Beauty or Brains by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-78213-567-8
Publisher: Barbara Cartland.com
Published: 2014-08-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

When Iona awoke it was very early and the sun was streaming into the bedroom through the gap at the sides of the curtains.

She was in the State room and she had fallen asleep as soon as Mrs. Newman had unpacked her cases.

She had hung her clothes in the large wardrobe at one end of the room and had also placed her hairbrush and everything she required on the dressing table.

‘I have certainly fallen on my feet,’ Iona thought to herself.

Then she decided to see more of the house in case she had to leave, although the Earl had said he wanted to keep her, but, as he was so unpredictable, he might easily change his mind, however well she cooked for him.

She jumped out of bed and pulled back the curtains.

‘There is,’ she thought, ‘a great deal to be done to this room to make it clean and tidy.’

There was dust everywhere and she was quite sure that the carpet had not been brushed for months.

Equally it was a very beautiful room and she was thrilled to be in it.

She dressed quickly and, going down the stairs, was aware that no one else was about.

She let herself out of a side door, which she thought would lead to the stables and she was not mistaken.

She felt that she had been remiss in not looking at her ponies before she went to bed.

But when she left the Earl after dinner she felt sure, although she should have gone out to look, that the ponies would be all right.

She peeped into two stables before she found them and then realised that they were indeed very comfortable.

Their stalls were clean and there was fresh straw on the ground and she could see that there were buckets of water for them and food in the manger.

She patted them both and talked to them and they seemed pleased to see her.

Then, as there was no one about in the stables, she walked into the garden.

She could see the places where the Earl had been digging to find the money his uncle had hidden.

There was a large hole on one side of the carved basin of the fountain and other large gaps in the lawn.

‘He surely does not expect the fortune to be hidden under the grass,’ she said to herself.

Then, as she could see more places that had been dug up, she realised how frustrating it must be for the Earl to find nothing when he was looking so diligently for it.

She walked down to the lake and was surprised to find that he had cut deeply into the side of it. There were some gaping holes in the rim and bricks had been removed.

She tried to visualise how an elderly man who was a miser would store his fortune.

It seemed to her ridiculous for the Earl to think for a moment that he had buried it outside the house.

‘I suppose,’ she told herself, ‘that he has looked all over the house from the top to the bottom before he started on the outside.

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