not to go? She had been put inside these walls when she was three weeks old, and until last night she had never been outside of them. And after this journey she knew she would be locked up again. But now this man was saying that this one bit of freedom was to be denied her.
She could see Frances"s face. Never had a countenance registered such joy as Frances was feeling at this news that Axia would not be allowed to go on this journey.
Maybe James Montgomery did not remember last night, but she knew that she had given him her most precious gift, had told him she loved him, and today he was saying there was no reason for her to be given these few weeks of freedom. He was denying her what she most wanted on earth.
Axia went into a rage such as she"d never felt before. Leaping on Jamie, her hands formed into claws, she raked the skin of his cheeks. Her attack was so unexpected, it stunned everyone in the room. No one could move. Jamie tripped over his own feet, staggering backward in his confusion as he tried to shield his face from her hands. Doubling her fist, Axia hit him in the face as she kicked him at the same time, all the while screaming, "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you."
Tode was the first to recover. He was the only person in the room who knew what Axia was feeling. Wrapping his arms around her, pinning her arms to her sides, he pulled her off Jamie. By this time, Jamie"s men had recovered enough to step between him and the little wildcat.
"Ssssh, quiet," Tode was saying, holding Axia as tightly as possible. "Of course you can go. You will not be left behind."
Jamie, the back of his hand to his sc.r.a.ped face, looked up. One of his eyes looked as though it might turn black. Looking at the blood on his hand, he said, "She is insane."
At his words, Axia began to struggle again, but Tode bellowed across the room, "Frances! Tell him!"
Frances gave a great sigh because she knew exactly what Tode wanted her to say. "I will not go if my cousin Axia does not go with me," she said tiredly, obviously not wanting Axia to go but still saying what was demanded of her.
Jamie looked from Frances to that crazy girl being held by Tode. What was this? What hold did that murderous girl have on the heiress?
"You do not have to do this," Jamie said to Frances. The scratches in his face were beginning to sting. "She is a madwoman. She has tried to murder you, to murder me. Am I to carry her in a locked cage?"
Shaking all over, still trembling in the aftermath of her rage, Axia had not known she was capable of such anger. But not to go? Not to go?!
Tode relaxed his hold on Axia as he felt her subside. "Frances," he said in a voice that carried warning, "if you do not say what needs to be said, then I will tell him all."
Frances grimaced. She very well knew that Tode- that hideous little monster-would tell Lord James that she was not actually the heiress; then it would be Frances who would be left behind. She took a deep breath. "Axia did not try to murder me yesterday. She wanted only to make me sneeze. No one knew the daisies would..." She waved her hand. For all that her words were correct, her tone could not have been more flat.
"And?" Tode said, letting Frances know he would allow her to leave nothing out.
"Axia is angry because she wants to go."
At that Rhys gave a guffaw of laughter and even Thomas smiled. Anger? Is that what they had just seen was called? Anger? Men fighting in battle, trying to save their own lives, fought with less pa.s.sion than they"d seen in this young woman.
Rhys looked at Axia now, her waist-length hair, thick and shining, twisted about her like a rich auburn cloak, her breast still heaving. All in all, she was quite a bit more attractive than even he"d originally thought.
When Jamie hesitated in giving his approval, Frances glanced at Tode and saw that he was about to tell the truth of who was the heiress. "Please," Frances said and her begging was genuine. "She can go as-as my maid."
"I would rather eat-" Axia started, but Tode cut her off.
"Not satisfactory," he said to Frances.
Frances gave a little moue of disgust. "All right, then, she can be my cousin or sister or whatever."
"I am your cousin," Axia yelped.
"So you are," Frances said, giving Axia a look up and down, Frances in her yellow silk embroidered with thousands of blue b.u.t.terflies, Axia in drab, serviceable wool. Frances"s look said she couldn"t understand how the two of them could be related.
Seeing the look, Rhys guffawed again; Thomas put his hand over his mouth to hide his smile.
"Are you sure Maidenhall paid you enough?" Rhys said under his breath to Jamie.
Jamie put up his hand for the cat fight to stop. "If I must take you both, I wish I could send you on separate caravans, but I cannot." He glared at Axia. "You will travel as my sister." Moving close to Axia, he nearly put his nose to hers. "And if I have any trouble with you, I will send you back here with an escort. Do you understand me?"
Axia wasn"t afraid of him, and she wasn"t going to allow him to intimidate her. Standing on tiptoe, she looked him square in the eyes. "I swear here and now that I will do everything I can to make your life as miserable as possible, and if you attempt to retaliate in any way, you will regret it."
Jamie, never before having encountered hostility from a woman, merely stared at her. Frances broke him from his trance.
"Is he going?" she asked Jamie as she nodded toward Tode, her voice letting him know that she did not want Tode to go with them.
Jamie ran his hand over his eyes. He"d once been caught at sea in a storm that had destroyed the other four ships near them; he, Rhys, and Thomas had once fought twelve Turks at once; he"d spent seven months in a prison that was filled with rats and unspeakable filth. But, by G.o.d, right now he"d rather deal with any of those things than these two women.
Jamie took a deep breath. "Yes, Tode goes with us. Maidenhall has expressly requested that he remain with his daughter." He narrowed his eyes at Axia. "As for you-" He couldn"t think of anything to say to her because if he opened his mouth, he feared what might come out of it. "You -paint the wagons as for a cloth merchant. Perhaps you can make yourself useful." With that he stormed out of the room, his two men following him.
The single candle glittered in the barren little room, and Jamie thought how his youngest sister would not like to hear that the Maidenhall estate was comfortable but did not have the richness he"d expected. Truthfully, only Frances glittered as he"d expected. But he must write them a letter and rea.s.sure them that all was well.
"The woman Axia is insane," Jamie wrote his sister. "But Frances the heiress-" He put down his pen. Frances what? Loved her insane cousin? Jamie ran his hand over the scratches on his face, then winced when his thumb touched his sore, swollen, and blackened eye. No, that girl Axia had some rule over Frances. What could it be? What secret could a nineteen-year-old heiress have that would cause her to do anything rather than have it found out?
And what was between Tode and Axia? Were they lovers?
At that Jamie smashed the end of his quill and had to use his dagger to cut a new point.
It was not his concern what went on between the cousin of the Maidenhall heiress and... whatever capacity Tode occupied in this strange household.
He turned back to his letter.
But Frances the heiress will not allow her cousin to be left behind. I do not believe Frances sees her cousin for the threat she is.
We will be traveling in disguise, with Frances as my wife, and I shall be pretending to be a cloth merchant. Shall I not make a fine one in my new clothes? Axia, the cousin, is very jealous of Frances, so I will need to watch her closely. She is to travel as my sister. No set of traveling players ever had such a farce as this one.
I am sending a girl to you. Her name is Diana, and she is badly marked. Be kind to her as she has been to me.