Free 65 A Heart Is Stolen by Barbara Cartland Page A

Marquis finished before Anthony could end the sentence himself.
    “All right, you can cross-examine her tonight and I bet you ten sovereigns she will not give you a single clue.”
    “Taken!” “If we are taking sides,” Anthony warned. “I shall align myself with Ivana against you and you will certainly get nowhere.”
    “That is a challenge!” the Marquis smiled, “and you know I can never resist one!”
    *
    Dressing for dinner in the best gown she had which was a very simple one, Ivana listened to Nanny saying over and over again that she had been foolish to accept the Marquis’s invitation.
    “Why do you think he has asked you except to make trouble?” the old woman enquired.
    “It would seem very unfriendly if I had refused,” Ivana replied.
    She sat down suddenly on the stool in front of the mirror and, looking at her reflection, she said,
    “Perhaps it was wrong – but at the time I could think of no plausible reason for refusing.”
    “We could send a message to say you be feelin’ ill.”
    Ivana thought of the Marquis’s firm mouth and had the feeling that if he wanted her to dine with him he would go on asking her until she had run out of excuses and there was nothing she could do but accept.
    “I will go and get it over with,” she said. “After all, it will be an ordinary social evening with doubtless both fine gentlemen yawning with boredom by the time we reach the dessert.”
    “I hopes that’s what’ll happen,” Nanny snapped. “Equally, if you asks me, it’s too much to hope for!”
    Ivana laughed.
    “It is no use being faint-hearted now, Nanny, when we have been through so much,” she said, “and it’s not like you to be afraid of anyone, even the Marquis.”
    As she spoke, Ivana thought she personally was, in fact, rather frightened.
    She had heard about him all her life, but, although she had known that he was good-looking, dashing, raffish and also brave, she had not expected him in the flesh to be quite so overpowering or indeed to be so outstandingly handsome.
    As many women had thought before her, the Marquis and Sir Anthony together were almost breathtaking.
    Never had she imagined two men could look so elegant, almost dandifiedly smart and at the same time be so unmistakably masculine.
    There was no doubt, she thought when they had gone, that Sir Anthony had admired her, but she had the uncomfortable feeling that the Marquis was feeling something very different.
    Could he be suspicious? And if so, of what?
    She gave a cry of vexation when she realised after they had left that George’s wooden leg had been left in the garden and he had hobbled away on his stick without it. Then when he realised what he had done, he was afraid to go back and fetch it.
    Perhaps the Marquis had not seen it, but Ivana was sure his penetrating eyes that made her feel shy and rather frightened had missed nothing, especially something that he was not meant to see.
    She thought now that perhaps it had been a mistake to call the parakeets down from the tree, but at least it had diverted the gentlemen’s attention.
    She had been worried for the rest of the day after they had gone and found it hard to sleep last night. Now Nanny had grumbled and complained all the time she was pressing her gown.
    “Why can’t we be left in peace?” she asked. “Who’d have imagined the Marquis of Veryan would have come here? Your poor grandfather must be a-turnin’ in his grave?”
    “That is true enough, Nanny,” Ivana agreed. “For a Veryan to stand on the soil of Flagstaff Manor would be an insult in itself!”
    But how could she carry on that ridiculous vendetta which, Ivana thought, had ruined her childhood because she was never allowed to go to Heathcliffe?
    She remembered sitting on top of the wall and staring at it far away in the distance with longing eyes.
    “Could I not just go to the stables to see the horses, Grandpapa?” she had asked once.
    The request had called down an avalanche of