The Heiress

by Jude Deveraux

  “This place is less hazardous than my home, what with the fallen daggers and swords of my brothers. And Joby finds that moving a piece of furniture is easier than walking around it.” For all that there was danger, she could not help feeling a sense of purpose and strength at this new responsibility. For these minutes she was no longer the Family Burden, but someone who was needed.

  Now she concentrated on getting them out of there. Pausing, she sniffed the air.

  “What are you doing?” Axia asked, impatient. Where was Jamie?

  “I am trying to smell the sun,” she replied cryptically. “This way.”

  Tode had to pull Axia along behind him, for he was afraid she’d start asking Berengaria questions about how and why, her curiosity overriding her fear.

  Now and then Axia would look behind her to see if she could see the torches of Oliver’s men, but she could see nothing. In the thirty minutes or so that they had been walking, she was aware that they had passed large obstructions and tiptoed around holes in the floor. She thought that if she could see, she would believe the tunnel to be impassable.

  “Wait!” Berengaria said when they came to a wider place in the tunnel, a place so wide that Axia could open her arms and hit nothing. “Someone has been here.”

  “Jamie?” Axia asked, breathless.

  “I cannot tell, but I feel that someone has been here.”

  “Can you smell them?” Axia asked in wonder, and the way she said it made the others laugh.

  And it was while they were laughing that the man jumped from the shadows and held a knife to Tode’s throat. “One word and you are dead,” came a harsh voice in Tode’s ear.

  “Jamie!” Berengaria and Axia said in unison, then Axia made a leap in his direction, her hands outstretched, reaching for any part of him that she could find.

  “Hell and damnation!” Jamie gasped in shock and some annoyance, but the next second he was pulling Axia to him and kissing her, holding her to him as closely as possible.

  “Jamie, my love,” Axia whispered, “I thought I would die without you. Are you well? Did they hurt you?”

  “Not at all. They—Ow! Well, perhaps a bit.” He nuzzled her neck. “Will you nurse me back to health?”

  “I will do things that will make you want to live,” she said throatily, then there was silence as they continued kissing, their privacy ensured by the blackness of the tunnels.

  Standing just a few feet away, two people listened to them with mixed emotions. For many years, Tode and Axia had been everything to each other, but now he could tell that their friendship had changed forever. And Berengaria could feel how much her brother loved this woman who had come so suddenly into their lives and turned it upside down. Now she knew that Axia had done nothing to entice her brother, nothing except love him, love him completely and totally, without thought for herself. Berengaria had not paid much attention when Axia had said she would give up her own life to save Jamie’s, but now she could feel Axia’s fear for Jamie’s safety as well as her need of him.

  Berengaria was glad that someone loved her dear brother the way she thought he should be loved, but at the same time, a great wave of loneliness washed over her. Jamie was her best friend, and he was the only male she had ever known who did not care that she was blind.

  As Berengaria was feeling the loss of her brother, Tode slipped his hand in hers, then leaning toward her, he kissed her on the side of the mouth. “You will not be alone,” he said, seeming to read her mind. “Not while I have breath in me.”

  “Come, imp, release me and tell me what you are doing here. As if I did not know. Tode! How could you bring her into this mess? Oliver’s men are serious in their pursuit of the Maidenhall money. But you allowed Axia—”

  “And me,” Berengaria said softly.

  While Jamie was speaking, Axia was running her hands all over him to find out what damage had been done to him. She felt him jump at his sister’s voice; then she felt the anger rise in him.

  “We needed her,” Axia said, trying to head Jamie off. “She can see where we cannot.”

  “It is bad enough that you endanger my wife, but to take my bl—my sister,” he corrected himself. “Tode, I hold you accountable for this. You should not have brought women into this. Especially not—”

  “Go ahead and say it!” Berengaria spat out. “He should not have brought your useless blind sister into this. That’s what you want to say, isn’t it?”

  “I did not say that nor did I mean that. None of you should be here.”

  “We came to save you, you ingrate!” Axia said. “And for your information, Berengaria is not blind down here. She can smell the sun.”

  For a moment, Jamie hesitated, then he laughed. “All right, I cannot fight that. Come, let us go.” But to his consternation, neither of the three followed him. Turning back, he said, “They will be searching for us soon. We must find the exit and quickly.”

  Axia put her hands on her hips, knowing that he could not see her gesture. “Berengaria can see better than you, so we will follow her.”

  It was in that moment that Berengaria decided that she truly loved her new sister-in-law. No one had ever said that Berengaria could do anything better than anyone else. For all that she was blind, she was still a Montgomery, and her pride swelled. “Come. This way!” she commanded and began walking in the opposite direction that Jamie had started to lead.

  Jamie was wise enough to concede leadership when he was not the best man for the job, so now he turned and followed the others.

  Berengaria led them through what seemed to be acres of tunnel, and after a while Axia thought that she too could “smell” the sun. Once they came upon a ceiling that had fallen, blocking the path. Tode and Jamie cleared the rubble, neither of them allowing the women to help.

  “Jamie is hurt more than he lets us know,” Berengaria whispered, taking a sip from the water bottle they each carried. “He is bleeding. I can smell it.”

  Axia took a breath. “Yes. I could feel it when I touched him. Are you sure we are going toward the exit?”

  “Oh yes. I can—”

  “Berengaria!” Axia suddenly said. “Could you smell the sun if it were nighttime?”

  She chuckled. “I cannot actually smell the sun but what the sun does to the land. It makes things grow, and I can smell the plants and the fresh air. It seems so obvious to me which way to go. Can you not tell?”

  “Not in the least. Could you find our way back, the way we came?”

  “Yes, of course.” With one ear turned toward Jamie as he struggled with the rocks, she said softly, “My brother Edward used to take me into the forest miles from our house and leave me to find my way back. He said that dogs could do it, so I should be able to also. The first time he did it I thought I would stay there and wait for someone to find me, and if they did not, I would die, but then I remembered we had strawberries for supper.”

  “Do not tell me that you smelled them and followed your nose?”

  Berengaria let out a laugh that made the men turn toward them, but neither woman would tell what had made her laugh.

  “No,” Berengaria said. “I walked back, stumbling, but I trusted my instinct and found my way.”

  Before Axia could ask another question, Jamie told them the obstruction was cleared and they could continue.

  An hour later they came to a tangle of roots that blocked the tunnel. “Here,” Berengaria said. “Cut this away, and we will be there soon.”

  And she was right when, a moment later, Jamie turned back to them. “I can see daylight.”

  The other three were jubilant, but Berengaria almost wished they could stay in the tunnels, for with light she knew she had to give up her leadership, her usefulness. Once in the light, she would again become the Family Burden.

  Using his knife, which the guards had not found in his boot, and a great deal of muscle, Jamie reopened the long-covered opening and emerged into the forest not far from Henry Oliver’s house. And the moment h
e stuck his head up, he saw movement. “Quiet!” he commanded the others still in the tunnel.

  Crouching, he ran quickly across the forest floor, the thick layer of pine needles making his footsteps silent. The brilliance of the early morning sun nearly blinded him after so many hours in the complete darkness of the tunnels, and at times he had to shut them against the glare. But he knew he had seen someone move, and he was trying to pursue him.

  With one leap, he pounced on him, realizing that the small body under his was that of a child. He was glad, for at the moment he did not feel up to wrestling a full-grown person.

  “Hello, big brother,” Joby said cheerfully, looking up at him with laughter in her eyes. “Been playing in the pig pen again?”

  With great relief, Jamie rolled off of her, then sat up and rubbed his eyes. He had not eaten in a few days, had had very little water, and there was, of course, his back and now this night spent in the tunnels. He was not at his best.

  “Come,” he said. “We must get the others.” Painfully, he rolled to his feet, then looked at the bag Joby had slung across her shoulder. “That wouldn’t be food, would it?”

  “Two chickens, four cherry tarts, and a few early carrots.” Smiling, Joby gave the sack a pat, which made it squawk and flop about.

  “Raw is it?” Jamie asked, eyebrow raised.

  “Fresh,” she corrected him, not allowing him to see how bad she felt at the sight of him. He was filthy, but under the filth was dried blood.

  “And who taught you how to poach chickens and steal pies?” he asked with disgust, but he was too glad to see her to actually be angry. He glanced at the bag at her side. “I do hope you have not put the chickens and the pies together.”

  “What’s a pie without a little chicken …” One look at Jamie made her think again at finishing that sentence. “What have you done with Berengaria and the other two?”

  Jamie didn’t answer but turned, and Joby saw him wince with pain as he started back toward the exit to the tunnel where the others awaited. “Come,” was all he said to his little sister, and she followed him.

  Chapter 28

  The sun was low in the sky, and it was cool and quiet in the forest as five people dozed and waited for the concealment of night to make their escape. Twice they had heard the sound of hooves in the distance that told them Oliver’s men were still searching for them. Jamie had wanted to press on as he knew his Montgomery cousins would arrive soon, because he had managed to get a message to them when he had first arrived at Henry Oliver’s.

  But he had been voted down by all of them when they saw him in the light of day. Axia, having known about the whippings, had brought a cooling salve for his back, and she had forced him to lie still on his stomach as she spread the ointment on the open cuts.

  Now, hours after emerging from the tunnels, after an afternoon’s sleep, all of them were beginning to wake up and become restless. They couldn’t move until nightfall, and that was still an hour or two away. Axia’s growing worry was that Jamie would try to be a hero and go after Oliver himself, alone with no help. She knew that only exhaustion had persuaded him to sleep this afternoon, and now he looked about restlessly.

  “Can you really smell anything?” she asked Berengaria, desperately wanting to think about something other than what they had all been through and why they were waiting. “Did you know that that is a very valuable talent? I have often tried to make perfume like the French do. You can’t just dry a bunch of violets and make violet-smelling perfume. I’ve tried it. You have to mix several herbs together to get something that smells like something else.”

  “Like verbena smells more like lemons than lemons do?” Berengaria asked.

  “Yes, exactly. I’ve done some experiments, but after four or five plants I couldn’t tell the difference between dirty socks and roses. But if I had someone with a nose …”

  “My sister can tell the difference between a hundred plants at once,” Joby said, still smarting from Berengaria’s betrayal of her. What had happened in those tunnels to make her sister sit so close to Axia, laughing at everything she said?

  At that Axia began pulling plants and holding them under Berengaria’s nose and soon discovered that it was true: Berengaria could identify even types of tree bark one from the other.

  “Amazing. Truly amazing. What I could do with you in business!!”

  “We are not going to put our sister in some shop so people can stare at her,” Joby snapped.

  “Stare at her? Oh, you mean because she’s so beautiful.”

  “No, because she is blind?”

  “With a nose like hers, who cares if she can’t see?”

  “What?” Joby gasped.

  Immediately, Axia was contrite. “I am sorry, I did not mean any disrespect. It is just that for a moment I forgot that she was blind. It slipped my mind.”

  At that Joby began to sputter, but Berengaria said calmly, “I wish everyone would forget that I am blind. I would like to be something other than the Family Burden.”

  “Burden?” Axia said, smiling. “With your talent, you and I could make a fortune.” Standing, she saw that all eyes were on her, and she thought that maybe for a moment she could take their minds off their worries.

  “With your talent, we could make a wonderful perfume. We’ll call it Elizabeth, and Jamie can present it to the queen.” When Axia saw her husband frown at this suggestion, she knew she’d never be able to stop. “With his looks he’ll be the perfect one to woo her into liking it. No one else in the world will be allowed to wear that scent. We’ll make it only for Queen Elizabeth, and she’ll direct all her courtiers to buy her huge bottles of it for gifts.”

  Axia saw that Tode was smiling a bit, and the worry lines were smoothing from Jamie’s brow. “Then we will make other scents for other ladies. Having your own scent will become all the rage at court.”

  Berengaria smiled. “We will get Jamie to smell the necks of all the ladies at court and tell them whether they are violets or jasmine.”

  Until now Joby had been silent, but as Axia continued, Joby lost her resentment. Putting on a face that was remarkably like Jamie’s when he was thinking hard about something, Joby extended her hand, acting as though she were holding a woman’s hand and sniffing it. “Yes, yes,” she said thoughtfully. “You are a full, ripe beauty like … ah, yes, like the musk rose. And you,” she said, pretending to take another hand, “are as sweet as violets.”

  Dropping the imaginary hands, Joby was suddenly quite serious. “We must give him a list of all the scents, so he sells them all.”

  “Yes, of course,” Berengaria said. “And I think we should decide which lady gets which scent before he goes to court so he makes no mistakes. Men are so bad at this sort of thing. He might have a tiny countess smelling of lilies and a great horse of a woman smelling of morning dew.”

  “Unless, of course, that is how she sees herself,” Axia said. “Mmmm. What do you think, Jamie?”

  “I am honored that the three of you have remembered that I am here. My actions, my very character, are assessed without my input, but now you have decided to ask me a question. At last, my honor is restored.” He smiled at them. “And I have no intention of participating in any of this. I am not going to spend my life kissing hands and telling women how they … how they smell.”

  Axia grimaced, then smiled as an idea occurred to her. “Yes! I think perhaps a blind perfume lady would be better.”

  “Me?” Berengaria said. She was sure Axia was teasing about all this, but was she? “At court?”

  Axia’s voice was excited. “You could sit on a velvet chair and allow the women to come to you, hold their hands, talk to them, then decide what scent most suits them.”

  “Berengaria cannot—” Jamie began, but Joby cut him off.

  “But what of the men?” Joby said. “Do not forget the men who will want their own scent. What do you think the Richard will smell of? Earthy and rich?”

  Berengaria giggled. “Wh
at would a perfume named Henry Oliver smell of?”

  “Horse sweat!” Joby said, and the women and Tode laughed. Even Jamie gave a little smile, but Joby saw it and it was enough to encourage her. Standing, she puffed her chest out, her shoulders back, her thumbs in her waistband as she began to strut like a vain man. “I’m a man!” she boasted. “And I want something truly manly. For a real man.”

  Axia stepped toward her sister-in-law, acting as though she were holding out a bottle. “Oh, great heroic man, I have here the most manly smell ever made.”

  “I want no flowers!” Joby said in a deep, gruff voice. “I must protect my—my finer parts, if you know what I mean, little girl.”

  “Oh yes, sir,” Axia said, fluttering her lashes coquettishly, “and I can see that your finer parts are very fine indeed. But I think you will find that we have used the most manly of ingredients.”

  “Flowers?” Joby growled.

  “Oh, no, none at all. Well, maybe just one.”

  “No flowers! You understand me, little lady? I’m a man and no flowers! I’m leaving here!”

  “But, sir,” Axia called out toward Joby’s back. “It is the flower from the skunk cabbage.”

  At that the others laughed out loud, even Jamie, so Joby came back. “What else is in it?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Saw blades.”

  At that even Joby nearly forgot her role and almost smiled. Joby was used to having center stage and making people laugh, but Axia was a match for her.

  “Old, rusty saw blades. And broken swords and mud from places where men have died—in battle, of course.”

  Joby did smile at that. “Of course.”

  “And, as always, horse manure as a binder.”

  “I would want nothing else.”

  “But …” Axia looked around as though to see if any one was looking. “For you we have included a very special ingredient.”

  “What is it?” Joby loudly whispered back.

  “Toe jam. From under the toenail of a huge Turkish man. Never had a bath in his life.”

  “I’ll take it!” Joby shouted above the laughter of everyone, including Jamie. “I will pay you six castles and two hundred acres of land. Is it enough?”