101. A Call of Love by Barbara Cartland Read Free Book Online Page B

there are no more Mr. Watkins’s aboard!”
    The way he spoke made it sound funny and Aisha gave him a little smile.
    “I am sure I am quite safe now,” she said. “And I will lock the door as you have told me to do.”
    “If you want me, knock on this wall.”
    Lord Kenington pointed to the wall that separated the two cabins.
    Then he went out and closed Aisha’s door.
    She managed to rise to her feet and turn the key in the lock and then, because she felt weak, she lay down as she was on the bunk.
    ‘How is it possible,’ she asked herself, ‘that all this is happening to me?’
    Then, because her heart was still fluttering and it was difficult to speak, she prayed silently,
    ‘Thank You, God, thank You for letting him save me.’

CHAPTER THREE
    The next day they reached Gibraltar.
    Aisha was thrilled, as Lord Kenington thought that she would be, with the monkeys running over the Rock and the shops were filled with fine goods from the Far East.
    He insisted, although Aisha did protest, on buying her a shawl that had been embroidered by the Chinese.
    “I have seen little boys not much older than four working on them,” he told her.
    “It seems cruel, my Lord, but I cannot say ‘no’ to such a wonderful present.”
    Lord Kenington felt that her enthusiasm was more genuine than he had received for much more expensive presents he had given in the past.
    “We must not linger,” he advised as they went to yet another shop, “because the Captain is anxious to reach Calcutta on time.”
    “Which I am sure he will do. This ship is far faster than any I have ever been on before.”
    “They are very proud of it, because it is the latest addition to their fleet,” Lord Kenington declared, “and I believe it is very popular with passengers for India and the Far East by reducing the time the voyage takes.”
    He thought, as he was speaking, that they would pass through the Suez Canal and he was grateful that it was now there despite British opposition at the outset.
    And he had often thought that it would have been very boring to have taken six weeks to reach India round the Cape. One must surely have run out of conversation being shut up for so long with the same people.
    After they had left Gibraltar, the Mediterranean was the blue of the Madonna’s robe and the endless sunshine made everything seem indescribably beautiful.
    Lord Kenington was not at all surprised that Aisha wanted to stand in the front of the ship and watch the bow-waves breaking over the prow rather than play deck tennis.
    However, somewhat reluctantly on her part before tea, they played a game and Lord Kenington won the first game and Aisha the second.
    “I can see I will have to look to my laurels,” he said. “I have always rather fancied myself at deck tennis.”
    “I am delighted and proud of having beaten you, my Lord, and I will certainly tell Papa about it with great satisfaction when we meet him.”
    “What I really want to know is what your father is doing at the moment,” Lord Kenington enquired.
    As he spoke, he wished he had not done so, because he saw a look of anxiety come into Aisha’s eyes.
    Equally he was aware that whatever the Liberal party might say in London, it was absolutely essential for Britain to know what the Russians were planning.
    They were pushing forward their frontiers and Lord Kenington was told that the Czar’s Empire was expanding by fifty-five square miles a day.
    He found it hard to believe, but the British in India were indeed becoming more and more apprehensive, and to discover whether this Russian expansion was true was the reason the Prime Minister had sent him.
    When he retired to bed last night, Lord Kenington had thought again that, considering who her father was, finding Aisha was one of the luckiest things that had ever happened to him.
    He had been suspicious of the stories about The Great Game . Were those who supplied the Viceroy with so many alarming reports to be believed?
    He thought