Free Secret Harbor by Barbara Cartland Page A

eyes.
    “You are very beautiful!” the Comte went on. “Far too beautiful for my peace of mind. If I was sensible and practical, as you tell me I am, I would sail away as soon as I set you ashore.”
    “No ... please you ... promised you would ... stay until my father ... returned,” Grania said quickly.
    “I am being selfish and thinking of myself,” the Comte replied.
    “I am being selfish in doing the same,” Grania admitted.
    “Do you really want me to stay?”
    “I am begging you to do so. I will go down on my knees, if that is what you want.”
    The Comte suddenly bent across to the table and put out his hand. Slowly, because she felt shy, Grania put her hand in it.
    “Now listen to me, Grania,” he said. “I am a man without a home, without a future, an outlaw both to the French and the English. Let me go away while I am able to do so.”
    Grania’s fingers tightened on his.
    “I ... cannot stop you ... from going.”
    “But you are asking me to stay.”
    “I want you to. Please ... I want you to. If you ... go I shall be very ... frightened.”
    Her eyes met his, and it was impossible for her to look away. Then he said:
    “As you have just reminded me, we only met a few hours ago.”
    “But ... time does not ... affect what I ... feel about ... you.”
    “And what do you feel?”
    “That when I am with ... you I am ... safe and nothing can ... hurt me.”
    “I wish that was true,” he said.
    “It is true. I know it is true!” Grania answered.
    The Comte looked away from her down at her hand, then he raised it to his lips.
    “Very well. I will stay, but when I do go you must not blame yourself and there must be no regrets.”
    “I promise ... no regrets.”
    But she had the feeling as she spoke that it was a promise she would not be able to keep.
    They sat talking for a little until Jean came in to take away the coffee and the Comte said:
    “Come and sit on the sofa and put up your feet. This is the time for a siesta and my crew will all be sleeping either on deck or below. I think it unlikely we shall be disturbed because your father will not travel in the heat of the day.”
    Grania knew this was true, and she walked to the sofa as the Comte suggested and sat back against the cushions, putting up her feet.
    He pulled up an armchair to sit beside her and stretched out his long legs in their white stockings.
    Grania smiled.
    “Can this really be happening?” she asked. “I think both the French and the English would be very surprised if they could see us now.”
    “The English would certainly be very annoyed,” the Comte replied. “They dislike pirates because they challenge their supremacy at sea, and that is something which is uncertain at the moment with the rebellions both here and in Guadaloupe.”
    He paused before he went on:
    “At the same time they hold Martinique and a number of other islands, so undoubtedly the port of St. George’s will sooner or later receive reinforcements.”
    Grania knew this was true, but she thought until the soldiers arrived the rebels could do a great deal of damage.
    Stories of how on other islands they had tortured their prisoners before they killed them had lost nothing in the telling.
    She felt herself tremble as she imagined the indignities and perhaps the pain that Dr. Hay and the Anglican Rector might be suffering.
    The Comte was watching her face.
    “Forget it!” he said. “There is nothing you can do, and to keep thinking of such horrors is to bring them nearer and perhaps to make one’s self more vulnerable.”
    Grania looked at him with interest.
    “Do you believe that thought is transferable, and also strong enough to attract attention?”
    “I assure you,” the Comte replied, “I am not speaking of Voodoo or Black Magic when I say that the natives on Martinique know what is happening fifty miles away at the other end of the island, long before it would be possible for a messenger to travel the distance with the