63 Ola and the Sea Wolf by Barbara Cartland

the rest of the day and every time he was conscious he found himself growing more and more angry that Ola had managed to trick him.
    But there was, in fact, nothing he could do at the moment but take her along with him to the Mediterranean.
    He supposed they were now long past Lisbon.
    The next civilised port of call would be Gibraltar and, as that was a British possession, there would have to be far too many explanations if the Marquis of Elvington left an attractive but very young woman stranded there while he sailed on alone.
    ‘I suppose I can put her ashore at Marseilles or Nice,’ he thought and wondered whether, if he told her what he intended, she would find another means of circumventing his plans.
    *
    After a good night’s sleep, he felt remarkably well and in comparatively good spirits, except that he was very angry with Ola.
    When he was dressed, he went up on deck and now he no longer needed an overcoat or oilskins for the sun was warm and the sea reflected the blue of the sky.
    “Good-morning, my Lord!” the Captain greeted him as soon as he appeared. “I hope your Lordship’s in better health?”
    The Marquis bit back the angry retort that there had been nothing wrong with his health except he had been drugged without being aware of it.
    But he knew it would be undignified to say anything and he merely replied,
    “I am sorry to have missed so much of the voyage, Captain. Gibson told me yesterday morning that we have had the best passage he has ever known through the Bay of Biscay.”
    “Fantastic, my Lord!” the Captain replied. “The wind exactly right, the sea dropping after the storm and I already feel as if the winter is over and we’ve found the spring.”
    “Yes, indeed,” the Marquis agreed, feeling the Captain was being quite poetic.
    Because he looked surprised the Captain said with an apologetic smile,
    “Those are not my words, my Lord, but Miss Milford’s. We’ve all been thinking she looks like spring herself and no mistake!”
    The Marquis followed the direction of the Captain’s eyes and saw Ola whom he had not noticed before.
    She was sitting on deck protected by a piece of superstructure and looking, although he hated to admit it, very spring-like and undeniably beautiful.
    She wore no hat and the lights in her red hair seemed to dance in the sunlight, her eyes were deep green like the waves as they broke against the bow of the ship and her skin was dazzlingly white.
    As she saw him looking at her, she raised her hand in a wave and the smile on her lips seemed to welcome him.
    He wondered how she dared to appear so unselfconscious about her misdeeds, but he told himself that this was not the moment to confront her with them.
    Instead he made no effort to move towards her, but stood talking to the Captain. As he watched the ship move with a speed that thrilled him, it was hard, despite himself, to continue to be in a bad humour.
    “There’s a little damage I would like to speak to you about, my Lord,” the Captain said, after the Marquis had been silent for some time.
    “Damage?”
    “Nothing very serious, my Lord, but in the storm two of the water butts broke loose and knocked against each other, spilling their contents.”
    “Two?” the Marquis asked sharply.
    “They’ve been repaired, my Lord, and as good as they ever were, but they are empty and I wondered if your Lordship would consider putting into a bay I know of, a bit further down the coast, where there’s a spring of sweet clear water.”
    “You have been there before?” the Marquis asked.
    “Twice, my Lord. Once in the war when I was serving in a brig and we were out of water completely, before we filled up there and very glad we were of it too. The second time was when I was on Lord Lutworth’s yacht, my Lord. Very mean, his Lordship was and, although I told him the water butts were not seaworthy, he wouldn’t listen to me. Fell to bits, they did, when we encountered a storm off the Southern coast of