63 Ola and the Sea Wolf (2 page)

Then he said,

“Perhaps before we go any further we should introduce ourselves. I am the Marquis of Elvington – ”

Before he could say any more, the lady gave a little cry and said,

“I have heard of you! You are famous and, of course, you have a yacht. That is why you are here. Oh, please – please, take me to France. I have to get away – and quickly!”

“From the man upstairs who is abducting you?”

“Yes – I never imagined – I never dreamt for one – moment that he would behave – ”

Her words seemed to fail and she made a kind of helpless gesture with her hands that was somehow pathetic.

“I am waiting for you to tell me your name,” the Marquis said.

“It is – Ola Milford. My father was Lord Milford and we live near Canterbury.”

“I seem to have heard the name,” the Marquis admitted cautiously.

“Papa did not often go to London. He preferred being in the country and he was not well for two years before he – died.”

“You say it is your stepmother you are running away from?”

“Yes – I cannot – stay with her any – longer! It is – impossible!”

“Why?”

“She hates me! She makes my life an absolute misery! She is my Guardian, but she will not give me any of the money that Papa left me. It is mine, but I don’t have the – handling of it until I am – twenty-one or am – married.”

“That should not be too difficult,” the Marquis remarked cynically.

“You don’t understand!” Ola replied. “My stepmother, who married Papa three years ago when he was so unhappy after Mama’s death, is – jealous of me.”

She said the word a little hesitatingly as if she felt uncomfortable at telling the truth.

Then she continued,

“She keeps saying that she wishes to be rid of me, but she prevents me from going anywhere – and, if a gentleman comes to the house, she will not let me talk to him. I think actually she wants to get married again herself.”

“Surely there are other relations you could live with?” the Marquis suggested.

“I have thought of that, but when I suggested it,” Ola replied,” my stepmother refused to contemplate such an idea because she thought – I would take my money with me.”

She gave a deep sigh.

“It is my money that is at the bottom of all the trouble, both with my stepmother and with my – cousin – upstairs.”

She looked upwards as she spoke and the Marquis saw her give a little shiver.

“Your
cousin
?” he questioned. “How does he come into it?”

“I was desperate – absolutely desperate at the way my stepmother was – treating me. You cannot know what it is like to live with hatred – and incessant fault-finding.”

“I can imagine,” the Marquis replied.” Go on!”

“I decided that there was only one thing I could do and that was to go back to the Convent near Paris where I was educated and become a nun, or else, as my stepmother has suggested so often, a
cocotte
!”

The Marquis was visibly startled.

“A what?” he questioned. “Do you know what you are saying?”

“I don’t know – exactly what it entails,” Ola admitted, “but if she has said it once, she has said it a thousand times, ‘
with hair like yours, you should be a cocotte and that’s about all you are suited for
!’”

As if to demonstrate what she was saying, she pushed back the hood of the cloak she had worn ever since she came into the inn.

Suddenly it seemed as if the flames from the fire had transferred themselves to the chair opposite the Marquis.

He had seen many women with red hair but never one whose colour was so vivid or indeed so beautiful as that of the girl opposite him.

Because her fur-lined hood had covered her hair for some time, it was for the moment flat on her small head.

Then, after she had unfastened her cape at the neck and let it fall down behind her in the chair, she ran her fingers through her hair and it seemed almost to come alive.

It glinted as it caught the light and its vivid hue made her skin seem almost dazzlingly white.

‘It is not surprising,’ he thought, ‘that any woman, especially a stepmother, would wish to be rid of a potential rival whose appearance is not only unusual but spectacular!’

The Marquis felt that Ola was waiting for him to comment and he said dryly,

“I cannot commend either suggestion to you. You must think of an alternative.”

“I have thought and thought,” Ola replied, “but what can I do if Step-Mama will give me no money and will not permit me to live anywhere except with her?”

“I see there is some difficulty about that.”

“Of course there are difficulties!” she retorted. “I assure you I don’t intend to do anything stupid, but just to stay with the nuns and discuss my future with the Mother Superior who has always been so kind to me.”

She paused before she added,

“Perhaps I should take the veil. It would certainly prevent me from being bullied and persecuted as I have been these last years.”

“I am surprised at your being so faint-hearted.”

As if the Marquis had stung her, not only with his words but also with what she perceived as contempt in his voice, Ola sat upright.

“It is all very well for you to talk,” she replied. “You have no idea what it is like to be slapped and pinched and even occasionally beaten when Step-Mama has a whip in her hand.”

She drew in her breath before she went on,

“The servants are not allowed to obey my orders or to bring me food if she says I am not to have it. When visitors come to the house, I am sent to my bedroom and if they are friends of Mama’s I am locked in, so that I cannot talk to them.”

She gave a deep sigh.

“I have tried to defy her, I have tried to assert myself for two years and now the only way I can remain sane is to run away.”

“So you have decided to go to France,” the Marquis said. “Where does your escort come in to all this?”

He saw Ola’s lips tighten and she replied in a very different voice,

“He has behaved despicably, utterly and completely despicably! I did not believe that any man could be so treacherous!”

“What did he do?”

“He is my cousin, but I always thought that, although he is old, he was kind. When he came to stay, because I thought Step-Mama fancied him, I left a note in his bedroom begging him to see me alone and he agreed.”

She glanced at the Marquis to see if he was listening and continued,

“He gave me a perceptible nod when he came down to dinner and after I had been sent to bed early so that Step-Mama could talk to him, I managed to jump from the balcony to his room next door. It was a dangerous thing to do, but I managed it.”

“Was he surprised?”

“I think he thought I would come to him, but he did not know that I was locked in my room at night.”

The Marquis looked surprised and Ola said scathingly,

“That was to prevent me from finding out what my stepmother was up to when she had her friends to stay. She need not have worried. I was not interested. I only – hate her!”

“I expect with hair that colour you are overemotional anyway!” the Marquis said playfully.

“Any more references to my hair either from you or from anybody else,” Ola snapped, “and I shall either cut it all off or dye it!”

She sounded like a small tiger cat spitting at him and, almost despite himself, the Marquis laughed.

“I apologise, Miss Milford. Go on with what you were telling me.”

“I told Giles – that is my cousin’s name – of my predicament – and to my delight he told me that he would take me to Paris and leave me at the Convent where I wanted to go.”

“And you believed him?”

“I made him swear on everything he held sacred that he would not betray me to Step-Mama. After that he was really obliging about the arrangements.”

“So what happened?” the Marquis asked.

“He left yesterday, but instead of going to London, as he told Step-Mama he intended to do, he stayed near our house at a Posting inn.”

Ola gave a little sigh.

“I had to trust him. There was nobody else who I felt would make an effort to help me.”

“What happened?”

“I crept out of the house soon after dawn and I bribed one of the gardeners, who had always been attached to Papa, to come into the house before the rest of the staff had risen to collect the trunk I had packed and put ready in my bedroom.”

There was a brief smile on her lips as she said,

“It was easier than I expected, because when I went downstairs to let him in, there was nobody about as I had been half-afraid there might be.”

“No nightwatchmen, no night footmen in the hall?” the Marquis enquired.

“They were all at the other end of the house.”

“So you ran away with your luggage?” the Marquis said. “What woman would not think of her appearance, even in the most desperate situation?”

“I have already told you,” Ola replied, “that I had no money. It would be very silly to spend on clothes what I could obtain by selling my mother’s jewellery.”

“You have some jewels?”

“I suppose it was rather indiscreet of me to mention them, when I intend to travel alone,” Ola answered, “but they are all I have between me and starvation!”

“I promise you I will not steal them!”

“I know that,” Ola said scornfully. “But I was foolish enough to trust Giles and now I will never trust a man again – never – never – not even you!”

The Marquis found himself smiling at the anger in her voice. Her eyes, which he now saw in the light from the fire were green, seemed to have a glint of steel in them.

“I am interested,” he said aloud, “to hear what your cousin Giles did that was so reprehensible.”

“He helped me to run away. Then half way to Dover he – informed me that he – intended to – marry me!”

The Marquis laughed.

“That was something you might have anticipated as you are wealthy.”

“But Giles is old! He has turned forty and as he has always been a bachelor, how could I have – imagined he would want to – marry me?”

She thought the Marquis was once again going to refer to her money, so she went on,

“Giles said to me, ‘I shall be delighted, when we are married, to administer your fortune, but as I find you unexpectedly attractive, Ola, I shall also enjoy being your husband’.”

“What was your reply to that?” the Marquis asked.

“I told him that I would rather die than marry him and I thought to even suggest such an idea showed that he was a treacherous swine, a Judas whom I should never have trusted in the first place.”

“Strong words!” the Marquis laughed.

“You may think it funny,” Ola cried, “but I knew at that moment that I had not only to escape from my stepmother, but – also from – Giles!”

She drew in her breath before she added,

“There was something about him which – frightened me – it was not only because he was determined to have my fortune – it was the way he looked at me when we stopped for luncheon.”

She glanced across the hearthrug at the Marquis and continued,

“I expect you think if I had been clever that I would have escaped then? But it was only a small Posting inn and there were no other visitors having luncheon except us. If I had tried to run away, Giles could easily have caught me and it would be difficult to run carrying my jewel case.”

She glanced down as she spoke to where it stood beside her chair.

“I am not criticising,” the Marquis pointed out mildly.

“I had originally intended when I reached here to take the ordinary cross-Channel ship to France,” Ola went on. “But to escape him, I must now hire a vessel of some sort.”

“Why did he not marry you in England?”

“He had thought of that,” Ola answered, “but he was afraid there might be difficulties as he had not my Guardian’s permission. He told me that he intended to say he was my Guardian and he thought, if he could pay them enough, the French would be more accommodating about performing the Marriage Ceremony than an English Parson was likely to be.”

“Your cousin had certainly thought things out carefully,” the Marquis remarked.

“Only to his own advantage and I hate him! It’s a pity the accident did not – kill him!”

As Ola spoke, the door of the inn opened and Joe appeared.

He must have left by another door, because now he returned to say,

“I’m sorry, lady, but I finds the doctor at
The Crown and Anchor
and he bain’t in no state to come here tonight. I’ve left a message with his mates to tell him to be here first thing in the morn when he be sobered up.”

“Thank you, Joe,” Ola replied. “I am very grateful to you.”

As she spoke, she realised that Joe was waiting for the tip he had been told she had promised him.

She quickly drew a small purse from the inside pocket of her cape, which was still lying behind her on the chair.

Before she could open it, however, the Marquis flicked a gold coin from his side of the fireplace towards Joe, who caught it deftly.

“Thank you, sir!” he said with a grin. “I’ll go upstairs now and see how the patient be. The Guv’nor said as how he’d stay with him till I comes back with the doctor.”

He disappeared and Ola looked at the Marquis.

“Can we go now – at once?” she asked.

“I have not yet said that I will take you with me.”

“But you will – please – say you will! You can leave me at Calais and I will find my own way from there to Paris.”

“Alone?”

“There is nobody else to travel with me unless – Giles recovers.”

The mere idea made her look up again at the ceiling as if she thought to hear the sound of him speaking.

“He must not do that – he is determined – absolutely determined – to m-marry me!”

“You could, of course, tell your story to the Magistrates and ask them to return you to your stepmother.”

“How can you suggest such a thing when I have told you she hates me?” Ola asked. “No – I am going to Paris even if I have to buy a boat and row myself across the Channel!”

She gave an exasperated little sigh and added,

“Oh, why does England have to be an island?”

The Marquis smiled.

“It is something that stood us in good stead when Napoleon was trying to invade us!”