The Heart of love by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9781908303196
Publisher: Barbara Cartland.com
Published: 2011-11-13T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

All that night, Verena lay awake on her bunk.

As the bells sounded for the last watch, she rose up and kissed the photograph of her mother.

‘Oh, Mama, if only you were here. You would know what I must do to avoid being discovered.’ She kissed the photograph once more with fervour before placing it back on the small cabinet by her bed.

Her eyes felt hollow and her mouth dry.

‘I will go to the galley for a drink of water,’ she decided.

Cautiously she dressed in her uniform before stealing out of her cabin.

‘I do hope that everyone is asleep,’ she thought as she slipped through the corridors. ‘The Marquis and Lord Mountjoy were up rather late – they were playing music for hours after we had all gone to bed.’

The galley was strangely quiet when she reached it with only the purr of the engines beneath.

Verena helped herself to a glass of water and drank it standing up. She was just about to pour a second, when she heard a noise in the corridor outside.

Her heart missed a beat as she froze to the spot. Straining her ears she could distinctly hear shuffling noises – like someone in their slippers was kicking invisible dust.

‘It must be Lord Mountjoy,’ she thought to herself, in a panic. ‘He has been lying in wait for me and now he’s come to confront me!”

Verena stood terrified in the galley for quite some time. Eventually, she plucked up the courage to creep towards the door and peer down the corridor.

There was nothing and no one there.

She ran all the way back to her cabin, leaving her glass of water behind.

*

At around half-past six, Verena gave up any notion of sleeping. She arose from her bunk and looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were sunken with a black smudge under each one. Her skin was pasty and drawn.

‘I am glad that no one expects me to look decorative,’ she mused as she left her cabin once more for the galley. ‘Today I am grateful for being just a chef and not a lady on constant display.’

Once there she took down the book of menus and scanned the pages.

‘Alas, there is not enough fruit for me to make a salad or compote and I so wanted to present something different for breakfast this morning.’

She closed the book of menus in despair. Nothing had inspired her.

Just then, Pete walked in, yawning and tousle-haired, looking as if he had literally just fallen from his bunk.

“Morning, Jean. Cor, I don’t ’alf ’ave a thumpin’ ’ead this morning!”

His dancing black eyes were sunken into his face and as he came closer, Verena could smell the odour of stale ale and smoke upon him.

“Pfft! Go away,” she said, wrinkling her nose, “you smell ’orrible!”

“Now, now, take pity on a boy. I’m dying of thirst. Do you have any of that lemonade you made yesterday?”

Verena opened up the store cupboard door and peered inside. On a shelf in the middle was a jug covered with muslin.

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