So in the circumstances it seemed extraordinary to Valeta that an uneducated sweep like Cibber, foul though he might be in his speech and cruel to his apprentices, would think of committing the outrageous crime of abducting a lady.
‘Unless, of course,’ she told herself, ‘he has been instigated by somebody of a very different class and that person might easily be Lionel Stevington!’
But why? Why should Lionel Stevington be concerned with her when, as far as she knew, he had never even seen her, much less spoken to her?
She herself had sometimes seen him riding through the Park when he was younger and living at home and on several occasions recently when he had called to see his brother and left without staying the night.
From the Manor House it was possible to see the carriages passing
