65 A Heart Is Stolen (7 page)

She was very slim and her gown was old-fashioned, having a full skirt and a white fichu, which had gone out of vogue at the end of the century.

Its colour was a deep emerald green, which gave her skin a translucent whiteness and she had what the Marquis realised with his experienced eye was exceptional beauty for a countrywoman.

She curtseyed and the Marquis bowed, then as her eyes looked into his, he realised to his surprise that she was frightened.

He told himself that it was because she was shy and unused to meeting gentlemen of fashion, but her voice was calm and composed as she greeted him,

“Good morning, my Lord.”

“Good morning,” the Marquis replied. “May I present my friend, Sir Anthony Derville?”

She curtseyed again and Anthony, with a smile most women found irresistible, said,

“This is the most attractive house I have seen in a long time, Mrs. Wadebridge. I can well understand why your grandfather was determined not to lose it.”

There was an answering smile on her lips as she replied,

“I see you have been told of the war that existed for so many years between the two estates.”

“That is why I feel you must be surprised to see me,” the Marquis said.

“It is, of course, a pleasant surprise, my Lord. Will you not sit down?”

She indicated with her hand a sofa on the other side of the fireplace and the Marquis seated himself with Anthony beside him. “May I offer you some refreshment?” “No, thank you,” the Marquis replied. “We have not long had breakfast, but my friend and I thought we should call on you as early as possible, to discover if, by any unfortunate chance, you were a victim last night of the highwaymen.”

“Highwaymen?”

Her tone was one of sheer astonishment and the Marquis explained,

“We arrived at Heathcliffe yesterday evening and, as it was a last-minute decision on my part to come here, nobody could have known in advance that it was my intention.”

Ivana was listening to him attentively, her blue eyes with their long dark lashes fixed on his face.

“While we were dining,” the Marquis continued, “a highwayman wearing a hood, not a mask, and two other men with him came into the dining room.” Ivana clasped her hands together. “How could they have done that?” “The window was open,” the Marquis explained. “Their leader came in from the garden, but the two other men were already in the house.” “I can hardly believe it!”

“It is unfortunately true and they left taking with them some irreplaceable treasures including the snuffboxes that belonged to my father and were a unique collection.”

“How terrible!” Ivana exclaimed. “It must have been a great shock.”

“It was,” the Marquis answered, “even more so because Sir Anthony and I could do nothing to prevent the robbery as we were both unarmed and it would have been extremely foolhardy to have attempted to fight three men who were.” “I understand how frustrated you must have felt,” Ivana said. “Have you notified the Magistrates?”

“Not yet,” the Marquis replied. “I thought I would first discover who else in the neighbourhood had seen this gang of criminals. But you tell me everything that was quiet here.”

“Yes, indeed, but I am very grateful that you have warned me about them as there is only my old nanny and myself in the house and we should have been utterly at their mercy.”

“I heard that your brother Charles is at sea,” the Marquis said, “but I was not told that you were married.”

Ivana looked down and he saw the colour rise in her cheeks.

“My husband is also a sailor, my Lord.”

“And his name is the same as your own?”

“I married a distant cousin. There are quite a number of Wadebridges. It is, as your Lordship is doubtless aware, a well-known name in Naval circles.”

“I must offer you my condolences on your father’s death,” the Marquis said. “The Battle of the Nile was a great victory.”

“It was indeed,” Ivana agreed, “and Admiral Nelson is a great strategist.”

There was a little pause. Then the Marquis said,

“I hope, Mrs. Wadebridge, that now after so many years, we have had the pleasure of meeting each other, we shall be able to behave as near neighbours in an ordinary friendly fashion.”

“I hope so too, my Lord,” Ivana replied. “Will you be staying long at Heathcliffe?”

The Marquis might have been unusually perceptive, but he had the feeling that she was anxious to hear the answer to her question.

He did not reply immediately and he was aware that she was looking at him enquiringly and almost as if whatever he said was of particular importance.

“I have not yet made up my mind,” he answered at length. “Sir Anthony and I came here for peace and quiet.”

“I cannot believe the highwaymen will trouble you again, my Lord.”

“I certainly hope not.”

Again there was a pause and the Marquis had the idea that he was expected to leave.

Because he was intrigued, he asked,

“May I look at your garden? And perhaps the rest of the house. I admit to being extremely curious after so many years of being forbidden to cross your threshold.”

Ivana laughed.

“As I was forbidden to cross yours. I cannot tell you how tantalising it was to see Heathcliffe in the distance, to have glimpses of magnificent horses and fine coaches going up and down the drive and imagining the parties inside the house to which I would never be invited.”

“I can see that it must have been infuriating,” the Marquis laughed.

“Being a woman, I think it made me more miserable than angry.”

“Well, if you have never seen Heathcliffe, its owner will now be able to show it to you,” Anthony said eagerly.

The Marquis glanced at him and realised that he was looking at her with admiration and was aware that Anthony had not missed the fact that she was extremely pretty. In fact, the Marquis told himself, lovely was the right word.

As if he knew it was expected of him, with just a touch of amusement in his voice, he said,

“I should, of course, be delighted to show you Heathcliffe and its contents, even if my father’s snuffboxes are no longer there.”

“But there are lots of other things worth seeing,” Anthony added, “especially the pictures.”

He looked at the Marquis and asked deliberately,

“Why should not Mrs. Wadebridge dine with us one evening? We have, as it happens, not many engagements.”

“Yes, of course,” the Marquis agreed. “What evening would suit you?”

He looked at Ivana as he spoke and had the idea that she was considering the invitation before she replied to it.

It struck him as strange that she was not more eager and, because she was reluctant, he decided that it might be because of the old feud and the sooner that was laid to rest the better.

Aloud he said,

“I think if you agree to dine with me, Mrs. Wadebridge, we could then be quite certain we had ‘buried the hatchet’ for all time. Would tomorrow night suit you? I will send a carriage to pick you up at half-after-seven.”

“That is very kind of you, my Lord, and I shall be very pleased to dine at Heathcliffe.”

The Marquis noted that she did not say, ‘to dine with you’, but he supposed that her choice of words was of no significance.

Surely she could not wish to identify herself after all these years with the childish animosity that had existed between two old men.

He rose to his feet.

“I shall look forward to showing you my house,” he said, “and now may I see yours?”

He thought she hesitated, but was not sure. Then, moving ahead of him, she remarked,

“There is really not very much to see.”

The Marquis and Sir Anthony followed her out into the hall and she showed them the dining room where the old oak furniture that matched the period of the house was polished like the stairs and the brass handles were so brilliant that they seemed to mirror everything around them.

She then took them into the study, over the mantelpiece of which was a portrait of her grandfather in his Admiral’s uniform and beneath it in a glass case a long row of his medals and decorations.

He looked a belligerent old man with a beard and had an aggressive air about him as if he was permanently on guard against the enemy.

“An excellent likeness,” the Marquis commented, “and when you see my grandfather you will see that they were well paired!”

“You certainly do not resemble him,” Anthony said to Ivana with a caressing note in his voice.

“I am told I take after my mother,” Ivana replied, “whose family came from Ireland.”

“I was sure of it!” Anthony exclaimed. “Blue eyes set in dark hair! That is very Irish!”

Ivana laughed.

“So I am often told, but I have never been fortunate enough to visit the Emerald Isle;”

She would have led the way from the study, but the Marquis had walked to the window to look out at what he knew was the back of the house.

To his surprise he saw not a garden as he expected, but what was a courtyard and beyond it a huge and ancient barn.

“That seems a strange building to have attached to the house,” he said. “A tithe barn!”

Ivana smiled.

“I see you are not aware, my Lord, that before your grandfather bought Heathcliffe, most of the estate was Wadebridge land.”

“I had no idea!” the Marquis exclaimed.

“The Wadebridges who lived here for several hundred years were rich and important,” Ivana explained, “but over the centuries they spent so much time at sea that gradually they had to sell their possessions ashore.”

“Now I can understand why you hated the Veryans,” the Marquis said. “May I look at your barn a little nearer?”

Again Ivana hesitated and he had the feeling that she was longing for them to leave.

Obstinately he determined that he would not be hurried.

“It’s not possible for you to go inside it as everything is locked up,” she replied. “But you can, of course, look at it from the outside.”

She led the way with almost a bad grace to a door that lay on the other side of the study and which took them straight out into the courtyard.

From this angle the barn seemed almost to dwarf the house.

As the Marquis looked at it, he realised that it was very old, the bricks between the ships’ beams from which it was built were small and narrow and were he knew, either Elizabethan or earlier.

He looked at it for some minutes and then glanced around the courtyard.

He saw on the other side of it there were a number of the white stones like those which decorated the flowerbeds at the front, but which here were arranged in patterns of Naval symbols.

There was an anchor, life-size, gleaming white against the ground on which it had been fashioned, there was a Union Jack, the stripes making it not so effective as the anchor and there was a more ambitious project in the shape of a sailing ship.

“I see you have very nautical tastes, Mrs. Wadebridge,” the Marquis remarked.

“Those were done a long time ago by my brother and his friends when they were at home on leave.”

As Ivana spoke, she turned as if she would re-enter the house, but Anthony gave an exclamation.

“Look!” he said. “What is that?”

He pointed as he spoke to a large lime tree that stood in a corner of the courtyard.

The Marquis followed the direction of his finger and saw to his surprise a flash of brilliant colour amongst the leaves.

For a moment he could not think what it was. Then he quizzed,

“Surely it is a parrot?”

“A parakeet to be correct,” Ivana replied.

“There is more than one,” Anthony said. “Are they tame?”

As if she was amused by his astonishment, Ivana walked towards the tree, then made several low sounds that were the exact replica of a parakeet’s call.

As she did so, she held out her arms and from the tree came fluttering down towards her a number of the small brilliant birds with their crimson and green plumage, which seemed strangely out of place in the English sunshine.

Two settled on her hands, two more on each of her arms and another on her shoulder.

With her green gown she made a strange but very lovely picture as she stood holding them with her head thrown back to look at several other parakeets that were now circling overhead.

Both the Marquis and Anthony stared entranced until she shook herself free of them saying as she did so,

“It’s too early for food. You will have to wait.”

They flew away back into the tree they had come from and the Marquis said,

“If I had not seen that with my own eyes, I would not have believed it!”

“Nor would I,” Anthony agreed. “You must have had them for a long time for them to come when you call them.”

“I think they know I love them,” Ivana said simply.

Now she walked determinedly back into the house and, when they reached the hall, she waited for the Marquis to make his farewells.

“I shall look forward to tomorrow evening,” he said politely, “and I am extremely relieved, Mrs. Wadebridge, to know that so far, you have not been troubled by highwaymen. At the same time I would advise you to keep your doors locked.”

“I will do so,” Ivana replied.

She walked to the door and waited politely as the Marquis and Sir Anthony mounted their horses.

As they drove them towards the drive, the Marquis looked again at the neat flowerbeds.

‘It must have taken a lot of work to keep them in such perfect condition,’ he thought.

Then, lying beside the stones he saw a strange object.

For a moment he wondered what it was. Then he realised it was a wooden leg, the type that was worn by a man who had had his own limb amputated.

It was lying on the small grass path and it struck the Marquis that it had been thrown down hastily and forgotten.

He did not speak and, when they were through the gates, Anthony exclaimed,

“Good Heavens, Justin! Who would have thought that we would have found anything so lovely, so exquisite in the wilds of Sussex? I have never seen such eyes! I cannot imagine why you did not ask her to dinner this evening instead of our having to wait until tomorrow night!”

“For God’s sake, Anthony, you know she is married,” the Marquis replied. “You have just tumbled out of one mess with Lucy Bicester. You cannot make a fool of yourself for a second time!”