Fragrant Flower

by Barbara Cartland

  The sounds up above grew deafening. After a short exchange of rifle shots, she could hear orders being given in Cantonese, but by a very English-sounding voice.

  The man on the other side of the door was shaking it furiously.

  Azalea fancied that he put his shoulder to it, but although the bolt creaked, it held. Then suddenly she heard him run away, his feet padding over the boards.

  There was the sound of heavy footsteps descending the companionway, and a very English voice said,

  “Here is the cargo! Opium, as I expected!”

  Azalea felt herself sagging against the door.

  Even after the assailant on the other side had gone, she had still pressed with all her strength against the bare wood, terrified that at the last second the bolt would give and he would burst in upon them.

  She was quite certain he would have carried in his hand one of the long, carved knives that all the pirates wore in their belts.

  Kai Yin had not stirred.

  She was still sitting motionless on the sacking, looking like a flower in her coloured tunic, and her face was very pale as if she could not realise or understand that they were safe and was still preparing herself for the moment when she must die.

  “You had better get this stuff out of here,” Azalea heard a man say outside. “And see if there is anyone in those cabins.”

  With a hand that shook Azalea pulled back the bolt and opened the door.

  Outside stood an officer in white uniform looking at the great pile of chests which had been taken from Mr. Chang’s junk.

  Beside him stood several Naval ratings in their white jumpers and blue trousers, their round, white-topped caps on their heads.

  They all turned to look at Azalea and as they did so someone came down the companionway.

  As he reached the bottom Azalea turned her head. For a moment it was impossible to move.

  “Azalea!” he exclaimed.

  She ran towards him and felt his arms go round her. It was like reaching Heaven. Her prayers had been answered and she was safe!

  As H.M.S. Fury carried them back to Hong Kong, sitting in a cabin with Lord Sheldon, Azalea learnt what had happened.

  Next door Kai Yin was sitting beside a bunk on which Mr. Chang lay with his arm bandaged.

  It hardly seemed possible that he should be alive after Azalea had known that the pirates had set the junk on fire, having looted everything they considered valuable.

  “It was the burning junk we saw first,” Lord Sheldon told her. “One of the sailors drew our attention to it and Captain Marriott was immediately suspicious that it might be the work of pirates.

  “‘They loot and burn,’ he told me, ‘and unless we are lucky enough to see the junk in flames, there is no evidence to connect it with them once they have the cargo in their own ship.’”

  “We steamed towards the burning junk,” Lord Sheldon continued, “and as we drew nearer to it Captain Marriott said, ‘I believe that is Mr. Chang’s junk. I have always admired it. I think it is one of the most attractive in the whole of Victoria harbour!’”

  Lord Sheldon’s arm tightened around Azalea as he said,

  “It was then that I became afraid.”

  “You thought I might be on board?”

  “You do such unpredictable things, that nothing surprises me!” he replied. “And I had the feeling that sooner or later you would find it impossible to resist sailing in the harbour and seeing the beauty of the islands.”

  “Why were you on this cruiser?” Azalea enquired.

  “I arranged several days ago to inspect some of the British fighting vessels. Captain Marriott was deputed by the Governor to escort me. We had luncheon on the battleship, visited two gunboats, and were just returning to the harbour. Thank God I found you in time!”

  Azalea turned her face against his shoulder.

  “Kai Yin thought that as the pirates had kidnapped us they would – sell us,” she whispered.

  “You must forget what might have happened,” Lord Sheldon said quietly. “It is something which could occur only once in a lifetime. Piracy has been put down so successfully by the Navy in the last few years that they were saying at luncheon there is really very little for the gunboats to do these days.”

  “The pirates were very – frightening.”

  “They are deliberately aggressive,” Lord Sheldon explained. “It makes the Chinese willing to do anything that is demanded of them without argument.”

  “But they shot at the sailors on Mr. Chang’s junk.”

  “They killed one man and they will be punished.”

  “Why did they wound Mr. Chang?”

  “He resisted them, so they fired at him. As it happened the bullet only wounded him in the shoulder. Then he was clever enough to realise that the best thing he could do was to pretend to be dead. He fell down on the deck and closed his eyes. After that they paid no further attention to him!”

  “Thank goodness!” Azalea exclaimed, thinking how unhappy Kai Yin had been.

  “When the pirates had left, Mr. Chang tried to put out the flames with his uninjured arm,” Lord Sheldon went on.

  “That was brave!”

  “Very brave! And it was very fortunate that he was alive, because otherwise we might not have been in such a hurry to follow the pirates and save both you and Mrs. Chang.”

  “What happened to the rest of the crew?” Azalea asked.

  “We found them tied up on the deck of the pirate ship. I imagine most of them, would, to save themselves, have joined the pirates, who are always looking for able seamen. Those who refuse to do so seldom live to tell the tale!”

  Azalea gave a little shiver.

  “It has been a terrible experience for you,” Lord Sheldon said, “but I want you to be sensible and determine to put it out of your mind. As I have said, it will never happen to you again, and the pirate gang will undoubtedly pay the price for their crimes.”

  “Kidnapping will still go on,” Azalea said.

  “That is true,” Lord Sheldon agreed, “but that is something which the Governor is determined to stop, and I shall support him in every possible way.”

  He smiled as he said gently,

  “I have a personal motive for fighting against it now.”

  He looked down at Azalea as he spoke, then put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his.

  “You will never know what I went through when I learnt you were a prisoner on the pirate ship. They did not actually hurt you?”

  “No,” Azalea answered. “They carried us down the companionway and locked us in the cabin.”

  She paused and said,

  “It became really terrifying only at the last moment, when Kai Yin thought they would kill us before you came aboard. A man did try to open the door, but I had bolted it on the inside.”

  “You were very brave, my darling,” Lord Sheldon said. Then he bent his head and his lips were on Azalea’s.

  He kissed her passionately and in a manner that was different from the kisses he had given her before.

  She knew it was because he had been afraid for her, and yet it was difficult to think, because once again she felt the ecstasy and wonder that his kisses had aroused in her before.

  But now his mouth was more demanding, more insistent, so that the fire within her awoke to meet the fire in him.

  “I love you! God, how I love you!” Lord Sheldon exclaimed.

  Then he was kissing frantically her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks, the softness of her neck above the high collar of her tunic, and then again her lips.

  The fact that she was wearing Chinese dress and was not restricted by her boned corsets made her body very soft and yielding against his.

  He held her closer and still closer to him until it seemed to Azalea, with their hearts beating against each other’s that they became one person.

  “I love you!” he said again.

  Looking down at her eyes, at the faint blush on her cheeks and at the w
arm softness of her parted lips he said gently,

  “How soon will you marry me, my precious?”

  As if by his words he had thrown a jug of cold water over her, Azalea felt herself stiffen. Then she moved a little way away from him, her hands pressing against him.

  “What is it? What is the matter?” he asked.

  “I cannot – marry – you!”

  “Why not? You love me – I know you do!”

  “I do love you,” Azalea answered, “I love you with every part of me – my heart – my soul and beyond my hope of Heaven – but I shall never be – allowed to be your – wife!”

  “This is nonsense!” Lord Sheldon began, then he stopped. “Are we back with your secrets? Can they possibly, whatever they may be, matter more than our love and the fact you belong to me, you are mine?”

  “They matter,” Azalea answered, “because I cannot tell you what my secret is – and yet because of – it my uncle will never – allow me to – marry you!”

  “I will speak to the General myself!”

  “It would be – useless!”

  “Then if he will not give me his consent, I will marry you without it!” Lord Sheldon said firmly.

  “He is my Guardian,” Azalea replied.

  They both knew that a Guardian could not only arrange a marriage but also prevent one.

  A girl was completely and legally under the jurisdiction of her Guardian just as she was under the direction of her parents.

  What was more, there was no need to put into words that Azalea was under age. But even when she was twenty-one the General could still refuse any suitor without even consulting her.

  Lord Sheldon was silent for a moment. Then he said,

  “This is the first time in my life, Azalea, that I have ever asked a woman to marry me. I had no intention of getting married, and although I admit to having had a great many love affairs in my life I have never really been in love.”

  He saw the expression in her eyes and for a moment laid his lips against hers.

  It was a very light kiss, and yet it was the kiss of a man who knows that something is so precious, so perfect, that he cannot help acknowledging the wonder of it.

  “I think the night I first kissed you,” Lord Sheldon went on, “I knew that something perfect and unique had happened to me. I could not forget the feeling of your lips beneath mine, and I could not ignore the strange, unusual feelings that kiss aroused in us both.”

  He paused to say softly,

  “I am not wrong in thinking that you felt as I did?”

  “It was wonderful!” Azalea replied. “So wonderful that I could not prevent you from kissing me – even though I knew I should do so – and afterwards I could not believe it was true. It was a – magic I could not describe – even to myself.”

  “That is the right word for it,” Lord Sheldon said. “It was magic, even though I told myself I must have been mistaken or perhaps the General’s whisky was unusually strong!”

  “And – when you saw me again?” Azalea asked.

  “I knew that you were the woman I had been seeking all my life. I would not acknowledge at first, even to myself, that I intended to marry you. And yet now I think that my heart was sure that we belonged to each other even though my brain was still ready to be sceptical.”

  He gave a little laugh.

  “You bemused and bewildered me, as you still do. You have yet to explain why you read your uncle’s secret file on Hong Kong. Why you speak Russian, and why you tried to avoid me on the ship and were extremely successful in doing so.”

  Once again he put his fingers under Azalea’s chin and, turning her face up to his, said fiercely,

  “How could you make us waste so much time aboard the Orissa, when I might have been holding you in my arms and kissing you?”

  His lips were on hers as he spoke the last word, and she was conscious only of the rising desire within herself, of the glory and the fire that drew them so close to each other that it was hard to breathe.

  “I want you!” Lord Sheldon said in his deep voice. “I want you now, at this moment and for all eternity. You are mine, Azalea! You belong to me!”

  “I believe that too,” Azalea murmured, “and I feel that we have – belonged to each other in – previous lives.”

  “I am sure of it,” he answered. “I have lived in India long enough to know there is no other reasonable explanation for the strivings, the hunger, the unhappiness of mankind. My happiness lies with you!”

  “And mine with – you,” Azalea whispered.

  “So we come back to where we started,” Lord Sheldon said with a little smile. “When will you marry me?”

  “You do not understand,” Azalea said miserably, “and there is nothing I can do to make you – I can only tell you that I shall love you all my life and in the hereafter – but I shall never be – allowed to be your – wife.”

  “Damn the hereafter!” Lord Sheldon exclaimed violently. “I am not interested in anything but the present! I want you, Azalea, and I intend to have you, and I promise you I do not give up easily.”

  She would have argued with him, but once again his lips were on hers.

  He kissed her until it was impossible to think, impossible to be aware of anything but the raging, burning fire of his lips and the pulsating of her body.

  He held her closer and closer, and it was only when they heard voices giving orders on deck that they realised they had reached the harbour.

  With a sinking feeling in her heart Azalea remembered that she had to return to Flagstaff House.

  Explanations would have to be made about where she had been and why she was dressed in Chinese clothes. She drew herself away from Lord Sheldon’s arms, and the problems and difficulties rushed into her mind like an invading force of pirates.

  Because they were close to each other there was no need for her to put her thoughts into words.

  “I will make all the explanations,” he said gently. “All that matters is that you are safe, and that is what I shall make your uncle understand.”

  Azalea shuddered.

  “Perhaps – they will not yet be – back,” she faltered knowing even as she spoke it was a forlorn hope.

  The sun was sinking and although she did not know the time she felt it must be well after six o’clock. The General always aimed to return at the very latest by that hour.

  “Leave everything to me!” Lord Sheldon said.

  Then, as if he could not help himself, he kissed Azalea’s forehead. Anxious as she was to get back to Flagstaff House, Azalea knew that she could not hurry away until she was certain Mr. Chang was taken safely ashore.

  Fortunately his own carriage was at the Quay, and he was carried to it on a stretcher, his wife following behind. Azalea kissed Kai Yin goodbye.

  “You come see me soon,” she begged.

  “As soon as I can,” Azalea answered, “but you will be busy looking after Mr. Chang.”

  “Honourable husband live – all that matters!” Kai Yin said with tears in her eyes.

  Azalea kissed her again.

  Feeling somewhat self-conscious about her appearance, Azalea said goodbye to Captain Marriott and thanked him. Then with Lord Sheldon at her side she was driven off in a closed carriage towards Flagstaff House.

  Apprehensive of what lay ahead she slipped her hand into his and felt the warm strength of his fingers.

  They were comforting and a source of courage.

  “You are not to be afraid,” he said. “You are just to trust me, Azalea. I promise you I always get my own way!”

  “I want to believe you,” she answered, “and you know I trust you.”

  “Then do not look so worried, my darling,” he said. “You have the most beautiful eyes I have seen in my whole life, but I want to take that worried expression away from them. I want you to look happy, young and untroubled, and that is how I intend you shall look, even if it takes a lifetime to achieve it.”

  Azalea laid her cheek
for a moment against his shoulder.

  “I am utterly happy when I am with you. I have been so miserable these past years since Papa died that, now you love me, it is like coming out of a dark tunnel into the sunlight.”

  “How did your father die?” Lord Sheldon asked.

  Azalea stiffened. She had never expected to be asked this question and she could not think of an answer.

  Without meaning to her fingers tightened on Lord Sheldon’s. Then as she realised he was waiting for a reply to his question, she stammered

  “T – typhoid – h – he died of typhoid!”

  Lord Sheldon’s eyes were on her face and there was an expression in them which, had she not been looking away from him, she would have recognised.

  But the carriage was approaching Flagstaff House and ahead of them were sentries outside the gates.

  “I want you to go to bed as soon as you get back,” Lord Sheldon said. “You have been through a very frightening and tiring experience. I will talk to your uncle. Go straight upstairs and go to sleep, Azalea. Everything will be all right tomorrow.”

  She did not answer, but he knew she was afraid.

  Some instinctive mechanism within him told him that her secret was connected with her father.

  In all his adventurous and, at times, desperately dangerous career, Lord Sheldon had always trusted his instinct and it had never failed him.

  Whenever it had seemed that everything had gone wrong, that the problem was insoluble or a position untenable, he had always been able to draw upon an inner strength and a power on which he relied to give him the assistance he needed.

  He was sure now that he could solve Azalea’s secret and assuage her fears.

  He was certain, as he had never been certain of anything in the whole of his life before, that she would become his wife because they were meant for each other.

  The carriage drew up at Flagstaff House and as the footman stepped down to open the door Lord Sheldon said again,

  “Do exactly what I tell you, Azalea. Go straight upstairs to your room.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes very dark and frightened.

  “I love – you!” she whispered, then turned away and stepped out of the carriage.

  Chapter Seven