63 Ola and the Sea Wolf by Barbara Cartland Read Free Book Online Page A

sound of his ravaged voice mingled with the whistle of the wind and the sudden slap of the sails as the ship listed to starboard.
    ‘We are in for a rough passage after the fog,’ the Marquis told himself.
     

Chapter 3
    Ola was so tired that unlike the Marquis she did not hear the anchor being raised or realise that the ship was pitching and tossing as soon as they were out of the harbour.
    Instead she slept deeply and dreamlessly until a knock on the cabin door awakened her.
    After answering, a Steward appeared, moving unsteadily across the cabin to put a closed cup, such as she had heard was used at sea in rough weather, down beside her bed.
    “We’re in for a bad passage, miss,” he said. “I’ve brought you some coffee and if you’d like something more substantial the chef’ll do his best, but it’s a bit difficult to work in the galley at the moment.”
    “Coffee is all I want,” Ola replied sleepily, “and thank you very much.”
    “I should stay where you be, miss, if you’ll take my advice,” the Steward said before he left.” It’s easy for ‘landlubbers’ as we calls ’em to break a leg when the weather’s so bad.”
    Ola knew that he was being tactful in not suggesting that she might be seasick, but, as it happened, she was aware that she was a good sailor.
    Her father was very fond of the sea and, when she was a small child, he had often taken her out in a boat and she had soon learned that however rough it might be she was unaffected.
    When the Steward had gone, she thought that she should have asked him at what time they would reach Calais.
    She had the feeling that, if she was not ready to go ashore as soon as they docked, it would irritate the Marquis.
    When they had walked to the ship last night in the thick fog, she had known, although he had said nothing, that he was annoyed by his own generosity in offering to take her across the Channel.
    He had instructed a Steward abruptly to show her to a cabin and she had told herself it had really been touch and go as to whether he fulfilled his role of being a Good Samaritan or abandoned her to her fate.
    She shuddered now as she thought of how horrible it would have been to be forced to marry Giles. She had never really thought of him as a man until the moment when he had revealed his treachery because he desired her fortune.
    ‘It’s a great mistake to have so much money,’ she thought to herself, ‘and, if Papa had had a son, I would not now be in this predicament’
    At the same time, son or no son, she knew that her father had not been able to escape from her stepmother once she had made up her mind to marry him.
    Ola could understand only too well how easily it had happened.
    She had been at the Convent in France when her mother died.
    There had been no chance of her travelling back in time for the funeral and her father had therefore not sent for her or even told her by letter what had occurred, but instead had come himself to break the news to her gently.
    They had cried together for the woman they had both loved. Then her father had returned to England alone, and that, Ola had told herself over and over again had been a fatal mistake.
    Of course she should have gone with him to look after him, but it had never occurred to either of them that she should cease her education because her father had been bereaved.
    It was only when she was seventeen and had completed the two years she was to spend in France, as had been arranged by her mother, that she returned to England, to find that she was too late.
    Her father had been lonely, miserable and without anyone near him to whom he could talk about his beloved wife.
    Her stepmother, who was a neighbour, had, with the charm and sweetness that she could switch on so easily when it suited her, wormed her way into his confidence until he felt that she was indispensable to him.
    They were married just two days before Ola arrived home and she knew as soon as she met her stepmother that the