Free 101. A Call of Love by Barbara Cartland Page A

spoke, he realised that the gangway was being pulled up and the engines were turning over.
    They were pulling out of port.
    Now, however difficult it might be, there was a long voyage ahead before they would reach Calcutta.
    “Perhaps,” Aisha suggested in a very small voice, “I could go and sit at another table for meals. Not the Captain’s, because Mr. Watkins is there, but perhaps there is a nice woman somewhere amongst the passengers who would be kind to me.”
    There was silence and then Lord Kenington said,
    “I have no wish for you to do that. I want to go on talking to you on the trip. Besides, as I have already told you the Countess is nosey and she will doubtless very soon learn that we have been together all the time up to now.”
    Then suddenly Aisha gave a cry.
    “I have thought of something, although you may not think it good enough.”
    “Tell me.”
    “Well, do you have a cousin or a relative who is about the same age as myself?” Lord Kenington stared at her.
    “What are you trying to say,” he asked.
    “Tell me first,” Aisha persisted.
    “Yes, I have,” he replied. “I do have a number of relations and I can think of at least a dozen cousins.”
    “Then suppose I was engaged to one of them and you were kindly taking me out to join him.”
    Again Lord Kenington stared at her.
    “You are indeed the cleverest girl I have ever met. Of course it would be perfectly acceptable for me to be escorting you to my cousin and we could say a relative of yours, who was coming out with us, was taken ill at the last moment.”
    “Surely they could not object to that.” Lord Kenington was thinking.
    “I have one cousin, a rather tiresome young man, who is at the moment in the Navy on one of Her Majesty’s Battleships. I think he is somewhere in Africa, but it is not improbable for him to be meeting you in India, especially when I understand we have quite a number of Battleships moving in that direction as a warning to the Russians.”
    Aisha gave a sigh.
    “Well surely, if I was engaged to him, you would be kind enough to escort me out to meet him, especially as my father is already in India and could not, at the moment, come to England to fetch me.”
    Lord Kenington lent back as if in relief.
    “The trouble with you is that you are too bright. I am beginning to feel more and more inferior and, by the time we reach India, I may have disappeared altogether!”
    Aisha laughed.
    “You must remember you are chaperoning me, my Lord. It would be a great mistake to leave me until you hand me over safely to my fiancé!”

CHAPTER FOUR
    Having discussed it all with Aisha, Lord Kenington went down to dinner early to find his friends.
    “We must all sit together,” he suggested, “as I feel sure that you don’t want to sit at the Captain’s table.”
    “Certainly not,” the Countess replied. “Of course we want to be with you, Charles.”
    Lord Kenington lowered his voice.
    “I have a secret to tell you,” he said, “and I am sure you will keep it until we arrive in India.”
    “What is it?” the Countess asked with interest.
    “I have with me and you have just met her, a very pretty girl who actually is engaged to my cousin Jack.”
    “Engaged!” the Countess exclaimed.
    “It’s being kept a complete secret until they can be together and actually she has not even told her father who she is meeting in Calcutta.”
    “Oh, I do understand now,” the Countess said in a different tone of voice. “I wondered why such a pretty young girl was with you, Charles.”
    “I promised to take her out to India and we were to have a relative of hers with us, but she was taken ill at the last moment. I really don’t want you to say anything or to congratulate her until her father learns of the engagement when he meets us at Calcutta.”
    “Of course we will keep it a secret,” the Earl said. “I think Jack has done very well and he could not have a prettier wife. Where is he, by the way?”
    “When