65 A Heart Is Stolen by Barbara Cartland Page A

think I should go home.”
    Her last words were heard by Anthony as he came into the library.
    “Go home?” he echoed. “That is ridiculous! We have so much to show you, have we not Justin? The pictures for instance, and so much else I think you will find fascinating.”
    “I am sorry,” Ivana said, “but you must excuse me because I have a headache. I think perhaps it is the heat. It has been excessively hot today.”
    “If you must go,” Anthony said, “I will take you back. I would not like to think of you driving alone now it is dark.”
    “I shall be perfectly all right,” Ivana answered hastily.
    “You cannot be sure of that. After all the highwaymen may be lurking in the bushes, waiting to make you stand and deliver while they take your jewels and your money.”
    Ivana laughed.
    “Then they will certainly be disappointed, for I have neither.”
    “You are too pretty to be alone,” Anthony reiterated. “If Justin and I had not been so thoughtless, one of us would have come to fetch you.”
    “I shall be perfectly safe in such a magnificent carriage with Goddard driving.”
    It registered with the Marquis that she knew the coachman’s name.
    Again the explanation perhaps lay in the fact that they had met in the village, but Goddard and his family lived in a house on the other side of the stables and there was therefore no reason for Ivana to see them unless she came to Heathcliffe.
    “I tell you what we will do,” the Marquis said. “We will drive Mrs. Wadebridge back in the phaeton, unless she feels it would be too cold?”
    “It will certainly not be that,” Ivana replied, “and I would really love to drive in your phaeton.”
    The Marquis rang the bell and, while he gave the order for the phaeton to be brought to the front door, Anthony drew Ivana across the room to look at one of the pictures.
    As she made normal conversation about the painting, he stood looking down at her with what the Marquis told himself was a sloppy expression on his face.
    “You have not finished your port, Anthony,” he remarked, as if he wished to intrude on what appeared to be a romantic interlude.
    With an obvious effort, but because he knew that the Marquis had given him a command, Anthony crossed the room and took up the glass he had left on the side table.
    The Marquis stood beside Ivana.
    “I have not told you of the long and arduous search we have made today for the highwaymen.”
    “Search for the highwaymen?”
    “Anthony and I drove all over the County calling on different people and making enquiries at village inns. It was really extraordinary that nobody had ever heard of the gang.”
    “Perhaps they are newcomers.”
    “It seems strange that they should choose Heathcliffe for their first operation when Brighton is teeming with jewels of every description, fat purses filled with golden guineas and, of course, an enormous amount of treasures in the Royal Pavilion.”
    “For all we know,” Ivana replied, “the highwaymen may be there at this very moment, holding up the Prince Regent himself!”
    “There is always that possibility,” the Marquis agreed, “but it still seems to me strange that in the whole of Sussex they should come to Heathcliffe the very night I return after a lapse of five years.”
    “Surely, my Lord, they were as surprised to see you as you were to see them?” Ivana suggested.
    There was a smile on her lips that told the Marquis she was very pleased about something and he wondered what it could be.
    Then she moved towards the empty cabinet to lay her hand for a moment on the glass top.
    “Are you very disconsolate at losing the snuffboxes that you have neglected for so many years?” she enquired.
    The Marquis was aware there was a sting in the question and he replied sharply,
    “Apart from their value they meant a great deal to me because my father was so fond of them.”
    “In which case surely you would have wished to remove them to one of your other houses where you