65 A Heart Is Stolen Read online

  “Well, for Heaven’s sake, choose somewhere with comfortable beds,” Anthony replied. “I shall need one by the time we reach our destination.”

  The Marquis did not reply because he was giving Hawkins instructions.

  “Pack for me, Hawkins, and arrange for Sir Anthony’s clothes to be ready when mine are. I will take my phaeton and you can follow in the travelling chariot with Jem.”

  “Very good, my Lord,” Hawkins replied quite unperturbed at the sudden upheaval.

  “Arrange to have Mr. Bradley awakened,” the Marquis went on. “I will tell him what to do about the rest of the party after we have gone.”

  “I’ll do that, my Lord,” Hawkins nodded. “Where are we going, if I might ask? So that I may know what clothes to pack for your Lordship.” The Marquis put his hand up to his head as if it still ached.

  “I have not really decided, Hawkins. What do you suggest?”

  “I was only thinking yesterday, my Lord, when your Lordship remarked that it was unconscionably hot for September that I personally could do with a touch of the sea breezes, such as His Royal Highness must be enjoying at Brighton.”

  The Marquis stared at his valet and then gave an exclamation.

  “You are right, Hawkins, of course you are right,” he said. “We will go to Heathcliffe.”

  “A good idea, my Lord. We’ve not been there for, let me see now, it must be four – or is it five – years?”

  “It is five,” the Marquis said, “although I drove there two years ago from Brighton for luncheon.”

  He stopped, then murmured beneath his breath,

  “Heathcliffe will be the perfect place to hide.”

  Then in a louder voice he said,

  “That is where we shall go, Hawkins, but keep the information entirely to yourself. I have no wish for my guests to follow me with the misguided idea that I need their company.”

  There was a knowing look in Hawkins’ eyes as he replied,

  “I understand, my Lord, but I think your Lordship would be wise to send a groom ahead to alert them.”

  “I have always made it a rule that my houses, wherever they may be, are ready to receive me without notice,” the Marquis responded sharply.

  “Of course, my Lord,” Hawkins said soothingly, “at the same time – ”

  “Oh, very well, have it your own way,” the Marquis said. “I suppose you are thinking that there will not be a decent meal ready for us if we don’t give them notice of our arrival. But if everything else is not in order, I shall be extremely annoyed, make no mistake about that!”

  Hawkins did not reply, he was hurrying down the corridor to carry out his instructions.

  The Marquis, as he walked slowly down the stairs, had a feeling that it would be good for the servants at Heathcliffe to be awoken out of the lethargy into which they had doubtless succumbed after such a long absence on his part.

  As it happened, this was the second time he had thought of Heathcliffe in the last twenty-four hours.

  Last night one of his guests, Peregrine Percival, a somewhat dandified acquaintance he had not known for long, had offered him a pinch of snuff, which was actually something he abhorred.

  “I never touch the stuff!” the Marquis had replied.

  “Of course! I had forgotten!” was the reply, “but knowing your exceptional taste, I hope you admire my new snuffbox. I bought it only a few days ago.”

  The Marquis had taken the snuffbox in his hands and seen at once that it was not only valuable but unique.

  It was not the diamonds that encircled it which interested him, but the fact that in the centre, skilfully enamelled and ornamented with small gems, was a battleship.

  It was depicted with billowing sails and rubies to portray the fire coming from its guns, while the sea was encrusted with very small emeralds.

  The Marquis stared at it and then he said,

  “I am sure I have seen this before.”

  “You have?” Peregrine Percival asked curiously. “I bought it from a dealer, but he did not tell me who it had belonged to.”

  “I remember now!” the Marquis exclaimed. “It must be the twin of one I actually own myself.”

  He saw the surprise in the face of the man listening and went on,

  “My father collected a great many things that concerned the sea, for the house where he lived on the coast. The very replica of this box, unless I am mistaken, is among those he possessed.”

  “How interesting!” Peregrine Percival replied. “We must compare them sometime.”

  “Yes, we must do that,” the Marquis agreed.

  “I wonder what its history is. I imagine it was made some fifty or even a hundred years ago.”

  “Quite that, I should think,” the Marquis replied.

  “It would be amusing to trace it, especially as we are both interested.”

  Then Rose had claimed the Marquis’s attention and he had not thought of the snuffbox again.

  Now the conversation came back to him and he thought that if he went to Heathcliffe he would certainly look for his snuffbox with the ship on it and see if his father had listed anything about it in the very accurate catalogue he had made of all his possessions that particularly interested him.

  He suddenly thought how much he would enjoy being at Heathcliffe again. He had nearly forgotten, or rather it had not occurred to him for a long time, to think about the estate he owned on the South coast.

  The last three summers he had accompanied the Prince Regent to Brighton because His Royal Highness specially requested his presence, but three weeks had been enough to bore him with the same entertainments, the same gambling and meeting the same people night after night.

  That happened again this year and he had left Brighton at the end of July to come to Veryan Hall where he had been ever since.

  There was a great deal to occupy him on his large estate in Kent where he owned ten thousand acres. He prided himself it was a model of its kind that definitely impressed everyone from the Prince himself downwards.

  The Marquis entertained large house parties and he had been training a number of horses with which he intended to win every important Classic race for a great number of years to come.

  It was not surprising that Heathcliffe, like his estate in Cornwall and another in the North, had not recently had the pleasure of his company, but he had received reports on them and had left what he believed to be able agents in charge.

  When he had time, he went through the accounts of each establishment and made it his duty occasionally to query some particular item and ask for an explanation of it, just to keep those who represented him up to scratch.

  Heathcliffe was actually the smallest of his possessions, being less than two thousand acres in extent, a great deal of it unfarmable.

  His father had lived there the last years of his life, because the doctors considered the sunshine of the South was better for his health than the weather elsewhere in the British Isles.

  It would have been even better for him had he been able to spend his time abroad, but first the French Revolution then the war with Bonaparte had kept him in his native land.

  Looking back now the Marquis remembered how much he had loved Heathcliffe when he was young, how he had enjoyed swimming in the sea and being able to feel freer there than in any of the other houses his father owned.

  ‘Anthony and I will be on our own,’ he thought, ‘and that is what I want.’

  He felt himself shudder as Rose’s face with her smudged lips and running mascara appeared before his eyes.

  Long before the guests at Veryan Hall were awake the Marquis and Anthony were driving away in the phaeton, which had just been built for long-distance driving.

  The family colours of blue and gold made it exceedingly smart, but it was doubtful if anyone, after seeing the Marquis himself, would look at anything but the magnificent team of jet-black horses which drew it.

  They were perfectly matched and were the pride of the Marq
uis’s stable as well as of their owner.

  “Now don’t take me too fast,” Anthony admonished as they started down the drive. “My head feels as though it might crack open at any moment and, if you jerk me, I swear I shall fall to pieces at your feet!”

  “You should have more self-control,” the Marquis answered.

  “I might say the same to you!” Anthony retorted. “What do you think your guests will say when they find you gone?”

  “Personally, I have not the slightest interest in what they say,” the Marquis replied. “I told Bradley to tell them I had been called away on important family business and that you had been kind enough to accompany me. If you ask me, I have done you a good turn in taking you away from Lucy Bicester.”

  “I am beginning to think that myself,” Anthony admitted. “I had the uncomfortable feeling that Bicester might turn up last night unexpectedly or that it was only a question of hours before she extracted out of me some large sum I cannot afford.”

  There was silence as the team passed through the lodge gates and the Marquis acknowledged the respectful curtsey of the woman who had opened them.

  “It seems to me,” Anthony said, “we have both had a lucky escape from situations that might prove disastrous to each of us!”

  “If we have escaped!” the Marquis said beneath his breath.

  “What can Rose do, even if she swears you promised to marry her?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t like to think about it,” the Marquis replied. “I made it quite clear that nobody is to know where we have gone, so she should not be able to follow me.”

  “She will doubtless be waiting to pounce on you when we return to London.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, don’t make it worse than it is already!” the Marquis said. “How could I have been such a fool as to not realise it was a wedding ring she was after? I was certainly not her first lover. Why should she want to marry me?”

  Anthony laughed.

  “Now, really, Justin, you sound like a surprised virgin! Of course she wants to marry you rather than Leicester, who has no money or Selbirn, who will have to wait at least another ten years before he comes into his father’s title.”

  “You seem to know a lot about her.”

  “I watched Rose pursuing you,” Anthony said, “and had the feeling that she might succeed in getting you on the hook.”

  “You could have taken the trouble to warn me.”

  “Warn you?” his friend exclaimed. “When have you ever allowed me to warn you about anything? You are always so certain that you know best and what is more, you would snap my head off if I ever discussed your love affairs.”

  This was so palpably true that the Marquis had nothing to say, but concentrated on driving his horses.

  It was certainly some consolation to know that they moved perfectly in unison and were as smooth and easy to handle as any team he had ever known in the whole of his life.

  “In future I shall keep to horses,” he remarked.

  Anthony laughed.

  “Until the next beauty sees you and is determined to get you into her clutches. The trouble with you, Justin, is that you are too handsome, too rich and too elusive.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean that women run after you because you make so little effort to run after them.”

  “The trouble is that I don’t have to.”

  “That is what is wrong,” Anthony said. “Women should appreciate that they are the prey, the final objective and that is what makes the pursuit of them such good fun.”

  “You had better tell that to Rose and your friend Lucy.”

  Anthony sighed.

  “Stop being personal and let’s try and talk objectively on the principle of the subject.”

  “What good will that do?” the Marquis enquired.

  “It will clear our minds for the future,” Anthony replied loftily. “Lucy has taught me a lesson, just as you have learned one from Rose Caterham. We would be fools not to profit by it.”

  “All right, I am listening to what you are trying to say,” the Marquis said. “Come to the point.”

  “The point is that anything one becomes too easy it’s not worth having. Agreed?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “The women you and I know, let’s face it, are extremely easy and bowled over quicker by you than they are by me, because you have more to offer them. There is not a woman born who would not want to be the Marchioness of Veryan.”

  The Marquis did not reply, but he was frowning and Anthony knew that he was still apprehensive that he might find himself unavoidably married to Rose Caterham and was aware how greatly he would dislike it.

  As if the Marquis had spoken aloud, Anthony continued,

  “Beauty is not enough – we both know that. Neither of us wants the type of wife who flirts with every man she meets and has not a thought in her head beyond being the belle of every ball she attends.”

  There was silence for a moment until the Marquis said,

  “Go on, Anthony, you are making sense and you are saying what I have always thought myself, but had not the brains to spell it out.”

  “My father used to say that every man should ‘chew the cud’,” Anthony went on, “and that is something you and I have often omitted to do until it’s too late and we have made quite a number of unnecessary mistakes.”

  “We don’t want to go over that now,” the Marquis said hastily, thinking of a number of incidents that were best forgotten.

  “No, but you know what I am thinking about,” Anthony went on. “Quite frankly, I believe we should be much more sensible in the future if we considered what we were doing before we did it.”

  “That is a gabbled sentence,” the Marquis said critically, “but I get your meaning. The trouble is that we move in a very small circle and you and I, Anthony, don’t exercise our brains by which we set so much score when we were at Oxford.”

  Seeing that the Marquis understood what he was trying to say, Anthony said,

  “We are both in agreement.”

  The Marquis laughed.

  “Of course!” he said, “but Heaven knows what the future may hold! I have the uncomfortable feeling that Rose and Lucy will quickly be replaced by two other ‘fair charmers’ of much the same calibre.”

  Anthony threw up his hands.

  “Dammit all, Justin. You are as depressing as a wet race meeting! Where is your sense of adventure? Your optimism, your faith in your guiding star?”

  He spoke with an unmistakable mockery.

  “Oh, shut up, Anthony!” the Marquis said. “Now you are depressing me and I am quite certain that the only adventure we shall have on this trip will be a collision or a buckled wheel.”

  *

  The Marquis and Sir Anthony lingered so long over the luncheon they enjoyed at The Flying Fox on the road that they were later than they intended in reaching the coast.

  As always, when they were alone together, they enjoyed their conversation, the jokes they made at each other’s expense and recalling incidents that had happened in the long years of their friendship.

  Because they were both so exceptionally fit, the headaches they had been suffering from when they awoke were dispersed over luncheon and they were both in excellent spirits as they set off on the last part of the drive.

  With any other team the Marquis would have been obliged to change horses, but those he was driving had an Arab strain in them and he knew that, if he took them fairly carefully over the last miles of the journey, they would be able to stay the course.

  “Now that peace has been declared,” he said, “it’s time for me to have my horses on the Dover Road again.”

  “I thought that you might have done that already.”

  “I had not intended to go to France for another month,” the Marquis explained. “I always think after a war, it is a good thing to let the country settle down and restore its more obvious comforts before one pays it a visit.”


  “There are people already extolling the delights of Paris,” Anthony replied, “and several men have told me that they were agreeably impressed with their excellent reception from the moment they arrived at Calais. What is more, I am told the French women are fantastic!”

  “We will go there next month,” the Marquis promised. “Actually Percival told me that in the Palais Royal the women all wear draperies in the Grecian mode with their hair anointed with scented oil.”

  Anthony laughed.

  “We will certainly have to visit the Palais Royal and I would also like to see the First Consul. He cannot be quite such a monster as he is always depicted.”

  “I only hope he is not as clever as I suspect him to be,” the Marquis remarked.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I have a suspicion that, while we are wallowing in peace, forgetting old grievances and talking of the return of ‘peace and plenty’, Bonaparte might be taking advantage by building up his Army and his Fleet.”

  “Nonsense!” Anthony replied. “He is ready, just as we are, to let bygones be bygones.”

  “I hope you are right. But we will find out for ourselves when we get to France. Paris next month will be delightful and certainly not as hot as it is now.”

  They talked of other issues until ahead of them they saw the long line of the Downs and knew that their journey was nearly at an end.

  “It’s years since I have been to Heathcliffe,” Anthony said. “I remember staying with you when we were boys and your father was in a terrible rage over something a neighbour had done to him.”

  “The Admiral, my father’s arch enemy!” the Marquis recalled. “The battle between those two old gentlemen had the blood coursing in their veins and their fury kept them young at heart until the very day my father died.”

  “What was the quarrel about?”

  “I have forgotten – if I ever knew. When my father bought Heathcliffe, he found in the very centre of the estate only a mile from the house itself, there was a small manor and ten acres belonging to a retired Admiral – what was his name?”

  The Marquis paused before he exclaimed,

  “Wadebridge! That was it! Admiral Horatio Wadebridge! He behaved as if he was still on the quarter deck, which made my father furious whenever he thought of him.”