Sweet Enchantress

by Barbara Cartland

  “Resemble him!” Zaria exclaimed, wrinkling her brow a little. “But why? Is he a relation or something?”

  Chuck laughed and shook his head.

  “He is an actor,” he said. “A rather clever young actor who always, for some inexplicable reason, looked very much like me.”

  His eyes watched her bewildered face and he added,

  “Haven’t you guessed yet, darling? I am Cornelius Virdon!”

  Zaria stared at him open-mouthed.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” Chuck asked, taking her hand in his and stroking it gently. “You see, darling, I was so afraid, if I didn’t make myself out poor and impoverished, that you wouldn’t help me to go aboard the yacht. So you have to forgive me for lying to you, when actually I am ‘the rich Mr. Virdon’.”

  He made the last three words seem somehow absurd, but Zaria could not laugh.

  “But why, then, was that other man pretending to be you?” she questioned.

  “That is what I am going to tell you,” Chuck replied. “You see, darling, Edie Morgan is a very wicked man. Apparently he is well known as a gun-runner on the other side of the Atlantic – and, having made the South American coast and a great many other places too hot to hold him, he thought he would try his hand in Europe.”

  “A gun-runner!” Zaria ejaculated. “But where are the guns?”

  “In Madame Bertin’s luggage, of course,” Chuck answered. “Only the first consignment, of course. Having once made contact with the Sheik, Edie intended to make a regular business of running guns across the Mediterranean. So, for an aperitif he brought with him three machine guns of the smaller type and ten Tommy guns, all nicely dismantled and packed into false bottoms with Madame Bertin’s most fabulous creations on top of them!”

  “Oh, Chuck, how awful!” Zaria cried. “But what will happen to Madame Bertin?”

  “I am afraid she’ll get a prison sentence,” Chuck answered. “But not too harsh a one. The French are always kind to a woman. And Kate, I expect, will get away with it completely.”

  At Kate’s name Zaria turned her head away for the moment and looked out into the garden. Chuck’s eyes were on the delicacy of her profile and the sudden little droop of her lips.

  “You aren’t jealous of her, my darling, are you?” he asked. “I am terribly flattered, but you needn’t be.”

  “But you seemed to like her so much,” Zaria said accusingly.

  “I know,” he answered. “I was trying to get some very useful information out of Kate and the only way it was possible to obtain anything was by playing on her vanity.”

  “Then you didn’t like her?” Zaria asked.

  Chuck smiled.

  “Shall I tell you something?” he questioned. “I knew a secretary would be waiting for me at Marseilles and, as I flew the Atlantic and made my plans, I hoped that she would be the sort of girl who would help me. But from the very first moment that I walked into your bedroom and saw you there, I knew you were the one I had been looking for all my life.”

  “You could not have thought that,” Zaria replied. “You couldn’t. I looked so terrible.”

  “You looked very young, very pathetic and very badly treated,” Chuck answered. “But you couldn’t look terrible. Have you any idea, Zaria, how lovely you really are?”

  “It isn’t true,” Zaria stammered, while the blood mounted to her cheeks because of the look in Chuck’s eyes.

  “I shall convince you in time,” he said softly. “But now I must go on with my story.”

  “But how did you come to Marseilles in the first place?” Zaria asked.

  “That was just what I was going to tell you,” he said. “I had arranged to charter the yacht because I had planned not only to visit my mother but to do some excavations on a new site that I had heard of to the North of Algiers. I made all my plans to leave America and set off with my luggage from my apartment in New York.

  “As my taxi turned into a side street leading down to the docks, two men got in during a hold up in the traffic and proceeded to set about me. The taxi driver must, of course, have been in league with them, for he made no attempt to stop even when I shouted for help. They hit me on the head with a rubber truncheon.”

  “So that’s how you got the bruise,” Zaria said quickly.

  “Exactly,” Chuck answered. “Fortunately I had done a Commando course in the Army. I knew that, when one was up against insurmountable odds, it is best to feign a complete collapse to avoid further punishment. I slumped down on the seat and in falling caught my ear, which started to bleed profusely.”

  Zaria remembered the patch that had been on his ear when he had come into her room in Marseilles. Looking closely she could still see a scar on the lobe.

  “An ear bleeds pretty freely,” Chuck went on, “and one man said to the other,

  “‘Hold it! Edie didn’t want any marks on the body. He’s out.’

  “Mercifully they didn’t hit me again and, although my head was throbbing abominably, I was able to feign unconsciousness while being very much aware of what they were doing.”

  “They might have killed you!” Zaria exclaimed.

  “They intended to do that later,” Chuck answered. “They stripped me of my clothes, dressed me in a ragged torn suit they had with them, and then, taking me down to the water’s edge at a deserted part of the river, pushed me in.”

  “Intending to drown you!” Zaria cried in horror.

  “Yes, that is what they intended to do,” Chuck said grimly. “I don’t know how many suicides are fished out of New York harbour every year, but it runs into some hundreds. I was to be one of them.”

  “What happened?” Zaria asked breathlessly.

  “I swam below water until they were out of sight, Chuck answered. “It was a very unpleasant experience and my lungs were nearly bursting when finally I came up for air. By that time they had disappeared. I then managed to get back to the apartment of a friend of mine who is a Police Officer and tried to find out what it was all about.”

  “Why didn’t you have them arrested?” Zaria enquired.

  “Well, to begin with they had already sailed,” Chuck answered. “And secondly my friend made a number of enquiries and what he learned intrigued me. I was determined to fly to Europe and catch the cut-throats red-handed.”

  “It sounds – terribly dangerous,” Zaria commented doubtfully.

  “I am afraid that was what attracted me,” Chuck added with a smile. “What my friend told me was that Edie was a really evil man who had been too clever up to date to be picked up by the Police on any really serious charge.

  “They knew about him. They knew what sort of racket he was operating, but they just couldn’t catch him. It wasn’t only gun-running, that was bad enough, but he was also dope-peddling.”

  “That was why he had those cigarettes,” Zaria said.

  “Exactly! Mister Edie Morgan was out to make money wherever he got the opportunity.”

  “They might have killed you for finding out about them!”

  “There was always that risk,” Chuck smiled. “But this was the biggest operation they had undertaken and it seemed a pity to make a move before they had really put the noose around their own necks.”

  “But how had they ever thought of it in the first place?” Zaria asked.

  “I don’t know except that the papers were always writing me up as a recluse who liked travelling alone. They knew I never took a valet with me. They knew I intended to make this trip to Africa for the purpose of digging. The trouble with the press is that they are always too free with their information.”

  “So they decided to impersonate you?”

  “Yes! You see what they wanted was a yacht and it was no use their trying to hire one without credentials. By getting rid of me and hoping that my body would be unidentified, they would have provided themselves with the one thing that was essential if they were to get the guns to Algiers.”

  “How did they get hold of the actor who
pretended to be you?”

  “Dope, I think,” Chuck said briefly. “He is a rather stupid young man who was in Edie’s clutches and who, in return for the small amount of dope that was doled out to him, had to pay for it again and again.

  “As soon as I saw him on board, I realised who he was. I had seen him act once in a small part on Broadway and several people had remarked on his likeness to me.”

  “But you had dyed your hair before that,” Zara questioned.

  “Well, I didn’t want Edie, or anyone else, to recognise me,” Chuck explained. “You see, the newspapers are rather fond of putting in my picture.”

  “I don’t believe I shall like you with any other sort of hair.”

  “Then I shall have to go on dyeing it,” he smiled, “but it would be an awful nuisance. Besides, people might accuse me of being vain.”

  Zaria laughed.

  “I found the bottle in your drawer and could not understand why you had it.”

  “I expect it made you even more suspicious of me,” Chuck said. “My poor little sweet. I have tried you very hard, haven’t I? And yet you have gone on trusting me.”

  “I was rather suspicious at times that you had done something really wrong,” Zaria replied honestly.

  “I’m not a bit surprised,” Chuck told her. “But you do see that I didn’t dare make you too suspicious of Edie and Victor and all the rest. If they had thought that you were wise to their game, they wouldn’t have hesitated to bump you off and dump you overboard. They are really dangerous. There are half a dozen murders that ought to be laid at their door and which have never been rightly proved.”

  Zaria shivered.

  “Oh, Chuck! Supposing they had found out that you were spying on them?”

  “I had to take that risk,” he said. “I must say, it was a double risk having to protect you as well.”

  “But who was buying the guns?” Zaria asked. “Why did Sheik Ibrahim ben Kaddour want them?”

  “That is an easy question to answer,” Chuck replied.

  “The Sheik is one of the chief rebels who are making a terrible nuisance of themselves to the French authorities. They were just as anxious to lay hands on him as the American Police were to get hold of Edie Morgan. That was why I didn’t dare do anything until the Sheik had appeared. The Military authorities picked him up, by the way, when he left Salem’s house this evening. It is the first time they have been able to get within a mile of him.”

  “I suppose that was why you didn’t let the authorities arrest Edie Morgan beforehand,” Zaria said perceptively. “After all, they could have found the guns in Madame Bertin’s luggage as soon as we arrived.”

  “You’re quite right,” Chuck agreed. “And that was also why I couldn’t let the Police arrest me on Edie’s trumped up charge of dope peddling. You see, I had not been in touch with the civilian Police at all. I had been working with the Military authorities and you know how everything travels round like lightning in a native country. We didn’t dare breathe a word to anyone in case ben Kaddour got to hear of it and slipped away into the desert.”

  “They might have shot you when you were swimming from the yacht,” Zaria said accusingly.

  Chuck shook his head.

  “They are not particularly good shots and I am a very strong swimmer. It was a risk I had to take. I didn’t dare stand up to them, just when I knew that there was likely to be a showdown tonight.”

  “Then it was the Military who were waiting on the yacht and who shot Edie,” Zaria said.

  “I told them to be there and to keep hidden,” Chuck answered. “But I wasn’t going to have your life risked in any way and when people start shooting it is often the wrong people who get shot.”

  “How clever of you to think it all out,” Zaria said.

  “I had some good brains to help me,” Chuck told her modestly. “But I’ll tell you one thing. I am likely to be awarded the Légion d’honneur for this. Will that make you proud of me?”

  “I am proud of you without that,” Zaria answered. “So very very proud.”

  He took a deep breath and looked down into her eyes.

  “I hope you will always go on being so.”

  “The only person I am unhappy about is Madame Bertin,” Zaria said. “She was so kind to me and took such trouble over choosing me some clothes.”

  “She’s rather a bad old girl as it happens,” Chuck answered. “She cannot help spending money and she’s an inveterate gambler. That’s why she’s hard up. She should have made a fortune by this time with her designs, but she keeps getting into debt and so she fell into Edie’s clutches. He promised her not only a large sum of money but to finance her new venture out here if she would carry his guns for him.”

  “Poor Madame Bertin!” Zaria sighed.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Chuck said soothingly. “I will talk to my friends about her. We may be able to prove that she was forced into it by Edie, more or less at the point of a pistol.”

  “Yes. Please, please do that,” Zaria pleaded.

  “And if I do that for you, what will you do for me?” Chuck asked.

  “What do you want me to do?” Zaria enquired.

  He drew her a little nearer to him.

  “I want you not only to tell me that you will marry me at once – tomorrow or the next day, just as quickly as we can. I want you also to tell me something that you haven’t told me yet. Do you know what that is?”

  “Y-yes, I think so,” Zaria murmured, blushing.

  “But you know it already.”

  “I want to hear you say it,” he insisted. “I love you so much and yet I know so little about you, in fact, nothing except that you are the most adorable wonderful girl I have ever met in all my life.”

  At his words Zaria suddenly looked guilty.

  “I have only just remembered something,” she exclaimed.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I had really forgotten it myself,” she said hastily. “Chuck! My name isn’t Brown at all.”

  It was his turn to look surprised.

  “Then who are you?” he enquired.

  “I am Zaria Mansford,” she said, “and my father was Professor Mansford. You may perhaps have heard of him.”

  “But, of course, I have heard of him,” Chuck answered. “I read that last book of his only just before I left New York. Why the masquerade? Don’t tell me you were mixed up in anything shady?”

  “No – not exactly,” Zaria answered. “But, you see I – own The Enchantress.”

  Chuck stared at her incredulously for a moment and then he threw back his head and laughed.

  “The new owner!” he exclaimed. “Jim told me about her. Miss Cardew’s niece, whom none of them had ever seen and they all wondered what she would be like.”

  “It was stupid of me,” Zaria confessed. “It was just that I was frightened and Doris Brown chucked the job at the last moment after the Solicitors had engaged her for you because she was going to be married. So I took her place.”

  “We’ll send her the most wonderful wedding present that any girl has ever had,” Chuck said. “Because if it hadn’t been for her, we should never have met. Blessings on Doris Brown.”

  He raised Zaria’s hand to his lips and then he added,

  “And so, darling, you are not the penniless little waif at all. You are a rich young woman, the owner of The Enchantress.”

  “Oh, Chuck, don’t let it spoil things. Please don’t let it spoil things,” Zaria pleaded.

  “Nothing you could do could alter or change my love for you,” Chuck answered. “Whatever you do, whatever you say, however unkind you may be even, you will still enchant me. You are my sweet enchantress for all time. And now, my darling, tell me what I want to hear.”

  Just for a moment Zaria hesitated and then, with the colour coming into her face, with her eyes flickering a little because of the fire and the triumph in his, she whispered, as he took her in his arms,

&n
bsp; “I love – you. Oh, Chuck – I love you – with – all of– me.”

  OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES

  The Barbara Cartland Eternal Collection is the unique opportunity to collect as ebooks all five hundred of the timeless beautiful romantic novels written by the world’s most celebrated and enduring romantic author.

  Named the Eternal Collection because Barbara’s inspiring stories of pure love, just the same as love itself, the books will be published on the internet at the rate of four titles per month until all five hundred are available.

  The Eternal Collection, classic pure romance available worldwide for all time .

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  A Duel of Hearts

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  The Penniless Peer

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  A Shaft of Sunlight

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  Love and Lucia

  Love and the Loathsome Leopard

  Beauty or Brains

  The Temptation of Torilla

  The Goddess and the Gaiety Girl

  Fragrant Flower

  Look Listen and Love

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  A Kiss for the King

  The Mysterious Maid-servant

  Lucky Logan Finds Love

  The Wings of Ecstacy

  Mission to Monte Carlo

  Revenge of the Heart

  The Unbreakable Spell

  Never Laugh at Love

  Bride to a Brigand

  Lucifer and the Angel

  Journey to a Star

  Solita and the Spies

  The Chieftain Without a Heart

  No Escape from Love

  Dollars for the duke

  Pure and Untouched

  Secrets

  Fire in the Blood

  Love, Lies and Marriage

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  Hungry for Love

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