Secret Harbor Read Free Page A

answer.
    Roderick Maigrin wanted her not only for her looks, and that was obvious from the expression in his eyes, but also because she was her father’s daughter and therefore socially even in the small community that existed on Grenada, of some importance.
    It was the reason why, she thought, he had been attracted to her father in the first place, not only because they were neighbours, but because he wanted to be a friend of the man who was received, consulted and respected by the Governor and by everybody else who mattered.
    Before she had left the island Grania had begun to understand the social snobberies which existed wherever the British ruled.
    But her mother had made it very clear that she disliked Roderick Maigrin not so much because of his breeding, but because of his behaviour.
    “That man is coarse and vulgar,” Grania remembered her saying to her father, “and I will not have him here in my house.”
    “He is a neighbour,” the Earl had replied lightheartedly, “and we have not so many that we can be choosy.”
    “I intend to be what you call ‘choosy’ when it comes to friendship.” the Countess had replied. “We have plenty of other friends when we have time to see them, none of whom wish to be associated with Roderick Maigrin.”
    Her father had argued, but her mother had been adamant.
    “I do not like him, and I do not trust him,” she said finally, “and what is more, whatever you may say, I believe the stories of the way he ill-treats his slaves, so I will not have him here.”
    Her mother had her way to the extent that Roderick Maigrin did not come to Secret Harbour, but Grania knew that her father visited him and they met drinking in other parts of the island.
    Now her mother was dead and her father had agreed that she should marry a man who was everything she hated and despised, and from whom she shrank in terror.
    “What am I to do?”
    The question was beating again and again in her head, and when she went into her bedroom and locked her door, she felt as if the very air coming from the open window repeated and repeated it.
    She did not light the candles that were waiting for her on her dressing-table, but instead went to look out at a sky encrusted with thousands of stars.
    The moonlight was shining on the palm trees as they moved in the wind which still blew faintly from the sea.
    It had dropped with the coming of night, but there was always a fresh breeze blowing over the island to take the edge off the heavy, damp heat which at the height of the sun could be almost intolerable.
    As she stood there, Grania felt that she could smell the stringent fragrance of nutmegs, the sharpness of cinnamon and the clinging scent of cloves.
    Perhaps she was imagining them, but they were so much part of her memories of Grenada that she felt the spices of the island were calling to her and in their own way welcoming her home.
    But home to what?
    To Roderick Maigrin and the terror she felt she must die rather than endure!
    How long she stood at the window she had no idea.
    She only knew that for the moment the years in which she had been in England seemed to vanish as if they had never happened and instead she was part of the island as she had been for so many years of her life.
    It was not only the magic of the tropical jungle, the giant tree ferns, the liana vines and the cocoa plantations, but it was also the story of her own life.
    A world of Caribs, of buccaneers and pirates, of hurricanes and volcanic eruptions, of battles on land and sea between the French and the English.
    It was all so familiar that it had become part of herself and indivisible from her, and the education she had received in London peeled away in the warmth of the air.
    She was no longer Lady Grania O’Kerry, but instead one with the spirits of Grenada, one with the flowers, the spices, the palm trees and the softly lapping waves of the sea which she could hear far away in the distance.
    “ Help me! Help me!” Grania cried