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

rest of the family next week.”
    Richard did not reply, as he knew of old that it was hopeless and a great mistake to argue with his father.  He had done so when he was young and had been overruled.
    Two days before the Duke had arrived at Ingle Hall with his daughter, Richard left home and disappeared.
    The Marquis was furious at his behaviour, but there was nothing he could do.
    When, a few months later, he received a letter from his son, he almost had a stroke.
    Richard informed him that he had married someone he was deeply in love with and who loved him.
    â€œ Her name, ” he had written, “ is Elizabeth Anson.   Her father, who you will never have heard about, is a most distinguished scientist who has travelled all over the world and written several books on his discoveries.
    We are blissfully happy and I do hope that you will welcome Elizabeth when I bring her home. ”
    The letter was written from Spain.
    It was not until several weeks later that the Marquis had learnt that his son was in London and that he was able to communicate with him.
    He then informed Richard that he had disobeyed his orders and behaved in a scandalous fashion.  In addition he had then cut him off without a penny and he was no longer welcome at Ingle Hall.
    The letter had not troubled Richard at all as he was madly in love with his wife and she worshipped him.
    Their love was to increase over the years and when David was born, he merely added to their happiness.
    David had a somewhat strange upbringing that was bizarrely different from his father’s.
    Richard had not been especially upset at being cut off without a penny, as he had money of his own.
    His Godfather, who had been a very distinguished Statesman, had left him quite a considerable sum and this had grown while Richard was at Eton and Oxford, as he had no need to spend any of it.
    Now it paid for him, his wife and their small son to travel, as he always wanted to do, around the world.
    David therefore had the strangest education any boy could possibly experience.
    He had nurses who spoke to him in Arabic and he learnt Copt from some Egyptians who were friends of his father.  He became virtually word perfect in ancient and modern Greek when they had lived in Greece for quite a considerable time.
    Apart from this, Richard, with his own excellent if conventional education, enjoyed teaching his son all he had learnt himself.
    They were blissfully happy, as three people seldom are happy, as they travelled from country to country and Richard always felt that there was somewhere in the world he had not yet explored.
    David was nearly twenty-one when disaster struck.
    When they were in North Africa, his father caught a fever, which was known to have no cure.
    It was lethal in his case and he died in three days.
    His wife and son both found it hard to believe that anything so terrible could happen so quickly.
    The British Embassy provided a burial in a small cemetery and the Ambassador arranged for the widow and her son to return to England.
    David’s mother was so prostrate with misery that he had to arrange everything.
    What worried him was that his father had left very little money, so that by the time the funeral was paid for and the lodgings where they had been staying, he only had just enough for their travelling expenses.
    Because they had then no home in England, he had thought that the only thing he could possibly do was to go to the family house in Kent, Ingle Hall.
    He had never been there himself, but his father had often told him how magnificent it was, having been built in Elizabethan times.
    Every generation had contributed to the collection of pictures, furniture, china and silver and, having been strictly entailed from one generation to the next, it had just grown and grown.
    Ingle Hall was now one of the treasures of England.
    As he had never seen it, it was difficult for David to realise not only its beauty but also its significance and