65 A Heart Is Stolen (2 page)

He threw his wet towel down on the floor and started to dress.

As Hawkins had obviously expected him to go riding, he had already laid out his exquisitely cut riding clothes and a pair of highly polished boots having the wide contrasting leather band at the top which had been introduced by Beau Brummel.

The Marquis had no wish to be a dandy. At the same time, like the Prince Regent, he found that Brummers’ innovations on the Social scene were all overdue.

Brummel’s axioms on cleanliness, that a gentleman’s linen must be spotless and changed twice a day, his decree that a coat must fit without a wrinkle and a cravat high and spotless, certainly improved every man’s appearance.

The Marquis himself had always been fastidious as his father had been before him, but he realised that a great number of his acquaintances had been not only slovenly but definitely dirty and the change was certainly for the better.

He was dressed except for his cut-away coat with its long tails and was brushing his hair in front of the gold-framed mirror on the chest of drawers when his friend Sir Anthony Derville came into the room.

Anthony was tall and good-looking and every woman thought he was one of the handsomest men she had ever seen until her eyes fell on the Marquis.

Together they were overwhelming and as one enraptured lady had exclaimed,

“It’s just not fair for us wretched women to be offered not one ripe plum but two, each as delectable as the other!”

“Why the devil did you have to wake me so early?” Sir Anthony demanded now, as he crossed the room towards his friend. “I had only just got to sleep!”

“And I have only just woken up,” the Marquis replied.

He waited until Hawkins had closed the door behind his friend to wait outside in the corridor until he was wanted before he added,

“I am leaving, Anthony – are you coming with me?”

“Leaving? But why?”

The Marquis lowered his voice and told the truth.

“Rose proposed marriage last night and I cannot for the life of me remember what I said in reply.”

“Good God!” Anthony ejaculated. “You must have been more ‘foxed’ than you appeared.”

“She asked me when I was not in full possession of my faculties,” the Marquis replied.

Anthony groaned.

“I always thought that Rose was up to snuff when it came to getting her own way.”

“I am not going to marry her, if that is what you are implying.”

“So you are running away!”

“I prefer to call it a tactical withdrawal in the face of superior odds,” the Marquis replied.

Then he smiled.

“Actually you are right, Anthony. I am not brave enough to stay and face the music. If she remembers what I promised last night, and I am quite certain she will, there will be a hell of a row if I make it quite clear that I have no memory of what I said.”

“Only what you did,” Anthony remarked dryly.

The Marquis did not reply and after a moment he added,

“You might do worse than marry Rose. She
is
damned attractive!”

“Not early in the morning.”

“So that is the rub! Well, it’s best to find out before the ring is on the finger!”

“There is going to be no ring on anybody’s finger as far as I am concerned,” the Marquis said sharply. “As you know, I have no wish to be married and, if I have to be shackled to some woman, I can promise you it will not be to Rose Caterham.”

“All right! All right!” his friend said. “There is no need to be truculent!”

“I feel truculent!” the Marquis said. “I know I made a fool of myself, but I have been in worse situations and forced my way out of them.”

Anthony threw back his head and laughed.

“Do you remember the time you shinned down a drainpipe when the woman’s husband returned unexpectedly? God, how I laughed when you told me about it! But it must have been pretty unpleasant at the time.”

“It was!” the Marquis agreed briefly.

“Then there was that pretty little piece at Newmarket, what was her name?”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Anthony, stop reminiscing and go and get dressed, unless I am to go off alone.”

“It will not take me long,” Anthony said. “Tell Hawkins to arrange for one of the footmen to pack my things. I did not bring a valet as you know.”

“Hawkins will see to it,” the Marquis replied. “I will go and order breakfast.”

“Brandy for me,” Anthony said, “and I had better have coffee as well, if I am to keep awake.”

He followed the Marquis towards the door.

“Where are we going?”

“I have not decided,” the Marquis said, “but doubtless I will think of somewhere while we are eating.”

“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 Marquis’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.”