Beauty or Brains Read online

He put several bullets into a bag and handed it and the pistol to Iona and then they walked upstairs

  “There is really nothing more to see except rooms that have collapsed completely,” he said, “and so I have merely locked the door and never entered them.”

  With difficulty Iona bit back words she was about to say and, as if he had read her thoughts, the Earl added,

  “Yes, I searched each room before I closed it up, but there was no sign of anything hidden in the floor, the ceiling or the walls.”

  Again there was bitterness in his voice and it made her feel as if she had made a faux pas in even thinking that he had not searched every room thoroughly.

  Then the Earl said,

  “I suggest we go to the stables. At least the horses are being looked after and the only way I can find enough money to feed them is by selling the horses themselves and a few vegetables from the kitchen garden.”

  He stopped and shook his head despairingly,

  “The one old gardener, who I cannot afford to pay, grows just enough for himself and me.”

  Again there was a bitterness in his words and Iona did not answer.

  She walked beside him as they left the house and walked to the stables, which were large and well built.

  There were only four horses left and the long row of empty stalls was depressing.

  The Earl, however, was very interested in the two ponies that Iona had brought with her.

  “They are an excellent match,” he commented.

  “They are really meant to be a four-in-hand,” she replied without thinking and wished she had said nothing.

  “If you own ponies like these,” the Earl said, “and have a similar pair, why are you cooking for a living and why are you here in my house?”

  “They are questions I do not wish, at the moment, to answer, my Lord. You will just have to believe that I was sent to you as a gift from Heaven to cheer you up – ”

  She smiled at him before she continued,

  “Or to tell you in some way or other, perhaps when you least expect it, that you will find the treasure you seek and everything will change overnight.”

  “Do you think I really believe that?” the Earl asked.

  “Of course you do. I am quite certain that you will find it and that everything will be magically different.”

  He looked down the row of empty stalls and said,

  “It was agony to sell my horses. They were mine, not my uncle’s. He had already disposed of all his because he had no wish to feed them.”

  “I have often wondered,” Iona replied, “what turns an ordinary man, like your uncle must have been when he was young, into someone so strange and who is against the whole world he lives in.”

  “My uncle,” the Earl answered, “because he was of importance, was forced into marrying a woman chosen for him by his parents. They quarrelled and then she left him, taking a very large sum of money with her. I think he must have hated her and been determined that she would never take another penny from him.”

  “So that is why he became a miser!” she exclaimed. “I suppose, in a way, I can understand it.”

  “So can I,” the Earl said. “But he is destroying me instead of destroying his wife!”

  Iona looked up at him.

  She had been thinking ever since she had joined him, how good-looking he was and how tall and slim.

  Now she said,

  “I cannot believe that you are flunking the jumps that lie ahead of you. Of course, although you don’t say so, I am certain that you are determined to win the race.”

  “How do you know I think that way?” he asked.

  “I knew it when you patted my ponies and showed me your own horses. A man who races to win never loses the last and the most valuable race.”

  “When you talk like that you give me some hope, but to be honest I have almost given up. I have spent every penny of my own and unless I want to starve if I do leave here, I will have to find myself work of some description for which I am paid.”

  He almost spat out the words and then, much to his surprise, Iona laughed.

  “You are already giving up far too easily, my Lord. Of course you will win. Of course you will find what you are seeking.”

  The Earl did not answer and she carried on,

  “I cannot help thinking that you have just gone on blindly looking and digging, rather than thinking it is all a challenge in your mind and being absolutely certain it is not hidden anywhere in the house.”

  He still did not answer her. He merely looked up at the chimneys of the house silhouetted against the sky.

  Then Iona asked,

  “Do you really believe that you will fail and leave everything as beautiful and as magnificent as this house to rot until it falls to the ground? You have to win, my Lord, you have to! And that is what you will do.”

  She spoke so positively that the Earl turned to look at her in astonishment.

  “Very well, I will believe and if you are right I will win the battle and, of course, make sure that I have done so because you believed in me when everyone else thought I was a silly fool.”

  “That is one thing I am sure you will never be!” Iona exclaimed. “But you have to fight not only with your strength but also with your imagination and your brain and that is what will make you a conqueror.”

  “Thank you!” the Earl sighed.

  Then, as if he could not bear it anymore, he walked out of the stables and stood looking up at the chimneys.

  He looked so strong and handsome in the sunshine.

  ‘He must win,’ Iona said to herself. ‘If there is any justice in this world or in Heaven, it is only right that he should do.’

  Then, almost as if the words came to her lips, she found herself praying,

  ‘Please, please God help him!’

  They went down to the lake and Iona asked once again if there were any fish to be found in it.

  The Earl assured her there were and suggested that, if she was a fisher, they would spend the afternoon fishing.

  “It sounds a fascinating idea, my Lord, but unless you want to go hungry for luncheon, I must soon go back to the kitchen.”

  “You are posing a difficult choice between being with you and eating the delicious food you cook for me,”

  “If we are clever you can have both,” Iona laughed. “But I think I should go now to find out what is available or send someone to the village for all I require.”

  There was silence for a moment and then the Earl said in a hard voice,

  “You know I have no money to pay for anything you need to buy.”

  “I have been told that quite clearly and I promise I will not ask for anything you cannot afford.”

  “Do you realise what it can be like to be without a penny?” the Earl asked. “There are people working for me who are going home empty-handed and hating me because they think I am the miser and not my uncle.”

  “That is untrue, my Lord. They do understand the position you are in and I am certain they are all praying that you will find the treasure and make everything right.”

  “I thought like that when I first took over,” the Earl said. “But I have learnt the hard way that you cannot buy what you want without any money and money just does not drop down from the sky.”

  He was speaking bitterly again and then Iona said,

  “Now you go and see about the rods for us to catch the fish with. I will then make the most delicious dish you have ever tasted for dinner. I will go to the house now to see what there is for us to eat for luncheon.”

  She started off and the Earl joined her.

  When they reached the hall, he went below as she expected, because some of the rods she had noticed were in the gun room.

  She ran to the kitchen where she found Mrs. Barley talking to Newman.

  “I were wonderin’ if you’d be back, miss,” he said, “as we don’t know what you were plannin’ for luncheon and then for dinner tonight.”

  “I w
ill make a list of what we need from the village but you are not to tell his Lordship we are buying anything. He has to believe it is coming from the farm and therefore does not require money.”

  Newman looked at her.

  “Oh, his Lordship be in one of his moods, is he? I thought he’d been too happy ever since you arrived and it wouldn’t last.”

  “He is perfectly happy,” Iona said a little sharply. “We are going fishing later and I have a very good dish I can make with the sort of fish that are in these streams.”

  She sat down at the table and wrote down what she required.

  “Mrs. Barley is goin’ home,” Newman said, “but she’ll send one of her sons back with anythin’ you require and she is comin’ back for the washin’-up this afternoon.”

  Iona turned to Mrs. Barley,

  “That is very kind of you. I think it would be only right if I gave you some money in advance just in case you have something to buy before the end of the week.”

  She gave her three days’ pay and Mrs. Barley was thrilled.

  “I never expected this much, miss. I’ll be honest and tell you I says to meself if I get a shillin’ or two it’ll be better than nothin’, but this be really worth havin’.”

  “I am so glad you approve,” Iona replied. “At the same time it is best to say nothing in the village or they will all come trooping up here and we will have too many helpers and I will not be able to afford them all.”

  She had asked for a few items she rather doubted if Mr. Hopkins would be able to supply, but she thought he could be clever enough to send to the next town for them.

  They would therefore be available tomorrow or the next day.

  Even as she thought about it, she wondered if she would still be here.

  Then she told herself that she would be very stupid if she moved.

  After she had handed the list to Mrs. Barley and told her to tell Mr. Hopkins that the money would be sent as soon as the goods had arrived, she began thinking about what a commotion there must be at home at this moment.

  It had been arranged for her to be married after luncheon as this would give those coming from London time to reach the house and have something to eat before they went to the Church.

  ‘At this moment,’ she thought, ‘I should be wearing that beautiful white gown I bought in London, my Mama’s tiara and carrying a large bouquet of white lilies.’

  For the moment she had forgotten the commotion there would be when her relations found out that she had disappeared.

  She only hoped that John would be very careful in what he said and did not promise, as they would try to make him do, to find her and bring her back to marry him even though she had upset everything by vanishing.

  ‘How could I have known? How could I have ever guessed for one single moment that he would be in love with someone else and was going to marry me only for my money?’ Iona asked herself.

  Because it hurt even to think about it, she tried to dismiss the issue from her mind, but she knew that it was still there.

  ‘Whatever happens,’ she decided, ‘I must not return back until they have all got over the shock of it. John will have to explain why, although we have not quarrelled, I have left him.’

  She wondered why she had never been suspicious before that John was in love with someone else.

  She had been foolish enough to believe every word he said and it was only by luck that she had been saved at the last moment from marrying a man who was not in love with her.

  ‘If I marry anyone,’ she mused, ‘it will be because I am absolutely certain he does not love me for my money.’

  Even so she felt as if someone was laughing at her for asking too much and she realised that anyone as rich as herself was every man’s dream.

  She was aware that she was very pretty and being pretty and rich should be enough for any man.

  But extraordinary as it seemed, John had preferred Mary and, because neither of them had any money, they would be unable to marry.

  ‘Just how could he do it? How could he make me believe that I was the only one who mattered in his life?’ she questioned. ‘When all the time he was wanting Mary and she was wanting him.’

  For the first time since she had run away, Iona felt as if she must cry.

  Then she thought she would not stoop to feeling sorry for herself because she had not been clever enough to sense real love from a man and had been deceived into accepting second best.

  ‘I have been a fool and it is something that will never happen to me again,’ she determined.

  Equally she was well aware that it would be very difficult when she went back.

  Her family probably thought that she would make it up with John and be feeling contrite that she had upset him and everyone else by leaving the night before the wedding.

  “Surely,” they would say, “John is more important than an old Governess you have not seen for years.”

  Perhaps as time went by and she was not so close to John as she had been before, they would guess the truth.

  ‘I will have to be very astute about this,’ she said to herself.

  Equally she felt that she was behaving stupidly.

  After what she had said to the Earl this morning, she was not using her brain as she had told him to use his.

  ‘At least I am making one person happy by feeding him the right food,’ she thought. ‘And I have somewhere to hide where no one is likely to find me.’

  These two things were somehow comforting.

  As she went back to her room to tidy herself before she started cooking, she thought that the Gods had been very kind in bringing her to this haven where no one could track her down.

  For the moment at any rate, she was not missing John or her own home because she had so much to do and so many other issues to think about.

  ‘I will no longer fuss about myself,’ she told her reflection in the mirror. ‘I will just enjoy being here, then perhaps, if I find the money the Earl is seeking, I will go home, face the music and make it very clear to the family that whatever they may say I have no intention of marrying John.’

  As she looked at herself in the mirror, she thought, without being conceited, how pretty she was.

  How strange it was that the only man she had ever thought of marrying should love someone else.

  Mary was pretty, but Iona knew if she was honest, that she herself was much prettier. Her glorious golden hair would attract any man.

  ‘Perhaps I will never find anyone who will love me for myself,’ she thought. ‘After all he lived next door and would have been very helpful in running the estate.’

  Then she thought a little bitterly that he had thrown her over in loving Mary and the sooner she forgot about him the better.

  ‘After all I have so much here to interest and amuse me,’ she thought. ‘It is certainly different from anything I have ever done before.’

  Then she remembered the number of servants she had employed not only in the country but in London.

  She thought it amazing that she had managed to settle in very comfortably when there was no lady’s maid to attend to her personally and she was having to cook her own food otherwise she would go hungry.

  ‘The whole scenario is a joke and, if I was clever enough, I would write a play about it and make a fortune!’

  Then at the mere idea of money she was thinking again of the Earl and how horrifying his position was.

  She could hardly bear to think of the dust and dirt there was everywhere and all the glorious paintings in the Picture Gallery that needed cleaning and restoring.

  She thought of the larder next to the kitchen that was empty when it should have been filled to the brim with the delicious goods from the estate.

  ‘I expect,’ she said to herself, ‘it is very good for me to realise what other people suffer and how the poor live from hand to mouth.’

  Then she recalled the huge fortune she possessed in the bank. It was growing larger because of the divid
ends that came from the money that her father had invested for her all over the world.

  She then wondered if love was more important than money or money more important than love.

  ‘I have money and I want love,’ she said to herself. ‘The poor Earl has nothing except this tumbledown house and John will now have the girl he has always loved more than he loves me.’

  It all seemed a terrible tangle and she could not see a clear way to happiness.

  But it was so difficult to find a way out even with using her brain in the way she had always been taught to use it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Iona and the Earl caught a few very small fish when they went fishing, but they were hardly worth cooking.

  They laughed a lot and Iona thought that the Earl looked happier and less worried that he had been since she arrived.

  It was growing late into the afternoon when Mrs. Barley arrived with a parcel of groceries she had ordered and Iona saw her name on a piece of newspaper used to wrap up some sausages.

  She quickly cut the piece from the package and as soon as she could she went up to her bedroom to read it.

  It was what she had anticipated, but it did give her rather a shock to read,

  “A consternation took place yesterday at Langdale Hall when the marriage which had been arranged between The Honourable Iona Langdale and Sir John Moreton had to be postponed.

  A large number of guests arrived from London and other parts of the County to find Miss Langdale’s relations explaining to them that the bride had gone to be with her elderly Governess who was on the point of dying and had asked particularly to see her.

  ‘She felt it was impossible to say ‘no’, one of her relations said, ‘and it was very kind of her to want to be with the old woman who had taught her at least nine years ago before she went to a school.’

  No one seemed to know where the old Governess lived, but they were confident that the marriage would be rearranged for the end of the week or perhaps the week after.

  Miss Iona Langdale was one of the most successful debutantes of the Season a year ago when her father gave a grand ball for her at their house in Park Lane.

  When she had been in mourning, everyone agreed that she was one of the most attractive as well as the richest young girl at all the Season’s events and was expected to host a ball this year in Ascot Week.