The Marquis Is Trapped (16 page)

‘I refuse to think about her,’ he told himself, but she kept coming back into his thoughts.

*

They spent that night in a small bay on the Island of South Ronaldsay and the next morning they set off, making for Kirkwall.

Celina was so delighted by everything she saw – all the small Islands and the lighthouses thrilled her.

And as they passed places of interest on the shore, the Marquis found that she was as good as any guide.

Now that she was no longer frightened, she talked to him with the same eagerness and enjoyment as she did to her father.

To the Marquis this was a new experience.

He had never in his life been alone with a lovely woman without her expecting him to flirt with her and to pay her compliments and talk endlessly about herself.

Everything Celina had to say was either about the Orkneys or the sport they were both interested in.

At times she was like an excited child – she would jump up from the table at luncheon to run on deck because there was a ship in sight.

At other times, especially at nightfall, she seemed to slip into a mysterious world all of her own.

A world, the Marquis surmised, where there would be magicians and fairies, mermaids and undoubtedly giants and hobgoblins!

She was surprisingly well read and he found that he had to polish up his history so that he could argue with her over the many wars between England and France.

“The English were horribly cruel,” Celina asserted positively, “and I am
very
glad that I am a Scot!”

“I believe your mother was English?”

“Half English.  My grandmother is English, which is why she likes Bath, but my grandfather was entirely of Highland blood.”

She stated this so proudly that the Marquis laughed and teased her.

“Now you are being a snob. I know the Highlanders think they are superior to the Lowlanders and far superior to the English!”

“Which is what they are,” Celina said aggressively.

“Very well – I am waiting for you to prove it.”

“I hope I will have an opportunity,” retorted Celina.  “Then you will have to admit that I am right!”

She paused for a moment before she added,

“I am certainly not forgetting, my Lord, that you, an Englishman, have been wonderfully kind to me and you are exceedingly clever.”

The Marquis bowed deeply.

“Thank you,” he muttered sarcastically.

“No, I mean it.  You not only thought of escaping yourself but of taking me with you.  And I realise how very brilliant you were about it.”

She did not speak in the sort of sentimental, sugar sweet tone in which the Marquis was so used to receiving compliments.

She spoke as if she was admiring him just as a hero and simply stating the facts about him.

That, as he well knew, was something very different from what he was accustomed to.

As they steamed further along the East side of the Orkneys, they came to the Island of Shapinsay.

Further North there were many more Islands, which the Marquis thought they might explore later on.

He kept saying to himself that there was no hurry as the longer they spent on this adventure, the easier it would be for him when he returned to England!

*

It was on the next morning that Celina asked if they could go ashore at Shapinsay.

“It is an Island noted for its flowers,” she told the Marquis, “and it would be really delightful to see if it is as beautiful as it is written up to be.”

He thought her suggestion was a good idea.

As the sun was shining and there was little wind, he asked the Captain to find a small quiet bay where it would be easy for them to disembark.

The Captain was only too willing to oblige as just like the Marquis, he always felt the need to explore new places.

They sailed on for a mile or more and then he drew into a small bay that was large enough for
The Neptune
to anchor in.

A boat was lowered into the water and two sailors rowed the Marquis and Celina ashore.

“I hope we have chosen a good place,” said Celina.  “It looks very lovely and there appear to be no cottages in sight.”

“There are no towns or villages on the map I looked at,” replied the Marquis, “and it will do us good to stretch our legs.”

The sailors beached the boat so that they did not get their feet wet and they informed the Marquis that one of them would be on duty in
The Neptune
to receive his signal when he wished to return.

“We will not be away for too long, but bring a boat to us as soon as I signal.”

“Aye, aye, my Lord.”

They climbed up a low cliff and up a rough twisting path that had obviously been used many times before.

When they reached the top of the cliff, there was no sign of any human beings.

The ground was uncultivated and to Celina’s great delight it was covered in a mass of wild flowers.

“We have chosen the right place,” she called out to the Marquis.  “I just love wild flowers and I will pick a big bouquet to take back to
The Neptune
.”

“Let’s go and explore the woods first,” the Marquis suggested.  “Although I have a feeling that we will not find anything different from what we can see now.”

“There might be caves or even ruins of a Church or Castle.  The books I have read say that there are plenty of these on different Islands and I would love to see one.”

“We will certainly look,” smiled the Marquis.

As they walked towards the nearest wood, Celina kept stopping to pick wild orchids and many other flowers she found entrancing.

“I am very glad we anchored here,” she enthused.  “This is a lovely Island and I am certain that some of the Islands have been spoilt not only by the outbuildings of the wicked Earl Robert, but by other Earls of the Orkneys each competing for their place in posterity.”

The Marquis laughed.

“That is so true of men everywhere, not only in the Orkneys.”

“I suppose you say that because you are already at the top.  But there must be many people who are envious of you and who would just love to surpass you!”

The Marquis laughed again as he was thinking that she was always saying something unusual and intelligent.

Invariably he found her interesting or amusing and it suddenly struck him that for the last few days he had not been bored.

He had always imagined that if he was shut up with one woman on a ship, he would soon find her conversation monotonous and he would be utterly bored when they were not making love.

Last night he had found himself chuckling in his cabin after he had left Celina.

She had been so funny telling him about the people who had visited them in the Castle out of curiosity – and to please her father they had pretended they were sportsmen when they were not.

At other times she would talk to him about places he had visited and although she had never been lucky enough to go there herself, she had read about them.

In fact, more than once she had been able to prove him wrong on matters of history – firstly on the Rulers of Constantinople and then on the Pharaohs of Egypt.

“Celina, how can you possibly have received such a good education?” the Marquis asked.

“The Scots are very intelligent!”

“I was already aware of that before you kept telling me so!”

“Well, Papa found a good Tutor for me, and I really enjoy learning.  We also have an extensive library in the Castle, which I don’t think you saw.  I have taught myself so much about the world outside, because one day I would love to see it all.”

“I hope that day will not be far away, but you will have to find a husband first.”

Celina sighed.

“I suppose that it would be impossible for me to go round the world alone.  But I expect if I had a husband, he would always find a good excuse for fishing or shooting at home rather than climbing the Himalayas!”

The Marquis chortled.

“Is that what you would like to do, Celina?”

“Of course, but you will just tell me scornfully that I cannot do it because I am a
woman
.”

They had argued about this issue for some time.

Then the Marquis realised that he had made her tell him all about the dangers of climbing the Himalayas, as she had obviously read a dozen books on the subject.

‘She is certainly very unusual,’ he told himself for the hundredth time as he thought over what she had said.

Now as they walked further into the wood, Celina gave a little cry.

“Look!  There is a Castle in front of us.”

The Marquis saw that there was indeed a Castle or rather the ruins of one.

It had once been very large and although one of its two high turrets seemed intact, the other had collapsed.

“Oh, do let’s go and explore it,” Celina urged him.  “It is empty, but it will give us an idea of what the Orkney Castles were like.  There were, I believe, a great number of them.”

“We will go and take a look,” the Marquis agreed.  “At the same time we must be careful.  We don’t want the roof falling on our heads or to be trapped in some dungeon just because you wish to explore it!”

Celina laughed.

“I am prepared to ignore the dungeons if I can see the Castle, my Lord.”

They walked on through what must have been the Castle garden, but now there were only weeds and stones.

The Marquis saw that there was a doorway in front of them and they headed for it.

There was no glass left in the windows and the roof, which must have been very spectacular in its time, certainly needed repair.

But he was surprised to find the doors themselves were still standing.

When he pushed hard at one of the doors, it opened without any difficulty.

Then, as they walked in, suddenly and without any warning several men sprang at them.

As Celina screamed out, the Marquis felt a rope go round his body.

Two men bound him and although he struggled, it was too late.

His arms were tied firmly to his side and the men held him firmly and there was nothing he could do.

Another man tied a rope around Celina and she too was completely helpless.

“What does this all mean?” demanded the Marquis.  “Why are you doing this?”

The men did not answer.

They only pushed him along the passage in front of them and there was nothing he could do but move between them as they compelled him to do.

He was aware that Celina was being pushed along behind him.

In a frightened voice she asked,

“What is happening?  Where are they taking us?”

“I have no idea, Celina, but there is nothing we can do about it at present.”

They walked on and came to a staircase.  One of the men went ahead, pulling the Marquis, and another man walked behind pushing him forward.

They climbed a great number of stairs so that they were now on the second floor of the Castle, which, to the Marquis’s surprise, was in a much better condition than he might have expected.

The floorboards seemed to be sound and the walls, devoid of decoration, were intact with only a few holes in the ceiling overhead.

His captors now pulled him and Celina to a door at the end of a passage.

They knocked on the door and a man’s voice called out to enter.

To the Marquis’s surprise the room was in an even better condition than the passage outside.

In the centre of the room was a table and seated at it was a middle-aged man with dark hair and reasonably well dressed.

The men who had bound the Marquis propelled him forward until he was standing in front of the man seated at the table and a few seconds later Celina joined him.

In an untroubled voice, the Marquis spoke up,

“I think that there has been some mistake.  I am the Marquis of Kexley and we were exploring what I believed was an uninhabited Island.  If we have been trespassing on your property, we can only apologise.”

The man sitting at the table listened to the Marquis and then he said,

“I thinks you must be an important man when I sees your ship.  Well, as it ’appens, I’ve ’eard of you, my Lord Marquis, and I’m ever so glad to make you acquaintance.”

“Now will you be kind enough to tell your men to remove these ropes around us,” replied the Marquis firmly.

The man gave what seemed to Celina to be a sort of diabolical chuckle.

“Now that’s a different matter altogether and that be somethin’ that us ’as to discuss.”

“What can that possibly be?”