63 Ola and the Sea Wolf Read Free

its vivid hue made her skin seem almost dazzlingly white.
    ‘It is not surprising,’ he thought, ‘that any woman, especially a stepmother, would wish to be rid of a potential rival whose appearance is not only unusual but spectacular!’
    The Marquis felt that Ola was waiting for him to comment and he said dryly,
    “I cannot commend either suggestion to you. You must think of an alternative.”
    “I have thought and thought,” Ola replied, “but what can I do if Step-Mama will give me no money and will not permit me to live anywhere except with her?”
    “I see there is some difficulty about that.”
    “Of course there are difficulties!” she retorted. “I assure you I don’t intend to do anything stupid, but just to stay with the nuns and discuss my future with the Mother Superior who has always been so kind to me.”
    She paused before she added,
    “Perhaps I should take the veil. It would certainly prevent me from being bullied and persecuted as I have been these last years.”
    “I am surprised at your being so faint-hearted.”
    As if the Marquis had stung her, not only with his words but also with what she perceived as contempt in his voice, Ola sat upright.
    “It is all very well for you to talk,” she replied. “You have no idea what it is like to be slapped and pinched and even occasionally beaten when Step-Mama has a whip in her hand.”
    She drew in her breath before she went on,
    “The servants are not allowed to obey my orders or to bring me food if she says I am not to have it. When visitors come to the house, I am sent to my bedroom and if they are friends of Mama’s I am locked in, so that I cannot talk to them.”
    She gave a deep sigh.
    “I have tried to defy her, I have tried to assert myself for two years and now the only way I can remain sane is to run away.”
    “So you have decided to go to France,” the Marquis said. “Where does your escort come in to all this?”
    He saw Ola’s lips tighten and she replied in a very different voice,
    “He has behaved despicably, utterly and completely despicably! I did not believe that any man could be so treacherous!”
    “What did he do?”
    “He is my cousin, but I always thought that, although he is old, he was kind. When he came to stay, because I thought Step-Mama fancied him, I left a note in his bedroom begging him to see me alone and he agreed.”
    She glanced at the Marquis to see if he was listening and continued,
    “He gave me a perceptible nod when he came down to dinner and after I had been sent to bed early so that Step-Mama could talk to him, I managed to jump from the balcony to his room next door. It was a dangerous thing to do, but I managed it.”
    “Was he surprised?”
    “I think he thought I would come to him, but he did not know that I was locked in my room at night.”
    The Marquis looked surprised and Ola said scathingly,
    “That was to prevent me from finding out what my stepmother was up to when she had her friends to stay. She need not have worried. I was not interested. I only – hate her!”
    “I expect with hair that colour you are overemotional anyway!” the Marquis said playfully.
    “Any more references to my hair either from you or from anybody else,” Ola snapped, “and I shall either cut it all off or dye it!”
    She sounded like a small tiger cat spitting at him and, almost despite himself, the Marquis laughed.
    “I apologise, Miss Milford. Go on with what you were telling me.”
    “I told Giles – that is my cousin’s name – of my predicament – and to my delight he told me that he would take me to Paris and leave me at the Convent where I wanted to go.”
    “And you believed him?”
    “I made him swear on everything he held sacred that he would not betray me to Step-Mama. After that he was really obliging about the arrangements.”
    “So what happened?” the Marquis asked.
    “He left yesterday, but instead of going to London, as he told Step-Mama he intended to do, he stayed near