Free The Heiress by Jude Deveraux Page B

daisies. She seemed to grow paler by the second. Was she dying? “Wine, damn you! Get a doctor.”
    At that moment, Tode appeared on his damaged legs, a pewter goblet full of wine held out, but when he saw Frances, he threw the goblet aside. “Get her out of that cloak.”
    â€œWhat?” Jamie was not sure what he meant.
    â€œIt is the flowers. They make her sneeze, make her dizzy. Get it off her!”
    Within seconds, Jamie reacted, the cloak was torn off Frances and tossed aside onto Smith, who ran from the room with it. Sensing that she needed air, Jamie tried to open the window,and when it stuck, he used his foot to force it open, then half threw Frances across the sill, her head and upper body in the fresh air.
    Within moments, she was breathing again. She still looked near death’s door, but she was indeed breathing again.
    When his heart stopped pounding and he could think once again, Jamie knew who had caused this: Axia. And it took no wizardry to figure out why she had done this: her petty jealousy of her richer, more beautiful cousin had caused her to do something that had almost killed Frances.
    With a nod to Rhys to take over, Jamie stood and looked through the crowd of retainers and servants who had gathered around them, searching for Axia. She was standing stone still, her face unreadable, but as far as Jamie could tell, she was not shedding tears of remorse. What had she planned to gain by her cousin’s death? Did she stand to inherit?
    Had a man done such a thing he’d have drawn his sword on him, but she was not a man. And at the moment, in his eyes, she was not a woman either.
    â€œWhat do you think you are—” Axia said as Jamie grabbed her wrist and began to pull her.
    Quickly, the crowd’s attention turned from Frances to Axia, for although they had been paid to keep the secret, they each knew that Axia was the Maidenhall heiress, the person who had to be obeyed at all times.
    â€œYou lying little sneak,” Jamie said as he sat down on a stool and pulled Axia across his lap, bottom side up.
    â€œStop it,” she screamed. “How dare you do this to me? I am—”
    A hard smack to her back side cut off her words.
    â€œYour prank could have
killed
her,” Jamie said, administering another smack.
    â€œI’ll have your eyes for this,” Axia screamed. “My father will—”
    â€œThank me!” Jamie shouted back. “Your father should have done this to you long ago. You are a liar and a self-centered little brat.” With that he shoved her off his lap onto the floor where he proceeded to step over her.
    Axia, her face red with humiliation, sat up and saw the looks on the faces of everyone in the room. They all knew the truth of who she was yet they’d raised not a hand to help her. And where was Tode?
    Across the room Frances was leaning on the windowsill, still pale, but her happiness at Axia’s humiliation was bringing color back to her cheeks. She knew full well that Axia never meant to actually harm her. Axia had put daisies under her pillow, in her wardrobe, in her clothes, everywhere, since Axia had found out how they made Frances sneeze. Neither of the girls would ever have dreamed Frances would react so violently when she was trapped with the daisies. So why wasn’t Frances telling this odious man the truth, that it was a prank and nothing more?
    â€œHe means to get your money!” Axia bellowed across the room, making Jamie halt, his back to her. “He plans to court you, and when you believe you are in love with him, he plans to try to get you to persuade your father to marry him,” Axia said. How dare he humiliate her! And it felt good to let Frances know what it felt like to be smiled at, not for her beauty but forher father’s money.
    Jamie did not turn around but stood frozen where he was. When he met this girl yesterday, he had liked her, liked her
very
much. How could he