"Y-yes," she squeaked. Better that than the girl he had raged at this morning.

"Good! Then take off your clothes and light that candle. I like to see what I am paying for."

Ah, now Axia understood. My goodness. Paying. He thought she was a - "Light the candle, I said," he barked out.

"No!" Axia snapped back, then caught herself. "Can't, my lord." She kept her voice slightly higher.

"And why can't you light the candle?" He sounded bored.

Axia's mind raced. "Ugly, sir. I am very, very ugly. Smallpox. Really hideous."

She could feel his revulsion. "But," she said suggestively (at least she hoped it was suggestive), "I have been told I have a bosom to make a man weep."

At that he gave a little laugh. "I guess I'll have to find out, won't I?" he said, then took a step toward her.

Now what? Axia thought. Reveal herself? If he hit her in public, what would he do to her in private? And heavens, what would he do if she did not reveal herself?

Carpe diem, she suddenly thought. Seize the day.

He was standing in front of her, but the tent was so dark she could only feel his presence but not see him. She could smell his breath, soft and masculine. And, she realized with a bit of shock, he was more than a little drunk.

"Well?" he said as though expecting her to do something.

But what? Axia wondered. Throw all my clothes off and... "I am a virgin, my lord," she said.

"You're a what?"

"Yes," she said more positively, "I am a virgin. Well, anyway, that's what I'm very good at pretending."

She could feel him frowning, so she put out a hand and touched the tip of her finger to his hard chest. "Surely, my lord," she whispered, "there's a virgin you'd like to touch. One with a bosom to make a man weep."

He hesitated, but then he said softly, "Yes, there is," and the way he said it made Axia's heart leap. Now she could return to her bedchamber and feel that a man had really and truly desired her.

But as she stepped forward, the man did the most extraordinary thing: he reached out and put his hand on her left breast. Axia was too shocked to speak. But then she wouldn't have been able to anyway because he bent down and kissed her half-open mouth.

His kiss was soft, gentle, and when he started to pull away, she leaned toward him.

"You are an excellent actress," he whispered, one hand still on her breast, the other on her neck and moving up to caress her cheek. "I would think you'd never been kissed before."

"I haven't, so will you teach me?"

Jamie didn't answer before he kissed her again.

To be touched, Axia thought. How utterly divine just to be touched. By her father's orders, no one, male or female, was allowed to touch her: must keep the heiress healthy. Only Tode touched her but only in private and then only her hand or his fingertips on her cheek.

She couldn't help herself as she kissed the palm of his hand, and he leaned forward to kiss her neck, her jaw, her ear lobe, as Axia began to lean toward him.

"My name is Jamie," he said. "And yours is?"

"Diana," she whispered, her breath catching in her throat. Just to feel his face on her skin, his big body hovering over her, not really touching her, was joyous.

"Yes, the virgin G.o.ddess," he said, and she could feel him smiling.

His thumb caressed her cheek. "You do not feel pockmarked. Your skin feels as smooth as marble."

"But warmer?"

"Oh yes, much warmer."

Expertly, his hands began unfastening the laces of her gown, and she knew that now she must stop him. But then his kisses turned to little nibbles.

"Do you like this?" he asked. "Tell me what you like."

"I do not know." Her head was back, giving him free access to her throat. "Everything is new to me, but so far I like everything."

She could feel his soft laughter, feel his hands moving over her body, and magically, her clothes fell away. His hands were everywhere, sliding over her smooth, warm skin, and when one hand moved lower, she felt weak with desire. At first she was shocked as his hand slid between her legs and she felt his fingers inside her. But when he removed his hand, she was disappointed. "No," she whispered.

He stepped back from her, his hands on her shoulders. "You are a virgin."

"Is that bad?" she whispered. It was so dark in the tent she could not even see the outline of his face.

"It is a responsibility to take a maidenhead," he said seriously, suddenly wishing he hadn't drunk so much. "I will not do it."

Please do not leave me, she wanted to say. "I-I need the money. My family is poor." It is what she had read or heard many times from young men.

"Then the coin is yours. Take it and go."

As he started to turn away, she flung her arms about his neck, pressing her naked body against his fully clothed one. "Do not leave me, Jamie, please," she said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "My life is so lonely, and you do not know what awaits me in the future. It will be horrible, I am sure of it." There was absolute truth in her words.

For a moment he hesitated, and although he misinterpreted them, he could feel the truth in her words. If she was hideously scarred and from a poor family, perhaps prost.i.tution was the only course open to her. And perhaps the man who did take her virginity would not be as gentle as he would be. And the truth of it was that he wanted her very, very much, wanted her in a way that had nothing to do with how much he'd had to drink.

His arms went around her, pulling her to him, his hands on her back, sliding over her firm round b.u.t.tocks. He'd never had a virgin before, someone untouched by another man.

"I want to remember this night all my life," she whispered. "To remember it always. Maybe you could pretend that-that you love me?" she asked tentatively. "No man has ever loved me. Or ever will, I guess," she said sadly.

He a.s.sumed she meant because of her damaged face, but now Jamie couldn't imagine anything wrong with this woman in his arms. To him, she felt clean and pure and more beautiful than Diana, the G.o.ddess of the moon. "I think perhaps I do love you," he heard himself whisper, then some intelligence returned to him. "For tonight anyway."

"It is enough."

He was holding her, caressing her while she kissed his neck and chin. "Do you not remove your clothing?" she asked.

She could feel his smile. "No, you do."

"Do I?" she said with such interest and enthusiasm that he laughed. "And may I touch you?"

"Yes, Diana, my love, you may touch me," he said, laughing, then picked her up in his arms and whirled about with her. "It has been a horrible day, truly horrible, but you are my treat, my reward at the end of the day."

And you, tonight, are the reward for all my life, she thought. Clutching him, she knew she'd never felt so good in her life. "Oh, kiss me a thousand times. Kiss me and kiss me until my lips are numb and I can no longer speak."

"Yes," he said, laughing, "I shall kiss every inch of you."

"And I you, but how do I get your clothes off?"

He helped her, but not much, and her childish curiosity about his body was very exciting to him as she ran her hands over him, exploring.

"And may I touch this part of you?" she asked, her hand between his legs, but all Jamie could do was groan his a.s.sent.

Lifting her, he carried her to the bed where he began kissing her beautiful body, enjoying her pleasure in his touch.

Axia lay still, enjoying to its fullest all that he was doing to her body, all the touching, his lips on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, his hands on her thighs and between her legs, his fingers slipping inside her. When he moved on top of her, she had never felt anything as deliciously right as his weight on her.

"I love you, Jamie," she whispered. "I love you."

Jamie didn't answer, but when he started to enter her and she gasped in pain, he drew back.

Misunderstanding, thinking she'd displeased him and he was going to leave her, she awkwardly thrust her hips upward so that he entered her fully-and she nearly cried out in pain.

"Sweetheart," he said, using all his control to keep still as he kissed away the tears that had formed at the corners of her eyes, "slowly. We have all night."

When the pain eased, she found that she liked this sensation of his filling her body. "This is nice," she said as she flung her arms out to the side. "Take me, Jamie, I am yours."

He laughed again. She was unlike anyone he had ever met before. It was as though she knew none of the rules of behavior. "Yes," he murmured and began to move within her.

Axia's eyes widened in surprise. She'd thought his being inside of her was all there was, but now... Oh, now, this was even lovelier. Closing her eyes, she instinctively arched her hips upward and felt his silken strokes. And when he began to move faster and deeper, she flung both her legs and arms around him and pulled him as close to her body as she could.

Then he seemed to stop, shudder, and in the next moment he collapsed on top of her and she thought how sweet and tender he felt. He'd been so heavy and strong moments before, but now he was as light as a child.

Gently, she stroked his hair, glad she had been able to give him this pleasure.

"Did I hurt you much?" he asked softly.

"No, not at all," she said honestly, then had a horrible thought. "I must go." Tode would be looking for her, and if he didn't find her, there would be an alarm sounded.

"No!" he said sharply. He'd moved so he was only half on her, his arm tightly around her waist. Relaxing his grip, he turned his head away from her. "Yes, of course, you must go."

Let them look for me, she thought. In truth, what did she care if they found her? How were they going to punish her? Lock her up for the rest of her life?

Wiggling her body back under his, she stroked his face so he turned toward her. "What plagues you?" she whispered. "Tell me."

After days of worry, it felt good to Jamie to be so relaxed. "I do not know how to protect her," he said, knowing the woman would have no idea what he was talking about.

"Ah, yes," Axia said. "The heiress." Her arm was under his neck, his cheek on her shoulder, one of his heavy thighs across hers. How intimate, yet how right, she thought. "Is she so valuable to you?"

"I cannot fail. People depend on me. But the wagons..." He was feeling drowsy.

"Yes, the wagons," Axia said with a grimace. She had dreamed of a trip across England without people gawking at her-or now it was Frances- because of the Maidenhall name. But her father had sent those heavy wagons that were no doubt full of untold wealth, and all along the journey they would create curiosity. She gave a great sigh. "Were I the Maidenhall heiress I would want to be someone else."

He gave a sleepy smile. "And who would be greater than she? The Queen of England?"

"No, of course not. I would be... someone ordinary. A merchant's wife mayhaps. Staying at inns or in a tent like this one. I would want no one to know who I was."

"Yes, but people have seen her."

"Who?" she asked. "I have heard she's been a prisoner all her life. Never allowed out of the gates. It is my guess that she has never seen the world, never seen a puppet show, never seen a cathedral, never met anyone who was not properly introduced to her, never-"

Jamie chuckled. "You do have an imagination. Frances is so beautiful she would call attention to herself wherever she went. If I traveled alone with her, I'd have trouble protecting her."

"Shall I infect her with smallpox?" Axia asked helpfully.

Jamie laughed again. "I wish I could take you with me. You please me.

You give me ease."

"Oh yes! I would like that," she said, sounding like a child.

"Alas," he said sadly, "I cannot."

"Why? Because I am so ugly? You would be ashamed of me?"

He didn't know how he'd feel to see her in daylight, but that was not his worry. "She might try to kill you."

"Who? Why would anyone try to kill me?"

"The heiress's cousin. Frances, the heiress, is a sweet-tempered, lovely woman, but she has a cousin who is eaten with jealousy."

"Oh?" Axia's voice cracked. "How do you know she does not have cause for her-her misdeeds? Sometimes women appear one way to a man and another way to a woman."

"Like you? Do you appear attractive to me yet hideous to others?"

"Sometimes. But what of the cousin? Does she have nothing to recommend her?"

"I thought she did, but no, she is not what I thought. I do not like liars."

"But perhaps there were reasons why she lied." Her voice was rising above a whisper.

Jamie raised himself on his elbow. "You sound as though you know her."

"No, of course not. How could someone like me know her? But I know what it is to have a beautiful older sister."

"And how do you know that the cousin is not beautiful?"

Axia's mouth was a tight line. "From the way you speak of her. There is a different tone in your voice when you speak of the beauteous Frances than when you speak of the cousin. I have heard that tone all my life when people speak of my sister. But never have I heard it addressed to me."

"Sometimes a woman needs more than beauty," he said, thinking of Berengaria. Axia could feel a change in him. "You shall go to my sister," he said softly, as though this were a great honor.

"Go to your sister? Why? What-?"

"I will not leave you to your fate. I feel responsibility toward you after tonight. Yes," he said, and she could feel that he was smiling, pleased with his idea. "I will leave money and a letter with the Maidenhall steward, and tomorrow you shall leave. I will write my sisters and tell them you are to arrive."