The Heiress by Jude Deveraux Page A

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.
    â€œYour sister is beautiful?” Axia asked. “As you are?”
    â€œHow 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.”
    â€œYes,” was all he said before his mouth covered hers.
    This time he was slower, and Axia enjoyed their union verymuch, 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.
    â€œWhat was that?”
    Axia froze as she heard the man’s voice outside the tent.
    â€œAll 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.
    â€œFarewell, 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.
    â€œMust have been a squirrel,” a guard said.
    â€œA 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
    H e 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.
    â€œWhat? What was it my poor cousin said?”
    â€œNothing, Frances. Why are you up so early? And what do you have on?”
    â€œYellow silk. Is it not divine? I have been saving it.”
    Axia grimaced. Her father often used the estate as a