65 A Heart Is Stolen (14 page)

“Now I see you, I understand how the elusive Marquis has been persuaded to relinquish his heart into your keeping.”

The Prince Regent, with a grace and charm that had always proved irresistible, raised Ivana’s hand to his lips.

As he did so, Lady Rose seemed to break the inertia that had held her spellbound.

“I don’t believe it! It’s impossible!” she said to the Marquis. “How can you have married in such a short time without anybody being aware of it?”

“My best friend was with me,” the Marquis said, a smile on his lips as he indicated Anthony.

As he spoke, he saw that Lady Rose was looking searchingly at Ivana’s hand.

She saw the wedding ring and drew in her breath with what was almost a hiss.

“I will never forgive you for this, Justin!” she snarled. “Never! And one day I will get even with you!”

As if Anthony realised he must do something, he moved to her side.

“Come into the garden, Rose,” he suggested. “I want to talk to you.”

He drew her firmly towards the window as he spoke and she went with him reluctantly. Then they heard her voice, high and fretful, as Anthony escorted her from the terrace onto the lawn.

“May I offer you some refreshment, Sire?” the Marquis asked.

“I could certainly do with a glass of champagne after all these dramatics,” the Prince Regent replied. “At least, Justin, things are never monotonous when you are about!”

Before the Marquis could ring the bell for Travers, he appeared to be anticipating what would be required with trays containing glasses and other wines should they be preferred.

In an extremely genial mood, the Prince Regent seated himself on the sofa and insisted on Ivana sitting beside him.

“Now tell me all about yourself, my dear,” he said, “for Mrs. Fitzherbert will want to know everything about your marriage to one of my dearest friends.”

“It is such a privilege to meet Your Royal Highness,” Ivana replied, “that I find it difficult to think of anything else.”

The Prince Regent was delighted, for if there was one thing he really enjoyed it was being flattered by a pretty woman.

“We cannot have met before otherwise I know I should have remembered you,” he said.

“I have heard so much about you, Sire, because I have always lived so near to Brighton,” Ivana replied, “and I know how much you have done to make the town fashionable and how everyone talks of the wonder and beauty of the Royal Pavilion.”

“Not everyone is as pleased with it as I am myself,” the Prince Regent said, “but make Justin bring you to see it as soon as you have finished your honeymoon.”

“That is extremely kind of you, Sire,” the Marquis said, “but I think we would be wise to wait until Lady Rose has left Brighton.” The Prince threw back his head and laughed.

“You certainly gave her a shock. It was my fault for telling her where you could be hiding.”

He chuckled before he added,

“To tell the truth, Justin, it was only after I had been indiscreet enough to reveal that you had a house here, that it occurred to me that the one person you did not wish to find you was Rose Caterham.”

“That was very perceptive of you, Sire,” the Marquis replied dryly.

“She was so insistent that you were engaged,” the Prince Regent went on as if he wished to excuse himself, “and now I am not looking forward to the journey back.”

“I am sorry, Sire, but if it had been possible I would have taken you into my confidence.”

“That is what I would have wished you to do.”

“I feel, Sire, that with your usual tact and diplomacy, which are unequalled,” the Marquis said, “you will be able to smooth things over one way or another and I can tell you in all truth, that I never had any intention whatever of marrying Lady Rose.”

The Prince Regent always enjoyed being taken into anyone’s confidence, especially when it was somebody like the Marquis who he always considered was rather tight-lipped where his love affairs were concerned.

“Leave it to me, dear fellow,” he promised. “I will make everything right for you.”

“I knew I could rely on you, Sire,” the Marquis said in a heartfelt tone which sounded so sincere that it would have made Anthony smile if he had been present.

The Prince Regent accepted another glass of champagne and then rose to his feet.

“I must be getting back,” he said. “Mrs. Fitzherbert will be waiting for me. As you know, there is only room in my phaeton for two.”

That was certainly true of anybody as fat as His Royal Highness.

The Marquis, glad to be rid of them, hurried to the terrace to beckon to Anthony, who was listening to a long monologue from an infuriated Lady Rose.

They came back quickly onto the terrace and Lady Rose walked past the Marquis with her head high and without speaking.

They joined the Prince Regent in the library, who was already on his feet admiring one of the ship pictures on the wall with Ivana beside him.

“Your wife has been explaining to me one of the battles her ancestors took part in,” the Prince Regent said to the Marquis. “It is very interesting, very interesting indeed. I am anxious to show her some of the Naval trophies I have at the Royal Pavilion.”

“It will be an honour, Sire,” the Marquis said.

“And I hope you will invite me over here again,” the Prince Regent remarked, “perhaps one day next week or the week after, I could bring Mrs. Fitzherbert with me?”

“We should be delighted to receive Your Royal Highness!” the Marquis declared.

The Prince Regent put out his hand to Ivana.

“My very best wishes for your future happiness,” he said, “and make no mistake, you are the prettiest Marchioness of the Veryans. Your husband must decide who would be the best artist to paint you, so that your portrait will hang in the picture gallery amongst his ancestors.”

He kissed Ivana’s hand and the Marquis said,

“I was going to ask Your Royal Highness’s advice on that very subject just as soon as I had the opportunity.”

Lady Rose had already stalked out of the library.

Now the Prince Regent followed with the Marquis beside him, discussing as he went, the merits of the different portrait painters on whom he was an acknowledged expert.

Anthony stayed behind for a second to say to Ivana in a low voice, ‘well done!’ before he followed the Prince Regent and the Marquis into the hall.

She stood for a moment staring after them and then she put her hands up to her face.

It seemed almost incredible that so much had happened in such a very short space of time, she had confronted the Marquis, he had threatened her with being hanged for the theft of his possessions, then with the arrival of the most fantastically beautiful woman she had ever seen in her life, she had apparently saved him from an unwelcome engagement.

It seemed extraordinary to Ivana that anyone could not wish to marry a woman as beautiful as Lady Rose.

At the same time she did not miss the spiteful manner in which she had spoken to the Marquis or the way she had ignored him when she left.

He had extricated himself from a very difficult situation only by lying and she wondered what he intended to do in the future, when he would be required to produce a wife who did not, in fact, exist.

She thought the best thing she could do would be to go back to Flagstaff Manor.

She was still desperately afraid that he might dismiss Mr. Markham as he had said he would. Then she told herself that, however incensed he might be with her, she had at least done Marky a good turn.

She could not believe in the circumstances they were in at the moment, he would be so unjust as to dismiss his agent before discussing it with her further.

‘But we cannot go on arguing about it now,’ she thought in a sudden panic.

Thinking she heard voices returning to the library, she ran through the open window back towards the stables, where she had left the pony trap in which she had journeyed to Heathcliffe.

*

The Marquis was not, as it happened, very surprised when he came back into the library to find Ivana gone. He had anticipated that she would run away.

He walked to where the drinks had been put down on a side table and poured himself a glass of champagne.

Anthony followed him into the room and closed the door behind him.

“What the devil is all this about?” he asked. “I realise that you have saved yourself at Ivana’s expense, but what was she doing here in the first place?”

“She came to explain to me what had been going on,” the Marquis said, a note of satisfaction in his voice, “and I now know the whole story! It might be a melodrama straight from Drury Lane.”

Anthony helped himself to a glass of champagne.

“If you had listened to the way Rose was ranting, you would be wary of every dark corner for fear of a dagger in your back!” he said.

“I thought that I was extremely clever to escape the trap she set for me,” the Marquis replied. “For one moment I thought I was doomed!”

“I thought the same thing,” Anthony admitted. “But what is Ivana going to say? It must have been more than a surprise to her!”

“She had sworn to do anything I asked of her,” the Marquis replied, “to save Markham from being dismissed.”

“You are not telling me that I owe you fifty pounds?” Anthony enquired.

“I certainly am,” the Marquis replied. “She was the highwayman and she had stolen the snuffboxes long before the night we arrived and only held us up to ransom so that she could save Markham from the dire consequences of his collaboration with her.”

“If you think I understand a word of all that,” Anthony said, “you can start again from the beginning.”

The Marquis sat down, his glass in his hand, and told Anthony exactly what Ivana had told him.

As he finished, Anthony exclaimed,

“It is the finest and most magnificent thing I have ever heard in my life! She ought to get a medal for what she has done and it certainly ought to show up the Government for the criminal manner they are treating our wounded.”

“That is all very well,” the Marquis remarked, “but the person who has paid for all this generosity is me!”

“You can well afford it! Heavens – what a woman she is! Can you imagine Rose or Lucy or any of the other frivolous idiots we know caring a damn for men starving on the doorstep or bleeding from a gunshot wound?”

He laughed as he added,

“If they so much as prick a finger they swoon at the sight of blood! I hope, Justin, you told Ivana how much you admired her.”

“I told her I was considering whether I would have her hanged!”

“What did you say?” Anthony exclaimed. Then he added, “I know you are joking!”

“No. That is what I actually said.”

“Why?”

“I thought it would do her no harm to be a little frightened of the consequences of her actions.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you let her go home thinking you might have her strung from a gibbet or taken to Tyburn Hill?”

“We had not really finished our conversation.”

“Then the sooner you go to Flagstaff Manor and do so, the better!”

“Wait a minute!” The Marquis said. “You are moving too fast. We have both been made to look stupid fools by women, especially by Ivana. Does that mean nothing to you?”

“It’s not a story I would wish to regale the Prince Regent with or tell at White’s,” Anthony replied. “All I can say is that Wadebridge is fortunate enough to have a wife in a million.”

There was silence and then the Marquis burst out,

“Of course – Wadebridge! I had forgotten about him!”

As the Marquis spoke, Travers came into the room with the newspapers.

He put them down on the long tapestry-covered stool by the hearth rug and Anthony immediately picked up
The Times
.

As Travers left the room closing the door behind him, the Marquis said, “There is something I want to see Travers about,” and followed him.

He caught up with the man just before he reached the hall.

“When Mrs. Wadebridge was here a short time ago,” he said, “she told me that she had come to see you about something that was troubling her. What was it?”

“I was intending to ask your Lordship,” Travers replied, “if I could slip down to Flagstaff Manor for a short while. I thinks there’s a bit of trouble brewing.”

“Trouble?” the Marquis enquired. “What sort of trouble?”

“Mrs. Wadebridge tells me, my Lord, that Nanny has reported seeing a man lurking in the bushes and peering at the house.”

“Why should he be doing that?” the Marquis asked.

“There’re a lot of ruffians about at the moment with so many men being demobilised, my Lord, and Nanny thought he might be intending to rob them.”

The Marquis frowned.

“I will see to it,” he said after a moment. “I wish to speak to Mrs. Wadebridge anyway.”

He was just about to return to the library to tell Anthony where he was going when it struck him that Anthony would certainly commend Ivana for her actions while he intended to be extremely critical of them.

Looking through the open front door, he could see in charge of two grooms, the horses which, since the Prince Regent’s arrival he had forgotten that he had ordered.

He walked towards them saying over his shoulder to Travers,

“Tell Sir Anthony I will not be long.”

Swinging himself into the saddle of a fine stallion, he set off across the grass towards Flagstaff Manor.

As he rode on, the full impact of what he had done in introducing Ivana Wadebridge as his wife really struck him. He realised that he had got himself out of one tangle and into another.

He was well aware that the news that he had been married would be known within a few hours by the whole of fashionable Brighton.

The Prince Regent always wished to play the lead in anything that was likely to cause a sensation and what could be more sensational than that one of his closest friends and certainly one of the most important figures in the Social world had been married secretly to a woman of whom none of them had ever heard?

He was quite sure that the Prince would extol Ivana’s beauty if only to pique Lady Rose and there would be a great number of women who would be delighted to see Rose take a setback.