“I really enjoyed myself too,” the Marquis said and knew he was speaking the truth.
They changed for dinner and because it was a warm night they went up on deck afterwards to see the lights of Gibraltar.
They could see the ships steaming into and out of port while the moon overhead and the stars glittering in the sky made the world enchanting.
“Why must we travel on to make ourselves unhappy with all we will be facing in Rome? It is so beautiful here I cannot bear to leave it,” Shana sighed.
She was speaking more to herself than to the Marquis.
“You are quite right,” he responded. “You should never be surrounded by anything but beauty, and that is what I would like to give you.”
“The sea,” she said dreamily, “the stars in the sky and the moon and of course the flowers. Who could ask for anything more?”
Quite suddenly the Marquis knew that he wanted more.
A great deal more.
Yet he realised it would be a mistake to put his feelings into words.
Even more of a mistake to break the very comfortable and enjoyable rapport there now existed between them.
When a little while later they left the deck, Shana said,
“I think I must retire to bed and thank you again for a wonderful day.”
There was a softness and something almost mystical in her voice that the Marquis detected.
She did not wait for him to reply, but walked down the companionway and he heard the door of her cabin close.
It was when he strolled to his own cabin that he found himself thinking that he was behaving very differently from the way he had ever behaved in his life.
Never had he been alone with a woman for so long before she had surrendered herself into his arms. Throwing back her head she would wait impatiently for his kisses.
As he undressed he was thinking of Shana.
She never appeared, either by anything she said or by the expression in her eyes, to think of him as an attractive and desirable man.
He appreciated that she enjoyed talking with him and her eyes sparkled when they sparred with each other.
She would jump for joy when she scored a point at his expense, but it was all wholly impersonal.
He might have been her brother.
Because the situation was so new and something that had never happened to him before, he could hardly believe it was possible.
He was only too familiar with that certain look in a woman’s eyes, the provocative pout to her lips and the way her hand touched him as if accidentally because she found him so irresistible.
They still would have a few days together before they reached Rome.
‘What am I waiting for?’ the Marquis demanded of himself.
They had already spent four days on board the Seashell and none of his friends would believe that he had not yet attempted to kiss Shana.
The idea had entered his mind a thousand times, but he remembered he had promised to protect her and that meant not only from other men but from himself.
Yet was that what she really wanted?
He had thought that tonight when they were looking at the beauty of the sea and the stars, there had been a different note in her voice.
She had seemed as if she was afraid of losing such an enchanting world.
‘It is all part of love,’ he thought. ‘And what young woman does not want love?’
He walked to the open porthole and looked out. The moonlight was gleaming on the sea and everything was very quiet.
‘What am I waiting for?’ the Marquis asked himself again.
He walked across the cabin which was the Master Suite and Shana’s cabin was next to his.
He opened her door very quietly.
CHAPTER FIVE
The cabin was in darkness.
The Marquis stood still for a moment and then he reached out his hand and turned on the electric switch.
There were three lights in the cabin and he lit the one which was attached to the gold corolla over the bed. He chose this light because it was not as strong as the others and he thought more romantic.
Now he could see that Shana was asleep in the bed as he pulled the door to and walked towards her.
If it had been any other woman, her sleep would have been a pretence and when he reached the bed she would wake up with a start and appear surprised to see him.
Shana did not move and he realised that she was in fact fast asleep.
He stood looking down at her and thought no one could be lovelier.
Her eyelashes against her perfect skin were darker than her hair and the Marquis appreciated how long they were.
She was lying back against the pillows completely relaxed, her hands on the sheet in front of her and because it was a warm night, the sheet was low enough to reveal the outline of the curves of her figure beneath a diaphanous nightgown.
The Marquis looked down at her and Shana appeared to him even more desirable and beautiful.
He felt the blood throbbing in his temples and he knew that he had only to bend forward to hold her lips captive.
Then because she looked so young, so innocent and so helpless, he paused.
He had promised to protect her, but did she really want to be protected from him?
Was this another part of the act?
He felt that he had been very patient so far and no man in his position would have waited so long for the response which had never come.
I want her,’ he thought. ‘I want her as I have never wanted a woman in my life.’
Yet something still stopped him – something which made him feel as if she was in some way protected.
Not only by her own innocence, but by some spiritual force in the form of a shield around her sleeping body.
He started to tell himself this was all nonsense. He was a man and she was a very lovely and desirable woman.
What else could be expected to happen when they were alone on his yacht?
‘I want her! I want her!’ he felt his body insisting, yet still he hesitated.
Then as if an angel, or whoever was protecting Shana, won the battle and he turned away.
He could not hurt or even touch anything so perfect, so beautiful and so pure.
He walked back to the door, turned out the light and returned to his own cabin.
Only when he was in bed, knowing it was going to be very hard for him to sleep, did he ask himself if he was a fool or a saint.
*
Quite unaware that the Marquis had visited her cabin the previous night, Shana woke early.
The sun was streaming through the porthole and when she looked out she thought the Mediterranean was as blue as the Madonna’s robe.
The yacht was already moving out of port on the Marquis’s orders and she wanted to say goodbye to Gibraltar and enjoy the view as they steamed along the coast of Spain.
When the Marquis came up for breakfast he saw her hanging over the rail, staring out at the Spanish coast.
“You are very early, Shana,” he commented as he joined her.
“It is almost wicked to stay in bed on such a beautiful day,” she replied. “And I am afraid of missing something.”
“You will have plenty to admire in Rome.”
“That is what I have been thinking and I want to see everything. The fountain of the Trevi and of course the Colosseum.”
“I suppose,” the Marquis said, “you are going to throw some coins into the Trevi and make a wish, as every tourist does.”
“Of course they do and I am sure all their wishes come true.”
“What will you wish for?” the Marquis asked as they were walking towards the Saloon and when he sat down at the breakfast table he finished his question with,
“A handsome lover or something that glitters?”
As he posed the question he waited to see if there would be any response.
“What I wish for at the moment,” Shana answered him, “is to see all of Rome before
we have to leave. I have read so much about the Eternal City that I shall cry if I miss any of the important statues and pictures or particularly St.Peter’s.”
“I thought you were in a hurry to return home,” the Marquis observed as the Steward offered him a plate of fresh fish.
“That is true,” Shana agreed, “so I shall have to hurry. Do be clever and make sure we do not have to spend too long with the people we are going to see.”
She did not want to give them a name because there were two Stewards present in the Saloon.
The Marquis did not reply. He was merely thinking that in the sunlight her hair was so beautiful, even more than last night under the light from the golden corolla.
“What I find strange,” he said, “is that you seem to know so much about the countries of Europe, but have not, I understand, visited many of them.”
“I have visited them in my mind. Perhaps that is the best way to travel, as then one is never disappointed.”
The Marquis laughed.
“That is certainly an idea I have never thought of before. But I like to do my sightseeing in person.”
“It’s always so much easier for a man,” Shana said with a little sigh, thinking of her father.
“One day you will have a husband who will take you to places you want to see, or perhaps there will be someone like me who needs you urgently for an unexpected mission.”
“I was thinking last night before I climbed into bed,” Shana answered, “that I should to be very grateful to you. Perhaps I have been impolite in not telling you earlier how exciting it is for me to travel in this magnificent yacht and be given the chance of seeing Gibraltar and Rome.”
The Marquis noticed once again that she did not say that it was wonderful to be with him.
He looked into her eyes and they were excited by what she was saying and yet he could not pretend that he saw anything personal in them when she was looking at him.
“What are we going to do this morning?” Shana asked. “Except of course stare at the view.”
“I am going to challenge you to a game of deck-tennis,” he said. “And if you have not played it before, I shall teach you how to.”
“As it so happens, I have played deck-tennis and I rather fancy myself at the game.”
“That is certainly a challenge.”
The Marquis thought that as he was an expert he would score a very easy victory.
However, it would have been better not to have suggested anything so athletic for he had not counted on Shana being so quick and so observant. She always caught him out when he least anticipated it.
He won by only a hair’s breadth, but it had been a much more energetic game than he had anticipated.
Shana threw herself down into a deck-chair.
“I feel much better after all that exercise, but what I would really like would be to gallop on one of your superb horses and race you on your private Racecourse.”
“How do you know I have one?” the Marquis enquired.
Shana thought as she spoke that she had made a mistake.
Her father had told her that there was a Racecourse at the Hall, but owing to the old Marquis’s illness it fell into a bad state of repair and he had said that one of the first things the new holder of the title should do would be to put the Racecourse in order.
“I think Bob must have told me,” Shana replied vaguely. “Perhaps it is untrue.”
“No, it is true, but I am currently enlarging it and making it very much more challenging than it was before. I hope when it is finished you will come and see it.”
“It sounds most exciting,” Shana murmured after a short pause.
The expression in her eyes told him not only that she thought his invitation unlikely, but that she did not particularly wish to accept one.
‘Now what does she mean?’ the Marquis asked himself.
He thought that day by day since they had left London she had become even more of an enigma – indeed more and more difficult for him to understand.
A week ago he would have laughed scornfully if anyone had told him he was going to meet a woman who would be elusive, original and a puzzle. He would have thought that whoever made such a suggestion was talking nonsense.
If there was one matter he considered he knew all about, it was women.
Goodness knows he had had enough experience with them, but Shana never ceased to surprise him.
It was ridiculous to suppose that a girl of no consequence, who was forced to earn her own living, would be able to keep him guessing.
Yet was her family really poor? He was experienced in women’s clothes and realised that everything Shana wore was well-made, fashionable and obviously expensive.
If her father could afford to buy them for her, why did she have to be a teacher? And if it was not her father, was it really possible some man could have provided them for her?
It was a question which might have puzzled him, but last night something mystical about Shana had driven him from her cabin.
He was becoming convinced that she had never been kissed, let alone possessed by a man.
This was now the fourth day they had been together.
He thought if he was truthful that he still knew absolutely nothing about her and certainly no more than when she had come to the Hall to warn him he was about to be burgled.
She remained an enigma.
*
Because it was so warm they decided to sit on the deck after luncheon.
“I want to talk to you seriously,” the Marquis began.
“What about, my Lord?”
“Yourself, for one thing.”
“My life is incredibly boring,” she responded. “I know all about myself and there are so many other interesting and amusing matters we could discuss.”
“What sort of matters?”
“Spain first, as we are still near the South coast of that country. And then perhaps Corsica, which I suppose we shall soon pass and Napoleon Bonaparte who was born there.”
She spoke expectantly.
The Marquis knew that if he behaved as he had the last few days, they would instantly have been involved in a long discussion – not only about Napoleon Bonaparte, but about war and the effect it had on the countries who suffered from it.
“Now you are deliberately trying to change the direction of my thoughts. As I have already said, I want to talk about you.”
“In which case,” Shana retorted, “I shall walk round the deck or go and talk to the Captain. He, at least, will be only too ready to talk about the Seashell.”
“I cannot believe there is anything left for you to learn about my yacht.”
“I am sure I shall find hundreds of points of interest if I trouble to look for them,” Shana replied. “However, if we must be personal, we should start with you, because you are older than I am.”
“Very well,” the Marquis agreed reluctantly. “What do you want to know about me?”
“I should like to know about your plans for the future and what you intend to do for your estate and, I hope, for our country?”
The Marquis did not speak and she continued,
“My father is always saying it is so important, if you have something to say, to have a platform. You have one in the House of Lords. How are you going to use it?”
The Marquis was astonished as it was a question no one had ever asked him.
“How would you expect me to use my platform?” he prevaricated.
Shana thought for a moment and then she said,
“You should know better than I do that there are a great many injustices in the country and there are many people who need someone to lead them.”
“What sort of people,” the Marquis asked, thinking it was a question she might have difficulty in answering.
“Those who are suffering,” Shana said immediately, “from poverty, illness, or simply because they do not know how to use their talents or their skills.”
She looked out to sea b
efore resuming,
“Have you ever visited the slums of London, or listened to the complaints of those who I understand wait outside the Houses of Parliament in the hope that someone will hear them and take up their cause?”
The Marquis remained silent and Shana carried on,
“I know you have only recently come into your title, but now you are a gentleman of considerable importance and stature. As far as I can make out, there is no one to speak for the little man and who really cares whether he lives or dies, except at election time. What these people need is leadership and that is exactly what someone like you can give them.”
The Marquis looked incredulous.
He was on the committee of a number of charitable organisations and gave a considerable amount of money to charity. He did not think that anything more was expected of him.
“As you have been a soldier,” Shana was saying, “you know only too well that men have to be both trained and led to fight the enemy. The same need arises in civilian life.”
She sighed.
“The young men have no opportunities for developing their talents and they desperately need someone to give them the right leadership and encouragement if they are ever going to achieve anything.”
“I understand exactly what you are saying,” the Marquis said as Shana finished. “At the same time, why me? I have my own life to lead without taking on more burdens than are absolutely necessary.”
“That is a very silly question,” Shana replied, “and you know the answer without my telling you. You are important, you are rich, you are young, and you have a very good brain. People will listen to you as you have influence. What other qualities do you require?”
The Marquis chuckled.
“I just do not believe it,” he exclaimed. “How can you possibly, looking as you do and being so young, take me to task in a way which I find particularly difficult to refute?”
“Perhaps, after all, this voyage will not have been wasted, if I can convince you of your duty.”
“How I dislike that word,” the Marquis said. “It always implies something unpleasant.”
“It means that you are required to give something of yourself to other people. My father has always believed that one has nothing more valuable to give than oneself.”
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