Desire in the Desert by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland [Cartland, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788675529
Publisher: Barbara Cartland Ebooks ltd
Published: 2021-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

By the time they had reached their first Port in West Africa, which was St. Louis in Senegal, the Marquis was forced to admit that, surprisingly, he had enjoyed every moment of the voyage.

It had been, as he had predicted, extremely rough in the Bay of Biscay.

But far from being seasick, Shamara kept him and Charles laughing.

The Marquis thought that he had forgotten how the young had a joie de vivre that was all their own.

It was certainly very different from the flirtatious glances of the beauties who he had travelled with in the past.

Then the conversation had been very witty, but inevitably on the same old theme.

Every word spoken had an innuendo that the Marquis knew after a time would begin to pall.

He was thinking now that none of the women of whom he had been enamoured in the past would have made either the rough days or the smooth as entertaining as Shamara had managed to do.

It was not so much what she said but her enthusiasm and her laughter, which seemed to echo all through the yacht and keep even the seamen smiling.

Watching her closely the Marquis realised that while she was much more friendly to the men than any of his other guests would have been, she was not in any way familiar.

Nor did the seamen treat her with anything but respect.

She talked to them about their homes, their children and their wives and the Captain said,

“There has never been a young lady aboard, my Lord, who has been so admired as Miss Weller.”

“She is certainly a very pretty child,” the Marquis said in lofty tones.

“She may easily look like a child, my Lord,” the Captain said surprisingly, “but it is what a woman has in her heart that matters.”

The Marquis had repeated what he had said to Charles when they were alone and he replied quite seriously,

“I think the truth is that Shamara, like my mother, really cares about other people.”

The Marquis thought he could convincingly say the same.

He would have thought it strange, except that Shamara had spent the last two years caring for children.

He was sure from some of the things she had said that she had loved them.

He remembered how she had asked him to provide someone to take her place when she left the orphanage.

He knew that she was indeed very pleasant and friendly to Miss Bunting.

As a chaperone the elderly woman could not have been better.

During the rough seas she stayed in her cabin. When the sea became calm, she occasionally came on deck.

The Marquis had actually only seen her less than half-a-dozen times during the whole voyage and his valet assured him that she was happy and comfortable.

So as usual the Marquis thought complacently that everything was running smoothly and exactly as he wished.

*

The yacht had moved slowly into the Port of St. Louis very late at night.

When the Marquis came up for his breakfast, he was not in the least surprised to see Shamara leaning over the guard-rail.

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