Read Online Hide and Seek for Love by Barbara Cartland - Free Book Online Page B

voice,
    â€œYou are not – sending Nanny – and me away?”
    â€œNot if you wish to stay, but I think people might think it strange that you are staying at Ingle Hall without a chaperone, even though we are vaguely related.”
    â€œActually I think I must be your cousin two or three times removed.”
    David laughed.
    â€œI suppose that should be close enough to make it respectable!”
    â€œWe do have Nanny as a chaperone,” she asserted, almost aggressively.
    â€œI hardly think that Nanny will be sufficient if we entertain our relatives or people who might call on me out of curiosity,” countered David.
    Benina did not reply and he added jokingly,
    â€œYou can hardly expect Nanny to cook luncheon and then sit down at the same table with us.”
    â€œNanny said just that when I told her you wanted dinner, but I don’t want you to see the dining room, as I have not had time to polish the candlesticks and the rest of the silver to make it look as you would expect it.”
    David chuckled.
    â€œI think tonight we had best eat in the kitchen, but I shall be upset if there is nothing to eat, so please go and give Nanny this.”
    He took a five pound note from his pocket and then handed it to Benina.
    She took it from him and stared at it.
    â€œNanny will think that she’s dreaming!  Have you any more like this one, my Lord?”
    David chuckled again.
    â€œI am a soldier, so I am not rich, but I have enough to prevent us from being hungry and I want to find out as fast as I possibly can, what on earth has happened to all my grandfather’s money.”
    He was thinking that the Marquis had always been spoken of as a very rich man and he remembered his father telling him how he had often given large parties.
    There had been a lavish ball for the Viscount on his twenty-first birthday besides fireworks in the Park, and the house had been filled with guests and an army of servants to wait on them.
    It just seemed so extraordinary that his grandfather had stopped cultivating the land and presumably had then driven out the farmers.
    From what his father had told him, there had been a great deal of wealth amassed over the centuries and it had made the eighth Marquis of Inglestone a very rich man.
    â€˜I don’t understand all this,’ pondered David.
    But it was a problem he had to solve and the sooner the better.

 
CHAPTER FOUR
    Dinner was rather late.
    Benina insisted on bringing it into the study where they were more comfortable.
    She made David chuckle by telling him how Nanny had thought that the five pound note he had given her must be fake.
    At first she had laughed and put it on the table.
    â€œThen what happened?” asked David.
    Benina hesitated before replying,
    â€œIt was kept a secret from the Marquis, but I would suppose it’s all right to tell you, my Lord?”
    â€œTell me what?”
    â€œWell, one of the gardeners who was here for years was instructed to leave and your grandfather thought that he had given up his cottage.  But he managed to find work in the village and therefore never left it.”
    She threw up her hands.
    â€œOf course, we were most grateful to him because he occasionally brought us vegetables when it was too cold for me to dig them up in the kitchen garden.”
    She paused to see if David was still interested.
    â€œWe were very grateful to him,” she added quickly, “and his son has helped us move things when they were too heavy for Nanny and me.”
    â€œWhat you are saying,” David smiled, “is that the son, whoever he is, went to buy the food for my dinner.”
    Benina clapped her hands.
    â€œYou are so clever and you are quite right!  Nanny will be very upset if you don’t enjoy it.”
    Actually it was tender meat, very well cooked and David did enjoy it.
    He noticed that Benina was eating slowly as if her every mouthful was ambrosia from the Gods and she