A Heart of Stone

by Barbara Cartland

  How could he have ever imagined when he came back to Scotland that one of the most valuable pictures in The Castle would have been replaced.

  And by a copy made in India, presumably from an illustration of it in some book.

  It was only, as he thought, by a miracle that he was made aware of it.

  What was more the Shakespeare First Folio which he had begun to doubt really existed and a precious edition of Chaucer were actually in The Castle, but not now in his hands.

  He could imagine the satisfaction what the Morgans were now feeling. They had pulled off most skilfully a well thought-out plan.

  Of course the broken wheel was a fake and Major Morgan had relied on his acquaintance with the Earl when they were in the Regiment together to gain his hospitality.

  Now he thought about it, the Earl remembered that Morgan had done something wrong. He could not recall what it was, but it had brought the wrath of the Colonel down on his head and Morgan had been transferred.

  The Earl reflected now that it must have been the real reason for him being transferred to another Regiment in India.

  ‘I should have been suspicious of him at the time,’ he told himself, ‘but it all happened such a long time ago.’

  He had entirely forgotten Morgan until he appeared and asked for his hospitality.

  ‘It was all a wicked trick,’ the Earl thought angrily, ‘and if it had not been for Miss Bruce they would have left tomorrow and I would never have seen them again.’

  He began to ponder on how clever Miss Bruce had been.

  It was impossible to think of anything, except how lovely she looked with the moonlight touching her hair.

  She had looked, he thought, perhaps even lovelier in the light of the candle that he was carrying when they reached her bedroom.

  He had looked down at her and she was very small beside him and he thought there was something irresistible about her.

  Once again he hardly believed that she was real.

  He had kissed her in sincere gratitude, just as he would have kissed any other woman who had helped him.

  Yet when his lips touched her skin he had known, although he could not put it into words, that what he felt was very different from anything he had ever felt before.

  ‘I am just imagining it,’ he now told himself in the darkness.

  But he could see her clearly in a hundred different aspects, particularly sitting at her desk in the library and walking into the drawing room with a grace that no other woman could boast.

  He had thought at dinner that she eclipsed everyone else at the table and he was well aware that it was difficult for the other men to take their eyes away from her.

  Yet curiously and to him quite incomprehensively, she appeared completely unconscious of her beauty.

  Again he was thinking that she could not be real.

  How could she have lived in London with anyone as influential as Lord Blairmond and not had dozens of men at her feet?

  ‘If she is really unspoilt,’ he told himself, ‘then it is a miracle.’

  But whatever way he twisted it, she still remained, he decided, unaware of him as a man. She was interested only in The Castle and its possessions.

  The Earl thought of Vanora and went on thinking about her.

  Then it flashed through his mind that it would be a disaster if he fell in love with her.

  How could he possibly, in his position, offer her marriage? Yet he was convinced that she would be shocked and horrified at the suggestion of anything else.

  In London, as he knew only too well, love was a word that covered a multitude, if not of sins, then of those situations that were secret and covered up.

  It was rather strange, but he was utterly convinced of something in his very astute mind.

  It was what Miss Bruce was looking for in life, the love that had always evaded him.

  Which in fact he had begun to think did not really exist except in Fairy tales.

  Practically every book, he thought cynically, in the library would have been written about the real love that he could not find.

  Yet despite himself he was idealistic and deep in his heart he believed that one day he would find love.

  The love men had fought for, suffered and died for all through history. The majority had been disappointed and yet led by the Bethlehem Star they had never ceased to seek it.

  If he was truthful with himself, that was what he wanted, the real love of a man for a woman and a woman for a man.

  It was sacred and was as near as a human could get to the love of God.

  He supposed, now he thought of it, that this was what his dear mother must have planted in his mind when he was very young.

  It had been there ever since, although it was only now that he was actually aware of it.

  It was all because he had met this girl and he was convinced that she was completely different from any other woman who had come into his life.

  He was still thinking of Vanora when he fell asleep.

  *

  He felt that he had not been asleep for long when his valet was pulling back the curtains.

  The sun instead of the full moon was streaming in through the windows.

  The Earl jumped out of bed and, as soon as he was dressed, went into the breakfast room and because he was early there was no one else present.

  He then sat down at the top of the table where a newspaper was propped up on a silver stand for him.

  Major Morgan and his wife then came hurrying into the room.

  “Good morning, Cyril,” the Earl said in a hearty voice. “You are early.”

  “We want to be on our way as soon as possible,” Major Morgan said, “although it is sad to leave you, Neil, and we have enjoyed every moment of our visit here.”

  “I am pleased to hear it, Cyril, and you must come again and stay much longer. Perhaps it would be possible on your way South.”

  “We will certainly think about it,” he replied.

  He went to the sideboard and his wife followed him. There were a number of dishes including, of course, porridge.

  The Earl had already eaten some from the wooden bowl bearing his initials that he had used since a child and the Morgans now helped themselves to bacon and eggs and sat down at the table.

  “I think your carriage will be ready in an hour or so,” the Earl said. “But I have given orders that it should be tried out by one of my grooms to make sure that it does not break down again when you are on the road.”

  “I certainly hope it will not do that,” Alice Morgan said. “And we are so lucky that when it broke yesterday we were so close to your lovely castle.”

  “And I was lucky in being able to catch up with an old friend again,” the Earl said. “And that reminds me. I remember, Cyril, how interested you were in all different kinds of mechanisms and so I want you to see, before you leave, the new improvements I have made to my yacht.”

  “I saw your yacht in the bay,” he remarked.

  “What I suggest,” the Earl went on, “is that you and your wife come aboard when you have finished breakfast. I will ask the Captain to move us a little way out to sea so that you can see how my new engines work.”

  “That would be very interesting,” Major Morgan said, “but unfortunately – ”

  The Earl held up his hands.

  “I will not take ‘no’ for an answer. The groom has only just left to carry out the trial I insisted upon for your chaise. It will be ready when I bring you back from our little sea voyage.”

  It was obvious that Major Morgan was reluctant to do what the Earl had suggested.

  He stole a quick glance at his wife.

  “Of course we will come and see your yacht,” she said,” but you must promise that you will not make us late because we have a long way to go.”

  “I promise,” the Earl replied, “and, although I don’t want to hurry you over your breakfast, the sooner we are started the quicker we will be back.”

  Alice Morg
an laughed.

  Then the Earl said,

  “I have already told the Captain that we shall be coming aboard. We only have to walk down the garden to do so.”

  The Morgans finished their breakfast and, as soon as they had done so, the Earl rose to his feet.

  “Come along,” he urged, “and, Cyril, I particularly want your opinion on my new gadgets. I am sure that you will have plenty of ideas for further improvements.”

  “I cannot be sure of that,” Major Morgan replied. “But I think you are extremely lucky to have such a fine yacht.”

  “Then you must promise to come for a trip with me, perhaps to the Orkneys, on your next visit,” the Earl said cheerily. “Although I daresay that your wife would find Denmark more amusing.”

  “You make it sound so fascinating,” Alice Morgan added, “and we will not forget your invitation.”

  She looked at her husband as she spoke.

  The Earl was then aware that Major Morgan looked surreptitiously at his watch before they followed him.

  He led the way down the stairs and into the garden.

  There were steps leading down to the fountain and they walked quite a little way further to where there was a long wooden pier jutting out into the bay.

  At the end of it the Earl’s yacht was waiting with a gangway laid down on the pier.

  The Captain welcomed them aboard.

  As they started to move away out towards the sea, the Earl looked back at The Castle.

  Some of his other guests who were late coming down to breakfast were waving to him from one of the windows.

  He knew that Donald would have told them where he had gone.

  He waved back and Alice Morgan said,

  “I expect they would have liked to come with us.”

  “I remembered you were anxious to leave early,” the Earl replied, “and I can easily take them another day.”

  He thought that the Morgans seemed satisfied with his explanation.

  They were now moving out of the bay into the open sea and the Earl saw the Major looking once again at his watch.

  *

  From her bedroom window Vanora saw the Earl and the Morgans walking down the garden.

  She was, however, going to take no chances of their coming back at the last moment.

  She waited until she saw the yacht begin to move.

  Then she had hurried first to the Morgans’ bedroom which was not too far from her own.

  As she had hoped and prayed, there was no sign of a housemaid.

  A trunk was in the bedroom and Alice Morgan’s nightgown was lying on the bed and her hairbrushes and combs were still on the dressing table.

  Vanora had been afraid that she might have packed all her belongings and locked the trunk and she would then have had to force the lock to open it.

  She looked around and saw that Alice’s dressing gown was lying on a chair and Vanora realised that they were too clever to make even the housemaids suspicious that they had anything to hide.

  It would be quite unthinkable for any guest at The Castle to pack for themselves and the Morgans were aware of this.

  The dressing room that opened out of the bedroom was where Major Morgan’s trunk would be and that too, Vanora hoped, would not be fastened.

  She locked the door and then going quickly to Mrs. Morgan’s trunk she knelt down beside it.

  It was filled with clothes and toiletries that had not been unpacked.

  She soon found a hard lump at the very bottom of the trunk that was in the shape of a book.

  She pulled it out to find that it had been wrapped in tissue paper and tied with a bow of blue ribbon.

  It gave the impression that it might be a present, perhaps for her hostess at the next house they would stay in.

  It took Vanora only a second or so to open it.

  She saw as she expected that it was The Workes of Geoffrey Chaucer published in 1532.

  She felt a throb of relief when she saw the title and quickly she took up two of the books she had brought with her.

  She covered them with the tissue paper and tied them, as the Chaucer book had been, with the blue ribbon.

  When she put it back into the trunk, she found that Shakespeare’s First Folio was lying beside it.

  She thought when she saw it that it was larger than she had expected and, although she put two books in its place, it did not take up as much room as the First Folio.

  She only hoped that Mrs. Morgan would not look before they left The Castle to see if what she had stolen was safe.

  It was rather unlikely and anyway by the time they had returned from the yacht their luggage would have been picked up and taken downstairs by the footmen.

  Holding the precious First Folio and the Chaucer in her hands, Vanora went to the dressing room that the Major had used.

  His trunk was open on the floor.

  Even as she looked at it her heart gave a leap.

  Propped up against the wall beside it there was the black bag that he had been carrying last night.

  There was no need to look to see what it contained.

  She then picked the black bag up and, going back into Mrs. Morgan’s room, she opened the door that she had locked.

  There was no one in sight and yet she could hear some servants or it might be guests talking in a room two or three doors away.

  Quietly she closed the door and then she ran down the passage and down the staircase and on to the library.

  She had the key in her pocket and pulled it out.

  When she entered, the curtains were drawn and it would have been impossible to get in even if the servants had tried to open up the room.

  The copy of Holbein’s portrait lay just as the Earl had left it.

  It took her only a few seconds to take out the real picture from the black bag and she slipped the copy into it.

  Vanora was still worried that the Morgans might somehow get hold of the books she had taken from Alice’s bedroom.

  She therefore pulled several volumes out of the nearest shelf and pushed the First Folio and the Chaucer behind them, just as Harry had done years ago.

  Now she had only to take the bag back into Major Morgan’s room.

  She had worked quickly and yet she was terrified that the Morgans would persuade the Earl to return quicker than he intended.

  She ran up the staircase and along the passage.

  She entered Alice Morgan’s bedroom.

  Then she was aware that the door of the dressing room was open and there was a footman inside it.

  He was obviously packing the Major’s clothes.

  For a moment Vanora stood still trying frantically to think what she should do.

  Then she did the only sensible thing that would not cause any commotion.

  She pulled open the door.

  As she expected, the footman was kneeling on the floor by Major Morgan’s trunk, packing his evening suit.

  “Good morning, Gordon,” Vanora said.

  “Good morning, miss,” Gordon replied.

  “His Lordship asked me to bring this bag back to Major Morgan,” Vanora said. “It belongs to him, but he was showing his Lordship something that was in it. Do be careful not to leave it behind when you take the luggage downstairs.”

  “I’ll not forget, miss,” Gordon smiled. “And how be you getting’ on with them books?”

  Vanora smiled at him.

  “Very well,” she replied. “But, as you know, there are a great number of them and to make things perfect it is going to be a very long job.”

  “I’ll bet it be,” Gordon said.

  Vanora laughed and left him.

  As she walked to her own room, she felt suddenly limp. The effort of doing everything so quickly had almost sapped her strength.

  She went to the window and now she could see that the yacht was still some way out to sea and it looked quite small against the horizon.

  ‘I need not have been frightened,’ she told herself.


  The Earl had been clever in making sure that there was no chance of them returning too soon.

  She went down again to the library.

  She looked at the portrait by Holbein, which was lying on the chair in front of the empty frame where the Earl had placed it.

  Deftly she put the canvas back into it and she fixed it in almost the same way as it had been before.

  Then she turned it round and could see that it was so finely painted and knew at once that it would have been a tragedy if it had fallen into the Morgans’ hands.

  It would doubtless have been sold later to some museum for a very large sum of money.

  She knew that it was too heavy for her to lift back into place and she hoped that the Earl would remember and put it back for her.

  At the same time, if any of the servants came in, she was ready with an explanation – the Earl had taken it down because he thought it was not as securely fastened as it should have been.

  ‘I have thought of everything,’ she told herself with a little sigh.

  She did not take the First Folio or the Chaucer from the hiding place where she had put them. That could wait until the Morgans had left and she had the Earl alone.

  She wanted to see his delight when he saw the First Folio for the very first time. He would then know that it really existed and was not just a legend handed down the centuries.

  ‘He is very very lucky,’ she told herself.

  She went to the writing desk and then remembered once again the reason why she was at The Castle.

  She had been so intent on working on the books for the last few days that she had made no effort to find the Stone.

  She had also completely forgotten that Ewen was sending a man to wait at the end of the wood every night in case she had a message for him.

  ‘He will have to wait,’ she told herself. ‘As I have no news, there is no point in talking to him and having to walk through the wood in the dark.’

  She did, however, think that she should now make an effort to find the Stone.

  She left the library and went into one or two rooms that she had not yet seen and she had learned from Lady Sophie and the housekeeper that they were not often in use.

  There were plenty of stags’ heads, a great number of valuable pictures, but no sign of a Stone.