The Heiress

by Jude Deveraux

  “Yes, I’m sure you’ll be a great deal of help,” Joby said contemptuously.

  Tode did not bother to speak, but the look he gave Joby made her shut up. He let her know that she was a child, and as such, if she wanted to stay with the grown-ups, she had better mind her manners. Neither Axia nor Tode knew it, but it was the same look that Jamie often sent his little sister’s way.

  “I can come and go freely. No one notices someone who looks like me. I came for just these few hours to explain to you what was wrong.”

  “What of Frances?” Axia asked. “Is she cared for?”

  To Axia’s disbelief, she thought that for a moment Tode blushed, but surely, she must have been wrong.

  “Frances is all right. She is being held in a stone room at the top of the old tower. She is comfortable but frightened. Oliver tends to her himself and rarely allows anyone in to see her.” He gave a bit of a smile. “Except for someone to cheer her up.”

  Axia reached across the table to take Tode’s hand. “Tell me what I can do. I will give my life if it will get Jamie out. Please let me do something.”

  For a moment, his eyes locked with hers, and Tode saw there what had only been a shadow before. Axia loved Jamie. Loved him as she’d never loved anyone else. For a moment Tode felt jealousy, but then he controlled himself and squeezed her hand in return. “There is nothing you can do. I can get into the tunnels well enough, as the guard lets me pass. It is just getting Jamie out that is difficult. I cannot very well lead him through the Great Hall and out. For all that your Jamie is a great soldier,” he said, smiling warmly at Axia, “I do not think he can fight all of Oliver’s men.”

  “What other way is there to get him out?” Axia asked.

  “I cannot tell what the tunnels were, but they seem to go on for miles. Whether they are old mines or crypts, I do not know. Nor do I think Oliver knows, or if he did know, he has forgotten. I think they are mayhaps Roman, and some of them have collapsed. Whatever they were, only a mole could find his way through them.”

  “Or a blind person,” Berengaria said softly.

  “Not on your life!” Joby shouted. “Jamie would—”

  “Quiet!” Tode commanded, then turned to Berengaria, his eyes searching her face. “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “A blind person would have a great advantage in the darkness of those tunnels. The first day I was allowed to see Jamie, so I took a torch and tried to see where the tunnels led, but the guards saw my torch and stopped me. Another day I spent combing the forest near Oliver’s, trying to find the exit to the tunnels, but I could find nothing. For all anyone knows, they have no exit.”

  “But if we could hide Jamie in the tunnels until a rescue comes, it will get him out from under this Oliver’s rule,” Axia said, her eyes showing her rising fear. When Tode would not meet her eyes, she said, “You are not telling all. I know it! You are holding something back.”

  “Yes,” Berengaria said as she reached for Tode’s hand and ran her thumb over the palm. “There is more danger than you are telling us.”

  “Yesterday morning, Oliver’s brother arrived.”

  When Axia heard the sharp intake of breath from both Joby and Berengaria, she knew there was danger, true danger.

  Tode lowered his eyes and his voice. “The brother, Ronald, told Oliver that he was stupid for wanting a poor Montgomery for a wife when he had the Maidenhall heiress locked away in a tower. Since the brother is already married, he is trying to force Frances to marry Oliver. But Jamie has told them that Maidenhall has made him Frances’s guardian, and she cannot marry without his permission. But, of course, Jamie will not sign any papers giving Frances to Oliver, so he is being held without food and only enough water to sustain life.” Lifting his head, Tode looked at Axia. “He will need a doctor when he gets out.”

  At that Axia rose from the bench and went to look out the window, not wanting anyone to see into her eyes.

  “What has been done to him?” Berengaria whispered.

  “Repeated whippings,” was Tode’s reply. “I was the only one allowed to see him and then only because they did not know that I had ever met him before. For all that has been done to Jamie, he is still making Oliver’s brother believe that he has some hold over Perkin Maidenhall, and it is up to Jamie to agree to the marriage.”

  “So this protects Frances,” Axia said softly, turning back to the group at the table. “Whether she marries or not is out of her hands and in Jamie’s.”

  “Yes.”

  Chapter 27

  Drawing the horses to a halt, Tode sat atop the wagon seat with his breath held as he watched the approach of armed men. Because he knew some of them by sight, he knew they were Oliver’s men. One disadvantage of looking as he did was that people recognized him and remembered him.

  But when the men saw him and started punching each other and grinning, he knew they would not be suspicious. Which was good, because he had three females hidden in the back of the wagon, lying under great mounds of flowers.

  “And what do you have here?” one of the men asked, already laughing at the very sight of Tode.

  “Flowers for the Maidenhall heiress,” Tode said jovially. “What better way to court a woman than with flowers? She will be his by tonight. In marriage or out.”

  Under the coarse linen that covered the three of them, Axia listened in wonder, as she had never heard this tone in Tode’s voice before. By nature, he was a somber man, taking his duties rather too seriously at times. But the man speaking now had a tone in his voice that seemed to expect people to laugh at whatever he said.

  And Oliver’s men did laugh. “You’d better replant those,” one of the men called. “The heiress won’t be needing them.”

  “At least not for marrying poor ol’ Henry,” another man called.

  “Ah, then,” Tode said, “I shall use them for my own wedding.”

  At that the men laughed as though that were the funniest thing they had ever heard. Inside the wagon, Axia felt Berengaria, lying beside her, tense, her hands made into fists at her side.

  “Maybe you can marry the heiress,” one of the men said. “If you can find her.”

  “Oh?” Tode asked as though it meant nothing to him. “Has she managed to hide herself, or has her father come to fetch her?”

  Only Axia heard the fear in Tode’s voice at the mention of Perkin Maidenhall.

  “Escaped,” one of the men said. “Painted her way out,” he said, then shouted with laughter. “If you see her, tell her to find a door and come back inside.”

  After that the men were laughing too hard to speak anymore, and without a word, they left Tode and his wagon full of flowers alone in the road.

  Ten minutes later, Tode had moved the wagon under the dense shade of an oak tree and stepped down to get a drink of water from a little barrel strapped to the side of the wagon.

  “Did you hear?” he asked, looking through the great crack in the sideboards at the three pairs of eyes staring at him.

  Joby did not wait to give an answer but threw back the covering. When she had agreed to being secreted inside a wagon, she had not thought how horrible it would be. “I will find her,” she announced as she leaped over the side.

  “You know nothing,” Tode said, feeling that this gift was his responsibility until Jamie was freed.

  “I know every rabbit hole of this country, and maybe I can find the exit to your tunnels. If this city-bred Frances of yours is lost, she will not know where to go.”

  “I cannot allow—” Tode began.

  Pushing aside great armfuls of flowers, Berengaria sat up and said, “She knows all the shepherds and cowherds in the county. No woman will be able to escape their notice. She must go.”

  Beside Berengaria, Axia sat up. “And you said we do not need her. Oh, Tode, please do not allow Frances to wander about alone. You know that she is helpless. She can do nothing on her own.”

  “You are not right about that,” Tode said, frowning, but then he knew there was
sense in what the women were saying.

  “Please,” Berengaria said softly, and that decided Tode.

  Joby didn’t wait for the answer but ran across the fields toward Henry Oliver’s house.

  As Tode handed each woman a dipper full of water in turn, he looked at them. With Axia’s talent at painting, she had managed to transform herself and Berengaria into old, haggard-looking women. Although to Tode’s eyes, nothing could make Berengaria less than exquisitely beautiful, and he’d told her so.

  As for Joby, Tode had refused to allow anything to be done with her as a disguise. With her boyish haircut and clothes, what else could be done with her? “Shall we try to make her into a girl?” Tode had said, indulging himself in a rare moment of spite because of all the nasty things Joby had said about him. “But no, not even you, Axia, are that talented.”

  So now he was glad to get rid of Joby, for her constant disobedience was a trial, and now he needed cooperation for what he had planned.

  It was full dark by the time they reached Oliver’s house, and Tode was glad for the state of confusion that reigned, even though he was worried about Frances. How had she escaped from a stone tower?

  It took just minutes to ascertain that Frances had not yet been found, that Jamie was still locked below, still refusing to sign anything. Once again Tode vowed that he was going to murder Joby when this was all through, for Oliver had told him that it was “the odd little Montgomery girl’s idea” that he kidnap the Maidenhall heiress and thereby force Jamie to give him his beloved Berengaria. After meeting Berengaria, Tode refused to believe that she had any knowledge of what her young sister had done.

  Tode knew that Oliver’s brother Ronald had stationed men at the front gate, watching for anyone who remotely looked like one of their Montgomery neighbors. Ronald had said that he wouldn’t put it past those Amazonian Montgomery women to try to rescue their brother themselves, so he wanted all women entering to be scrutinized.

  But no one had looked at Tode with his wagonfull of flowers. Or if they did look, they burst into laughter.

  “He has played the fool for many days if they have all seen him,” Berengaria whispered to Axia beside her, and there was bitterness in her voice.

  Her words echoed Axia’s thoughts exactly.

  Once they were inside the grounds, the women listened as Tode pulled Henry Oliver to the side of the wagon and offered his help in bringing Frances back. He knew how women loved flowers, didn’t he? Yes. Well if he were to scatter them about, Frances would be attracted to them and come back. They would be a kind of bait, didn’t Henry see?

  “Like putting out cheese for a mouse,” Henry said in wonder.

  “Exactly,” Tode answered. “But do not tell that brother of yours or he will find the heiress before you do and he will take all the credit.”

  “Yes,” Henry said. “Ronald thinks he is the only smart person in the village.”

  Tode thought Ronald believed he was the only smart person in the world, but that was beside the point. “So where shall we put them?” Tode asked, and Axia could feel the blankness of Oliver’s mind.

  “In the dungeon with the prisoner?” Tode suggested. “She will try to go to him first, will she not?”

  “Oh yes, of course.” Leaning over, he whispered to Tode. “Do not let my brother see you, as he will let no one down there, not even me.”

  “Then why do you not go and tell him that this is your house and not his and that she is your heiress, and he is not to interfere in your life ever again? After all, it was you who was smart enough to kidnap the Maidenhall heiress, not him.”

  “But that will make Ronald very angry.”

  “Yes, and while he is raging, I will put the trap out for the heiress. You are not afraid of your brother, are you?”

  “Well, maybe … No! I am not. You go and put your flowers out. What harm can flowers do?”

  “Right.” Tode waited a few moments for Henry to walk far enough away before he flipped back the edge of the canvas and said, “It is safe now. You can come out.”

  “You are the most brilliant man I have ever met,” Berengaria said as Tode helped her down. “All my life I will owe you, and my sister will—Ow!”

  “Sorry,” Axia said, “my foot must have slipped. I think we shouldn’t waste more time talking and should get on with it.”

  “By all means,” Tode said, and there was a bit of a chuckle in his voice.

  Twenty minutes later, Tode, Axia, and Berengaria, with Henry’s permission, were on their way down the stairs to the dungeon. There was so much confusion since Frances’s escape that no one noticed that Axia was holding Berengaria’s hand, leading her across broken flagstones, and whispering when she was to step over a pile of offal on the floor.

  “Disgusting!” she hissed, but a look from Tode silenced her. Once they had to stop while Tode made some foolish faces at the kitchen help, and both of the women held each other’s hands so tightly they hurt. Neither of them liked that Tode had to humiliate himself this way.

  Once out of the kitchens, Tode led them through a labyrinth of old stone corridors filled with barrels, boxes, and rusting farm equipment. It seemed that everything Henry Oliver’s family had ever owned was stored in the cellars below, and at times Axia had difficulty keeping Berengaria from stumbling as they made their way through the confusion. Now and then there was a torch stuck in an iron holder on the wall, but for the most part they were in darkness.

  After what seemed to be an eternity, they came to a small room, seeming to be brightly lit after the gloom of the cellars. The heavy oak door to the room was open and the three of them were able to walk through without making a sound. On three sides of the room were huge damp stones and on the fourth wall there was nothing, just the black emptiness of a tunnel that seemed to stretch into infinity.

  Before the tunnel was a table, a chair, and a guard sitting alone, his chin resting on his chest and sleeping soundly.

  Part of Axia breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the guard was asleep and part of her was terrified. Tode had said that he would think of something when the time came to put the guard off, but he did not yet know what it was. He had said that at worst he would have to stay and entertain the man while Axia and Berengaria went to Jamie. When Axia had asked what would happen to him when they found Jamie was gone, he had not answered.

  But now she could see that the guard was asleep, his head hanging down on his chest—and the keys were hanging on the wall near his head. If Tode could just get them down soundlessly, without waking the guard, she knew they would have passed the first step.

  “What is it?” Berengaria whispered anxiously.

  Axia shushed her, fearing that her voice would wake the guard, then she gripped Berengaria’s hand hard while she watched Tode creep forward and remove the keys from the wall. When they jangled, Axia drew in her breath sharply.

  “What is it?” Berengaria asked again, making Tode turn and frown.

  Annoyed, Axia jerked on Berengaria’s hand to let her know she should say nothing, but when she saw her open her mouth to speak again, Axia whispered, “The guard is asleep.”

  In a normal voice that in the entrance to the black tunnels was as loud as cannon fire, Berengaria said, “There is no one here but ourselves.”

  Axia thought the fear that ran through her might cause her to die on the spot. Anxiously, she looked at the guard, but he remained asleep.

  With some annoyance, Berengaria said again, “There is no one here, I tell you.”

  At that, Tode stopped, keys in his hand, and looked at the guard. As far as he could see the man was not moving, not even his chest was lifting as he breathed. Slowly, tentatively, he reached out his hand and touched the man’s shoulder. His body was warm, but when the man did not flinch at Tode’s touch, he put his fingertips to the man’s neck.

  But when Tode touched him again, the guard fell face forward, the sound of his forehead hitting the table making Axia jump.

  O
nly when Tode pushed the man’s body back against the wall could he see the small knife wound in his chest. It wasn’t very large, but it was exactly in the correct place; the man must have died instantly.

  “Jamie!” Axia said, dropping her flowers, then running into the darkness of the tunnels without giving heed to where she was going.

  Taking the torch off the walls, Tode grabbed Berengaria’s hand and followed Axia as fast as he dared, for the floor was so slippery it was dangerous.

  The horrid little cell where Jamie had been kept was empty, only a pile of bloody clothes to show that he had been there.

  “Where is he?” Axia demanded, as though Tode and Berengaria would have the answer. But even if they had, she did not wait for their reply because she plunged into the darkness of the tunnels outside the cell. She was sure that Jamie could not have gone upstairs; there were too many people who would see and recognize him. The only way he could have escaped was into the tunnels.

  As fast as he could, Berengaria’s hand firmly in his, Tode held the torch aloft and ran after Axia, catching her as she was about to run down a black corridor. “We must not separate,” he said, looking into Axia’s frightened face. “We must stay together. Do you—?” He broke off at a sound coming from the entrance to the tunnels.

  “He’s dead! Get torches. I want him found!” they heard a voice shouting. “Look! There’s a light.”

  Without thought, Tode threw the torch into a puddle of heaven only knew what liquid that ran the length of the floor, and they were plunged into darkness. Absolute, total blackness.

  When Tode and Axia hesitated, Berengaria took the lead. “Follow me,” she said, and never in her life had she ever loved saying words more. She was the leader now, and they were helpless.

  The tunnels were dirty and long unused—and as she soon found, they were full of hazards. In places the floor had caved in or the ceiling had collapsed.

  “Be careful here,” she whispered. “There is a hole here. Do not step amiss.”

  “How can you tell?” Tode asked, holding her hand, Axia behind him.