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

be nothing she could do but leave the Marquis and set off with the jailer he would provide for her on her homeward journey.
    There was a knock on the door and Ola started.
    “Come in!” she said and the Steward who looked after her stood there.
    “Excuse me, miss,” he said, “but do you happen to have any laudanum with you? The Captain’s got such an achin’ tooth he can’t stay on deck.”
    “Oh! I am sorry!” Ola exclaimed. “I wish I could help, but laudanum is something I never take myself.”
    The Steward smiled.
    “You’re too young if I may say so, miss, for such fads and fancies, but there was just a chance and the Captain’s groanin’ in his bunk like a lost soul.”
    Ola could not help smiling.
    Then she said,
    “Tell him to soak a little wool or a rag in spirit – brandy is best, although I daresay rum would do – and pack it round it, if possible into the tooth that is hurting. I remember my father doing that once.”
    “I’ll tell the Captain what you said, miss,” the Steward replied. “I know he’ll be very grateful.”
    He closed the cabin door and as he did so, Ola gave a little exclamation.
    She suddenly remembered that she might have some laudanum with her after all.
    When she left the Convent, many of the girls of her age had given her presents and among them had been a beautiful chinoiserie enamel scent-holder made in the reign of Louis XIV.
    It was very attractive and when she opened it, she found it contained three little bottles shaped like triangles so that they fitted together to make a whole. They each had enamelled stoppers and their glass was engraved with flowers.
    Yvonne, the girl who had given them to her, said,
    “I have put the most exotic perfume I could find in one, an eau de toilette in the second and you will have to fill the third yourself.”
    Ola had never actually used the bottles, but, because it was so attractive, the case had stood on her dressing table and when she was packing, thinking she might see her friend when she was in France, she had put it at the bottom of her trunk.
    She had not thought of it until now, but actually the third bottle contained laudanum.
    Soon after she returned from Paris she had suffered from the most acute toothache, which turned out to be an abscess.
    The doctor had been called to see her and he had promised to arrange for a dentist to visit her the following day.
    “Because I know what pain you’re in, Miss Milford,” he said, “I’m going to give you a little laudanum to take tonight so that you will sleep. Be careful not to take too much.”
    He had handed her a small bottle as he spoke and instructed her to take a few drops only.
    It had certainly helped her to bear the pain and, when her tooth no longer hurt, Ola, thinking the medicine bottle looked untidy, had tipped what remained of the laudanum into the empty bottle in her chinoiserie case.
    “How stupid of me!” she said aloud. “Of course I can help the Captain!”
    She opened her trunk, which she had already filled with her clothes, feeling that if she did not do so, the Marquis would be informed and would think it was a deliberate act of defiance.
    In the bottom corner she found, as she expected, the enamel case carefully wrapped in cotton wool to protect it.
    She drew it out and rose to her feet to call the Steward so that he could take it to the Captain.
    Even as her hand went out towards the door, she paused.
    An idea had come to her, an idea that was so fantastic that she told herself it was just impossible and would be quite unworkable.
    And yet fascinated by it, she sat down on the bed to consider it carefully, step by step.
    *
    Wearing a very attractive gown and, because it was cold, a fur wrap around her shoulders, Ola was waiting in the Saloon when the Marquis came in to dinner.
    Each night, despite the roughness of the weather, he changed into his evening clothes and he looked to Ola as elegant and impressive as if he was going to a dinner party in