Read 65 A Heart Is Stolen for Free Online Page B

said,
    “Kindly, gentlemen, place any money you have with you, on the table – also your jewellery.”
    The Marquis was calculating whether he would take a risk and whether, if he and Anthony charged the two men simultaneously they would prove too strong for the robbers.
    Then, while he hesitated, through the door to the servants’ quarters came a third man.
    He also carried a black bag in his hand.
    Cursing at feeling so impotent, the Marquis pulled a purse from his pocket which contained quite a number of guineas because usually when they were alone together he and Anthony played piquet and it was easier to play for money than for I.O.Us.
    Anthony did the same.
    “Your ring and your cravat pin,” the man in the window ordered.
    Then to the Marquis, moving the pistol in this direction,
    “I think my Lord, you are wearing a watch.”
    The Marquis stiffened, a refusal on his lips, but the pistol pointing at him from a distance of perhaps ten feet told him that it would be foolish to take a risk.
    The watch had been his father’s and it was on a fob from which dangled a large flawless emerald that he had always thought of as his ‘luck’.
    As it happened, he seldom wore the fob and never in the daytime, because, like Beau Brummel, he thought that jewellery was ostentatious.
    He had actually put it on tonight out of sheer sentiment. Now he was furious to think that he had done so.
    The hooded man beside him took the watch, the money and the objects that Anthony had placed on the table and waited for instructions.
    “The ship in the centre of the table,” the deep voice said. “Carry it carefully. It looks fragile and it would be a pity to spoil anything of such beauty.”
    There was no doubt they were being mocked and the Marquis felt a surge of sheer fury sweep over him, that made him clench his hands and tense his whole body, as if he might spring at the robber.
    As if he knew what he was feeling, the man commented,
    “I should not do anything foolish, my Lord Marquis, an arm in a sling can be very restrictive.”
    Again there was that mocking note behind the words.
    “ Dammit !” the Marquis swore, goaded at last into speech. “I will see that you hang on a gibbet, if it is the last thing I do.”
    “I doubt it,” the highwayman replied coolly. “But even that might give you a new interest, although not such an enjoyable one as winning a race or squiring a beautiful lady.”
    “I have no wish to listen to your impertinence,” the Marquis retorted.
    The highwayman made a sound that was not exactly a laugh but more of a chuckle as if he was glad he had got under the Marquis’s skin. Then he made a gesture with the pistol in his right hand and the two other men slipped past him through the window.
    The Marquis heard them running across the garden.
    The highwayman waited, as if making sure they were safely away. Then he said,
    “I suggest, gentlemen, that you keep your seats for the next two minutes. If you are thinking of following me, I would like you to know that I am a very accurate shot.”
    As he spoke, he moved back through the window still with his pistols pointed at the Marquis and Anthony.
    Then with a swiftness that somehow seemed almost magical he vanished out of sight.
    One moment he was there, the next he had gone and, although the Marquis pushed back his chair and went to the open window, by the time he had reached it the garden, now in shadow, was quiet and empty.
    Then, as he listened, far away in the distance he heard the sound of galloping hoofs.
    “My God, I would not have believed it!” Anthony exclaimed. “I have never been so astonished in my whole life!”
    The Marquis was looking out into the garden still listening, then after a moment he said,
    “I suppose it’s useless to try and follow them?”
    “I should imagine completely!” Anthony answered. “By the time we are mounted they could be two or three miles away.”
    They walked back to the table and sat down and the