The Ship of Love Read online

  She had the impression of several men, perhaps as many as four, and she knew that their strength was too much for her. Despair filled her heart. She was being brutally kidnapped and there was nothing she could do.

  There was the sound of a door opening, footsteps on cobble stones, another door. Then she was roughly set down on a floor. She didn't know where she was, but it must be some kind of vehicle, because the next moment she could feel movement.

  'Where am I going?' she thought wretchedly. 'What is happening to me?'

  But she was afraid of the answer. She was caught up in a terrible nightmare, in which she was completely helpless. The only thing she could do was pray.

  "Please God, help me! Help me!" she whispered.

  She had no way of knowing how long the journey was, but it seemed endless. Then suddenly she felt the vehicle come to a standstill.

  'Now I will at least know where I have been taken and what is happening,' she thought.

  She felt herself lifted and thrown over somebody's shoulder. She tried to cry out, but the blanket was so thick she couldn't make herself heard. Nor could she struggle, so tightly was she held. Again she had the impression of being carried up several steps, then down a narrow passage. Then so unexpectedly that she gave a little cry, she was put down on the floor.

  For the first time there were voices, speaking a strange language. Then footsteps moving away and a door slamming. She could no longer hear them.

  By now she was finding it hard to breathe. The weight of the blankets covering her and the fear and terror in her own heart, made her feel almost as if she was being suffocated and would die.

  It was then that the blanket was lifted off her. To her surprise she saw a woman looking at her.

  Rowena stared.

  Then the woman said in French, "Bonjour mademoiselle, or must I speak English?"

  The last words were difficult to understand. But Rowena replied: "Where am I?"

  The woman sat down on a chair beside her. Rowena became aware that she was in a large and impressive bedroom, and was lying on a bed.

  The woman was staring at her. After a moment Rowena asked again: "Where am I?"

  "In – the Sultan's palace," the woman replied.

  She was again speaking in rather broken English and hesitated between almost every word.

  "The Sultan's palace!" Rowena repeated. "Why was I brought here?"

  "He thinks – you very pretty," the woman answered.

  Rowena drew in her breath in horror. The Sultan – that disgusting, horrible little man – had kidnapped her.

  She remembered all the things she had read about Sultans and their wicked behaviour. She remembered how he had looked at her with his dark eyes and the unpleasant way it had made her feel.

  Drawing in her breath she said, "Tell me why I am here?"

  The woman smiled. "Because His Highness think you pretty," she replied.

  "You mean he has captured me and is making me his prisoner?" Rowena asked.

  Her words came with difficulty. But already she was feeling frantic and afraid. The Sultan planned to add her to his harem, as a concubine!

  Rowena pushed the heavy blankets further down her legs and with an effort sat up in bed.

  "I must go back to my yacht," she said. "The Duke of Wenfield who called on the Sultan yesterday will be very angry I have been taken away."

  The woman smiled. "He not know – where you go," she said.

  With horror, Rowena realised that this was true. They would find her cabin empty and have no idea what had happened to her.

  "The Duke is a very important man in England," she said, trying to sound confident. "He will be very angry I was carried away in this manner."

  She saw as she spoke the woman did not understand what she was saying. She therefore repeated what she had said in French.

  The woman smiled again. "He perhaps – angry with you," she said in broken English, "but he not know – where you are."

  It was true, she thought. How could he guess that the Sultan could do this monstrous thing?

  Slowly, so that the woman could understand, she said, "Tell the Sultan I must go back immediately."

  The woman laughed. "If you – tell His Highness – that," she said, "he may be very – insulted by you. You are – honoured by him thinking you pretty – and loving you."

  With difficulty Rowena stopped herself screaming.

  'How can I get out? How can I possibly escape?' she asked herself.

  But for the moment she could find no answer.

  "Now," the woman said, "you get up and dress. Perhaps – the Sultan see you."

  Rowena decided that it would be wise to dress, as she would not look very dignified in her night-clothes. Her nightgown was transparent, her dressing-gown would hardly make her seem an impressive figure however angry she might actually be and however much she insisted that she should be taken back to the yacht.

  "Very well," she said. "I will change into a dress but it must have a skirt not trousers."

  She wondered if she was asking the impossible, for an English dress in this place. But if she wore trousers like the other women, she would seem no different, and she wanted the Sultan to understand clearly that she was very different.

  She must impress on him that she was an English woman, and he was offending her country.

  'I must be very firm,' she told herself. At the same time she was very frightened.

  How could Mark ever think of looking for her here? Since she'd left the ship in the middle of the night, he might think she had fallen into the sea and been drowned.

  She knew that only God could save her now. Desperately she shut her eyes and put her hands together.

  "Help me! Help me!" she prayed. "Oh heavens, what is going to happen to me?"

  CHAPTER NINE

  When Rowena opened her eyes again she saw the woman coming towards her, carrying a European dress in her arms, which she threw onto the bed.

  She thought the woman might be forty, or even older. She must have been pretty when she was younger. Perhaps she too had come here as a prisoner, and there was a chance of appealing to her.

  "Who are you? What is your name?"

  The woman smiled. "My name is Anita," she said. "I am French, and was once a governess."

  Her English was jerky, as though she had difficulty in remembering.

  "Then how did you come here?" Rowena asked.

  Anita smiled. "I very pretty and the Sultan like me very much." She added, almost as if she was speaking to herself. "He – very fond of me – until I grew older."

  "The Duke who I was with yesterday will be very, very angry that the Sultan has stolen me. He will come here and tell him so."

  To her astonishment Anita laughed.

  "The Sultan too clever for that," she replied. "He make the Duke believe you drown at sea."

  Rowena stared at her. "How can he do that?" she asked.

  "The Duke will find your shoes."

  Rowena gave a cry of horror. "How would he do anything so wicked to an Englishwoman?"

  Anita shrugged her shoulders. "You very pretty," she replied.

  Rowena felt if Anita said that again she would scream. The other woman seemed to think that Rowena's beauty was enough of an explanation for everything, and perhaps, in this terrifying country, it was.

  "And the Sultan not frightened of your country," Anita continued. "Here he is very important and visitors like you – bow to him."

  Rowena bit her tongue to stop herself saying that never, neverwould she bow to the Sultan.

  And she was full of despair. Now the whole horrible business was explained. How easy it would be for Mark to believe she had drowned.

  'He will never think of looking for me here in the palace,' she told herself.

  Anita was shaking out the dress. Rowena thought it must have come from another of the Sultan's kidnap victims.

  'I have to be careful over this,' she told herself. 'I must be cleverer than they are
and somehow, although I have no idea how, I must let Mark know where I am.'

  She got up from the bed and let Anita help her change.

  At least she looked English, she thought with relief.

  "Soon His Highness will condescend to see you," Anita said. "But first I take you to the room that will be yours, and that part of the garden you can walk in."

  "I would love to see the garden," Rowena replied, thinking it was perhaps a way of escape.

  As they walked through the palace the surroundings changed, becoming less luxurious, more bare and plain. At last Anita stopped and opened a door.

  "This – your – room," she said. Rowena stared at it in horror. It was small and roughly furnished. It had one window looking out onto a garden, but no way of getting out. In fact, it was little more than a prison cell.

  "You sleep here," Anita said. "I – near you and other wives of His Highness – next door."

  Rowena drew in her breath.

  She was in the harem.

  "You look at your garden," Anita said. "Come, see where you go when you want air."

  She led the way back into the narrow passage and they passed several rooms, before she stopped and opened a door which Rowena saw led to the garden she had glimpsed from her bedroom window. Although there were a few flowers and several small bushes, the garden was closed in on either side by a high brick wall. It was at least twice the height of any woman.

  She was trapped.

  "You – in garden when His Highness not want you," Anita said. "Very nice garden. You breathe the air and see the sky."

  She took her back to the bedroom. "You stay here until His Highness send for you. I – bring you something to eat and drink."

  She departed noiselessly, and soon returned with a servant, carrying food and drink.

  It was with difficulty Rowena managed to say "Thank you."

  As Anita sat down on a chair beside her, she asked, "Were you kidnapped too?"

  Anita shrugged.

  "His Highness want me," she replied. "The French Monsieur whose daughters I teach, believe I drown in the sea. They found my coat, my dress and my hat. What else could they think?"

  "Wouldn't you like to go back to France?"

  "There is nobody for me now in France. It is too long ago?"

  The way she spoke and the expression in her eyes made Rowena feel with an inexpressible terror that this was what would happen to her. If Mark really believed she had been drowned at sea, he would sail away. She would not only never see him again, but she would be unable to return to England.

  And her grandfather? What would he think? Would he just accept that she had drowned? But then, what else could he do?

  "Soon you will become his new wife," Anita said.

  "I will never be his wife," Rowena replied fiercely.

  Anita gave a gasp of horror. "No, no – you not say that. Sultan very angry. Perhaps have you beaten for disrespect. But I not tell."

  "You won't need to," Rowena said. "I'll tell him myself. Do you think I'm afraid of him? I'm not."

  "But you must be," Anita said. "Please, it is not safe not to be afraid. For your own sake I implore you, be afraid. Show him that you respect him."

  "I don't respect him, and I won't pretend to," Rowena said.

  "Then you will have – very sad life here," Anita predicted.

  "I won't have any kind of a life here. I am an Englishwoman, and he has no right to keep me here."

  Having stated her position with more confidence than she felt, she turned her attention to the breakfast. At last Anita said,

  "Now I go see if the Sultan – ready for you."

  She did not wait for Rowena to answer but left the room.

  Rowena went once more to the window. But however much she looked at the walls, she couldn't see any way of climbing over them.

  For a terrible moment she wanted to bang her head against the wall in her desperation.

  "Please God," she prayed, "let Mark and Grandpapa realise that I'm not dead."

  She heard a footstep outside and hurried back to the bed. She didn't want Anita to see her at the window and guess that she was trying to plan an escape.

  Anita entered the room.

  "His Highness will deign to see you now," she said.

  Rowena lifted her head high and followed her without a word, striving not to appear as frightened as she felt.

  Along passage after passage they walked, leaving the prison part of the building behind, before entering the luxurious part, where she and Mark had been entertained the previous day.

  At last they reached the throne room, but instead of being respectfully ushered in, as before, she was stopped at the entrance by two guards carrying tall spears, which they crossed in front of her.

  "His Highness will let us know when he wishes us to enter," Anita explained.

  After a ten minute wait a message came from inside the room. The guards uncrossed their spears and Anita led her inside.

  The Sultan was looking, Rowena thought, even more frightening than she had expected him to be. As she walked across the room, his eyes seemed to take in every inch of her. It made her shiver.

  Anita curtsied low. The Sultan looked at Rowena, as though expecting her too to curtsey, but she remained on her feet, glaring at him.

  An unpleasant little smile crossed his lips. With a jerk of his head he indicated for Anita to depart, and she glided away.

  For a long moment the Sultan looked at Rowena in silence. At last he spoke.

  "You are disrespectful in not bowing to me. For your own sake I suggest you mend your manners."

  Silence.

  She would neither answer nor curtsey.

  "You are unaccustomed to our ways," said the Sultan in a cold, silky tone, "so I will give you another chance. You will prostrate yourself on the floor, this instant."

  She met his gaze, unflinching. But she did not move.

  Slowly he rose from his golden seat. Reaching behind it he removed something. Rowena flinched when she saw that it was a whip.

  He came down from the dais and began to walk around her, his cold eyes fixed on her. Rowena's heart beat with fear, but she would not yield.

  The whip cracked.

  The Sultan aimed it expertly so that it did not touch her, but she felt it whistle past her. So that was it. He was trying to terrorise her. She gritted her teeth and did not move.

  The whip cracked again.

  Once more she was unharmed, but she felt the breeze, it came so close.

  Her defiance seemed to drive him into a frenzy. He cracked the whip again and again, always close to her but never touching her, while Rowena stood her ground.

  Frightened as she was, a kind of triumph was growing in her. He hadn't defeated her, and he knew it. It was driving him mad.

  At last he tossed the whip aside, and faced her.

  "Why do you waste your time defying me?" he demanded. "It will all end in the same way, with you grovelling at my feet, begging for mercy or for love."

  "Never," she snapped.

  "Well, we will see who is right. But it will be well for you if you learn quickly that you are my property."

  "I am not your property. I am a free born English woman, and my friends will be looking for me. You should beware of what will happen when they find me."

  "Me? Beware?" He laughed. "Nobody will come looking for you. The Duke of Wenfield will quickly forget you. He thinks you are dead, and dead you are to the world of which you were part."

  "If you were an English gentleman you would return me," said Rowena defiantly "Then how fortunate for me that I am not an English gentleman. I want you! I have you! Soon we will talk. Then you will become my wife. And then you will beg for my love."

  "I will never beg for your love – "

  She stopped, thunderstruck by the thought that had come to her.

  The Sultan had already turned away, signifying that her opinions were of no interest to him.

  The next moment the
guards seized her and dragged her to the door. There she was handed back into Anita's care.

  In silence Rowena walked back to her prison cell. It was a relief when she could be alone again and face the shattering thought that had overtaken her.

  She would never beg for the Sultan's love, because he was not, and never could be, the man she loved.

  The man she loved was Mark.

  It was Mark.

  It had always been Mark.

  How long had she been in love with him and refused to admit it to herself?

  Perhaps from the first evening when he had made her so angry, yet left her with a strange feeling of excitement. He had thrilled her even when she had thought she disliked him.

  And then they had met again, in the woods, and she had sensed his power even when she rebelled against it. Her heart and her instincts had known then that the man she loved must be strong, as this man was strong.

  He had proposed going away, and she had immediately found an excuse to go with him. Even then she'd blinded herself to her own feelings.

  'I love him,' she whispered to herself. 'I love him. And he loves me, I know he does.'

  Now that her own heart was open to her, she could see into his heart too and she found there a passion as overwhelming as her own, yet with the control and wisdom to bide its time.

  She could see his eyes again, desperate in case she loved another man. She could hear the mysterious words he'd spoken to her in their late evening conversations, words she hadn't understood at the time, but which were wonderfully clear to her now.

  'I hope you marry a man who loves you as you deserve to be loved, a man who would lay down his life for you.'

  He had meant himself. She knew that now with every fibre of her being. The man she worshiped loved her in return, and here, in this dark, hopeless prison, she was suddenly filled with joy.

  *

  Anita returned in a few hours, with two other women, carrying an elaborate eastern costume that seemed to be made of cloth of gold.

  "You are summoned," Anita explained. "The Sultan wishes you to wear this." She indicated the gold costume, which the women had laid down.

  "I will not," Rowena said at once.

  Anita gave a silent signal to the two women, who immediately seized hold of Rowena, hauling her off the bed and tearing at her clothes.