Free 63 Ola and the Sea Wolf by Barbara Cartland

married, but could wait until she found somebody whom she would like to live with, simply because he was kind and understanding and she would be able to talk to him.
    She had often thought in the past that it was difficult to find people she could talk to when she was at the Convent.
    The nuns gave orders and, when she was with her father, he talked to her but he did not converse. In fact neither he nor anybody else was interested in her opinions or her ideas.
    ‘When I talked to the Marquis at luncheon,’ she reflected, “he listened to me when I was describing the different ships I have sailed in in the past and he explained the things I wanted to know about his own yacht.”
    From the amount of books in his bookcase it struck her that he was interested in a great number of subjects she wished to know more about.
    ‘We will talk about them tonight at dinner,’ she had thought excitedly, but now he had made it very clear what he thought of her.
    She was an unwanted piece of merchandise which he would dispose of as he saw fit without even asking her opinion on the matter.
    ‘I hate him!’ she fumed. ‘I hate him because he has deceived me when I thought he was kind and honest.’
    She did not want to cry when she thought of her future, because it only made her angry.
    Somehow, in some way, she would get even with the Marquis because he had disappointed her when she had least expected it.
    “I am glad he is upset about something and I hope a woman has really hurt him and made him unhappy!” she cried aloud. “It will serve him right! If he ever told me about it, I would laugh because I am pleased he has been made to suffer!”
    This was all very well, but it did not solve her own problem and she told herself that now she had to escape somehow.
    There seemed no possibility of her doing anything of the sort unless she was prepared to throw herself into the sea.
    ‘Perhaps if I do so,’ she mused, ‘I should be drowned and it would be on his conscience for the rest of his life.’
    Then she told herself sensibly that he would merely attribute it to an unbalanced mind and forget all about it long before he reached the Mediterranean.
    But Ola was not going to be defeated.
    She sat back against the cushions and began to plan how she could elude the Marquis and his ideas in one way or another.
    ‘Perhaps if I stow away in the hold,’ she thought, ‘he will think I have gone ashore and I shall only be discovered when he is out at sea again.’
    It seemed quite a possible idea, except that she had the feeling he would make very sure that the Courier he engaged acted as a jailer too and there would be no escape at least until he was too far away even to know about it.
    ‘What am I to do? What am I to do?’ Ola asked herself.
    Then, as there was a sudden rasp of the wind in the rigging, which told her that there was still a gale outside, it occurred to her that perhaps the Marquis’s intentions would be circumvented not by her but by nature and they would not be able to dock in Plymouth as he intended.
     

Chapter 4
    Ola was sitting on her bed, an expression of despair on her face.
    She had learnt from the Steward that The Sea Wolf would dock in Plymouth either tonight very late or first thing in the morning, depending on the wind and the tides.
    In the last twelve hours she had thought of nothing except how she could escape from the Marquis and prevent him from sending her ignominiously back to her stepmother.
    She had been sensible enough not to rage at him when they had luncheon together, but instead to talk about the races and the horses that took part in them.
    She realised he was surprised that she was not referring to what lay ahead, but, after a little stiffness at the beginning of the meal, he gradually relaxed and talked to her as if she was as knowledgeable as he was on the subject.
    Every hour that passed brought her nearer to her fate and she thought now that even her optimism was fading and there would