He had saved her from the Convent when she had thought that she was utterly lost and abandoned.
She was certain that, when Father Proteus had got hold of her money as he intended, she would die in some strange accident that no one could prove was murder.
Father Proteus would also wish to kill her because he blamed her for being instrumental in injuring his leg.
She was sure that, when he had threatened her with drowning, he was already planning that was what he would do once her money was in his hands.
She started to pray again fervently, praying to her father, her mother and the Marquis.
‘Save me – save – me!’
It was a cry that not only came from her heart but from her soul.
*
It was now late in the day and outside the sun was sinking as Zia heard footsteps coming below.
She had heard the voices of the men, although they had not been talking loudly for fear of drawing attention to themselves.
Now the key turned in the lock and, when the door opened, it was Mark who stood there.
He had a tray in his hand and she saw that on it was food of some sort and a cup and saucer.
He put the tray down on the end of the bed and said,
“Father Proteus says, although he ain’t a Father no longer, we’ve got to keep you alive till you’ve writ a letter for your money, so eat up, otherwise one of us’ll have to feed you!”
He waited for Zia to reply and, when she said nothing, he went on,
“Sulky, are you? Well, we’ll ’ave to think of some way of cheerin’ you up, won’t we?”
He gave her a look that made her shiver and then he went from the cabin locking the door after him.
She looked at the food on the tray thinking that she was really far too frightened and unhappy to be hungry.
There were some slices of cold meat that did not look at all appetising on a cracked plate and a piece of bread from a cottage loaf that had obviously been newly baked.
To eat with it on the same plate as the meat was a pat of butter and a piece of rather evil-smelling cheese.
In the cup there was coffee, which at least smelt reasonably fragrant.
She remembered then how Father Proteus, when he had been at the Convent, drank a great deal of coffee and she reckoned that, if nothing else, this at least would be drinkable.
She ate a little of the bread and butter, but drank all the coffee.
Then she put the tray down near the door so that whoever fetched it would not have to come far into the cabin.
By now it was dusk and a little while later she heard sounds that at first terrified her.
Then she realised that the men were carrying the injured Father Proteus down the rickety companionway to a cabin not far from hers.
Whenever they hurt his leg with the movements they made, he swore oaths that she had never heard before, but was quite certain were lewd and vulgar.
She also had the idea from the sound of the men’s voices that they had all had a great deal to drink.
Because she was frightened that they might come into her cabin, she held her breath and her whole body was tense until she heard Saul say,
“Now you knows what you’ve got to do. We all sleeps up top and Mark and Mike’ll take the first watch while Joseph and me takes the second.”
“I’m sleepy,” she heard Mark complaining.
“You’d better not let the old man hear you say that,” Saul replied.
The other man, Joseph, said something unpleasant that made them all laugh and then they climbed up on deck and Zia gave a sigh of relief.
She supposed that she should try to sleep on the dreadful bed.
Tomorrow, when she had to write the letter to ask for her ransom, she might be able, if she was clever, to put some clue in it as to where she was being held.
Then she knew despairingly that whatever she wrote would be read and re-read by Father Proteus to be quite certain that she had not betrayed them.
‘Help me – Papa – help me!’ she prayed even more fervently.
Then she thought again of the Marquis.
She felt as if she could see him as he had looked last night, so smart, so handsome and so irresistible to all the ladies who had clustered round him.
Then she remembered how she had danced with him and how exciting it had been to be close to him with his hand on her waist.
‘If only he was – here now,’ she whispered to herself.
As she spoke, her heart throbbed and a little thrill ran through her.
Then she knew that she loved him – and had done so ever since they had been together on his yacht.
*
The Marquis had made his plans very carefully.
He was desperately afraid, however, that if anything went wrong Zia might be hurt or even worse.
As he drove down to the river with Winton in his closed carriage, his mind was working like a well-oiled machine to make absolutely certain that he had thought of every possible detail.
When he went aboard The Unicorn, he had called the Captain and the crew into the Saloon.
He told them what had happened and what he had decided to do.
He then went on,
“We are not dealing with ordinary criminals, but extremely clever ones. One slip, one mistake and we shall fail to rescue Miss Langley.”
“I assure you, my Lord,” the Captain said, “that your orders will be carried out and, as you well know, several of the men aboard The Unicorn have served in the Royal Navy.”
“I know,” the Marquis said, “and I am relying on them, Captain, as I am on you, to help me save Miss Zia from men who every one of them should be behind bars while the head of the gang should undoubtedly be hanged.”
The Marquis then stayed aboard The Unicorn until one-thirty in the morning.
Silently, leaving only two of the older members of the crew to keep watch, the rest set out.
Each man was aware of his part in a plan of attack that they all recognised could only have been thought out by someone as astute as the Marquis.
Six of the seamen landed up-river, some distance from the houseboat and so well out of sight.
They then approached the houseboat in single file, moving through the unbuilt-on ground where there were a number of rough bushes that afforded a certain amount of cover.
. When they were nearer the houseboat, Winton and another seaman crawled forward cautiously, making no sound so that the two men on watch on the houseboat had no idea of their presence.
Saul and Joseph were not only inebriated but also sleepy.
They had gone up on deck as they had been told to do and Saul was sitting down near the gangplank with his back against the wall of the Saloon and his eyes kept closing.
Joseph in the bow of the ship had lain down on deck and was so drunk as to be almost unconscious.
Neither of the so-called guards was aware that Winton and the man with him had cut the ropes that held the houseboat to the bank.
Creeping along the muddy side of the river up to their knees in water, four other seamen started to push the houseboat downstream.
The tide was going out and it was easy with their combined strength to move the boat away from the bank in what at first was only a few feet of water.
Then, as it was caught by the current, it swung out at about ten feet from dry land.
It was then that Winton, standing up, shouted out,
“Hey, Mister. Your boat’s afloat!”
His voice aroused Saul who then looked up, saw a dark figure on the bank and for some seconds could not realise what was happening.
Then Winton called out,
“Throw us your rope and I’ll pull you back!”
As Winton was shouting, two other seamen came to his side and Saul’s cries for help brought Mark, Joseph and Jacob to assist him.
Nobody noticed in the dark that the seamen from the yacht were dripping wet below the waist. They were much too intent
on throwing the ropes that were lying in the stern of the houseboat onto the shore.
It was extraordinary how difficult it seemed to be and how clumsy Winton and the other two men with him were at catching the ropes.
They seemed to slip through their hands so that they had to be thrown again and again.
Winton was joined by more men making six, also wet, but they were no more successful than the others.
The noise of the men shouting,
“’Ere, catch this!”
“Look out!”
“’Ere’s another!” seemed to fill the air.
As the Marquis swam to the other side of the houseboat, he was quite sure that nobody would notice him.
He knew that Zia would be locked in one of the cabins and he wasted no time by looking through the portholes.
Instead he climbed with the expertise of an athlete up the side of the rickety houseboat and onto the deck that faced the Thames.
No one was there to see him.
He went to the door on the opposite side to where the men were shouting at each other and slipped down the companionway.
Although it was dark, he managed by the lights that had been left burning in the Saloon to see the cabin doors.
He felt with his hands the first one he came to, realising as he tried the handle that the door was unlocked and moved quickly away.
He could hear somebody shouting in one cabin and realised that it was Father Proteus.
He was calling for one of his men to come and tell him what was happening.
Then the Marquis’s hand encountered a strong lock and a key and he realised that he had found whom he was seeking.
He turned the key and pulled open the door.
Zia, who had been aroused by all the noise, was sitting up against the back of the bed.
For a moment, as the door opened and she saw the shadow of a man, she thought that it was Saul.
She was so frightened that, although she opened her mouth to scream, no sound came.
Then her instinct told her who it was.
As the Marquis’s arms went out towards her, she threw herself against him and put her arms around his neck like a child who had been frightened by the dark.
“It is – you – !” she managed to almost scream.
Then his lips were on hers to silence the words.
As he kissed her, she felt as if the sky had opened and a light enveloped them both.
Her whole body seemed to come alive.
Then, when the Marquis picked her up in his arms, she realised that he was wet through and she knew how he had reached her.
Yet she held herself close against him as he carried her up the companionway and out onto the deck that faced the river.
“You are quite safe,” he whispered, “there is a boat below.”
As he lowered her down the side, strong arms reached up to take her from him.
The boat was manned by three seamen and, as the Marquis climbed into it, he joined Zia in the stern and they pulled away from the houseboat.
He put his arm around her to hold her against him and because she felt that he had lifted her up to Heaven, she hid her face against his wet shoulder.
He did not speak and they were halfway across the Thames before he said,
“You are safe now and this shall never happen to you again.”
She did not answer, but he could feel her quivering against him.
As she did so, he vowed to himself to protect her, to keep her safe and to love her for the rest of his life.
‘How can I have been such a fool as to lose her?’ he had asked himself a thousand times while he and his crew were waiting to go into action.
Now he had won a victory, but the only thing that really mattered was that Zia was with him again.
Chapter Seven
As the rowing boat reached the riverbank, the clouds unexpectedly rolled away.
It had been a dark night, but now the moon was shining and, as the Marquis picked up Zia in his arms and carried her off the boat, he looked back.
He could see now more clearly than he had been able to do before that the houseboat had drifted almost to the middle of the river.
It was dipping heavily at the stern and the Marquis knew that it was filling with water.
On his orders the seamen who had pushed it away from the bank had, once he had rowed away with Zia, made a hole just below the water level.
He was certain that it would not be a difficult thing to do as the houseboat was so dilapidated.
Now he calculated that the stern would be taking in water and he thought already it must be deep in the cabin where Proteus was.
He could see quite clearly his own men on the bank and the four men of the gang on the houseboat must have jumped overboard and were struggling to reach land.
Two were now coming out of the water and would be seized by his men as soon as they landed.
The other two were in difficulties and he suspected that they could not swim.
If they were to drown as well as Father Proteus, it would be a good thing and would save any Court proceedings that might be brought against them by the Police.
The Marquis’s carriage was waiting and having deposited Zia on the back seat, he stood for a moment looking again at the houseboat.
Now it was definitely sinking and he was sure that it was just a question of time, perhaps five or ten minutes, before it disappeared altogether.
This meant that Proteus could never threaten Zia again.
He climbed into the carriage and, as a footman put a rug over his knees, he realised that Zia had crossed her hands over her breasts.
For the first time he noticed that she was wearing only a silk chemise and a petticoat.
Very gently he wrapped the rug around her like a shawl. Then, as the carriage moved off, she looked up at him and exclaimed in a lilting voice,
“You – saved – me!”
He put his arm around her and replied,
“You are safe, my darling, and I shall never forgive myself for not anticipating that this might happen.”
“I prayed that – you would save me – and I am sure that Papa – helped you to do so.”
“I am sure he did,” the Marquis replied, “but all that matters for the moment is that you are safe.”
He pulled her a little closer to him and then he said,
“I am afraid I have made you wet.”
“It does not matter. I just want to be really sure that you are here.”
She put her hand on his shoulder as if to reassure her and he breathed gently,
“There is a better way of making sure.”
As he spoke, his lips came down on hers.
To Zia it was what she had wanted and exactly what she had been longing for.
She had been afraid when they were in the boat that he had kissed her merely to prevent her from speaking.
Now sensations that she had never known before were rippling through her body and she felt her love rising up towards him almost like the waves of the sea.
‘I love you – I love you!’ she wanted to say, but it was impossible to speak.
As the Marquis kissed her and went on kissing her with slow passionate kisses, it made her feel strongly as if she was part of him and that they could never be separated.
All she knew was that it was as if a blinding light from Heaven surrounded them both and it made her quiver with the intensity of it.
She had a strange feeling that the Marquis was feeling the same.
They had driven a long way before he said,
“Because I don’t want you ever again to be worried as I know you are at this moment, the man you called ‘Proteus’ has been drowned!”
There was a little pause as if Zia found it hard to think of anything except the ecstasy he had given her.
Then she asked in a low voice,
“In the – houseboat?”
“There was nothing to prevent it from sinking to the bott
om of the river,” the Marquis related.
Zia drew in her breath.
“Perhaps it is – wrong to be glad – but now I need – no longer be afraid.”
“You will never be again,” the Marquis said, “and to make sure of it, how soon will you marry me, my precious darling?”
They were passing some lights and, as she looked up at him, he could see the expression of radiance on her face.
Then, as he waited, once again she hid her face against his shoulder.
“You – cannot really want to – marry me,” she whispered.
“I want it more than I have ever wanted anything in my life before,” the Marquis replied, “and, my darling, no one can accuse me of being a fortune-hunter!”
“I-I was not thinking of that, but perhaps I will – bore you and you would be – happier with one of the – beautiful ladies I saw at the – ball.”
It was only then, and it seemed extraordinary that he should have forgotten her, that the Marquis remembered Yasmin.
He recognised that this was the solution that Harry had suggested to him.
But he could honestly swear, although no one would believe him, that in his anxiety to find Zia and rescue her from Proteus, he had never given a thought to his own problem of Yasmin’s allegations.
Now he knew that to marry Zia provided a genuine and uncontrived answer, but she must never become aware of the predicament that he had found himself in.
Because it was easier to convince her of how much he wanted her by kisses rather than words, he kissed her until they arrived back at Oke House.
As the horses came to a standstill, Zia cried,
“We are – home!”
“That is what it will be to you in the future,” the Marquis said.
Then, as a footman opened the door of the carriage, Zia gave a little cry.
“What is it?” the Marquis asked.
“I have forgotten – I have forgotten to tell you what has happened to your horses!”
The door was open, but he did not move and she knew that he was listening to her.
“A man called ‘Dixon’ collected them from the riverbank and he is going to sell them.”
There was a little tremor in Zia’s voice because she knew how much it would upset the Marquis.
“The carriage,” she added, “is to be taken to the – scrapyards.”
A Very Special Love Page 12