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Authors: Barbara Cartland

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It was then that Celina took over and she led them along the dark side of the garden towards the shore some distance from the jetty where
The Neptune
was moored.

There was a wide wall surrounding the garden at this point, so that they could not be seen from the windows of the Castle until they were actually halfway to the jetty.

It was then because both his arms were encumbered with carrying their clothes that Gilbert stood back.

He let the Marquis go first and he hurried down the jetty, conscious that Captain Gordon always had one of the sailors on duty at night.

To his relief, as he neared the yacht, he could see a sailor standing in the bow.  He was looking at the moors with the moonlight shining on them.

Thinking it was a mistake to call out, the Marquis whistled and the second time he did so, the sailor turned round.

Then the Marquis was waving his handkerchief to attract his attention.

He came hurrying to the side of the yacht and it was only a matter of a few minutes before they were on board.

“Wake the Captain,” the Marquis ordered, “and tell him I wish to put to sea immediately.”

“Aye, aye, my Lord,” replied the sailor.

He asked no questions and as if it was quite a usual routine, he saluted the Marquis and went below.

The powerful engines of
The Neptune
began to turn over even before Captain Gordon came up to the Saloon.

The Marquis and Celina were waiting for him there, Gilbert having gone below to the cabins with the luggage.

Captain Gordon entered.

“Good evening, my Lord.  I understand you wish to put to sea.”

“It is a matter of urgency, Captain, and I would be grateful if you would move out of the harbour as quietly as possible.”

It was then that Celina spoke up – she had not said a word since they had left her bedroom.

“Oh, please,” she implored the Marquis, “before we go to London, can we sail in your beautiful yacht and see – the Orkney Islands?  I have longed to see them ever since I was a child, but something has always prevented me from going.  As Papa does not have a yacht, I had almost given up hope of ever seeing them.”

Just for a moment the Marquis hesitated.

Then he realised he had no wish to return quickly to London – otherwise Isobel would be waiting for him.

In fact, even if he took Celina to Bath, it would be as far as possible by sea.

He turned towards Celina with a smile.

“That is a good idea.  I have always been interested in the Orkney Islands myself and this is certainly an ideal opportunity to see them.”

“Oh, thank you!  Thank you!” cried Celina.  “It has been one of my dreams for years, but one I thought would never come true.”

“But now it will, my Lady,” exclaimed the Captain.  “And may I suggest that you retire for a good sleep before we cross what I know is a very rough piece of water before we actually reach the Islands.”

“That is a most sensible suggestion, Captain,” said the Marquis, “which we will both obey!”

He realised as he spoke and without being told that the Captain was just as anxious to see the Orkneys as he was himself.

They had always seemed somewhat mysterious and ethereal Islands and so few people who reached the North of Scotland troubled to go any further.

‘It will be part of the adventure,’ the Marquis said to himself.

When the Captain disappeared to go to the bridge, he stood watching
The Neptune
move away from Darendell Castle.

Just how on earth, he pondered to himself, could he ever have expected or imagined that he would have found himself in such an extraordinary situation?

He had merely planned to go on a quiet fishing visit to an old friend of his father’s.

He wished he could see the fury on the Countess’s face tomorrow morning as once again her stepdaughter had managed to evade one of her wicked plots.

‘The woman is nothing short of an evil she-devil,’ the Marquis muttered to himself.

Then he was aware that Celina was standing beside him and as
The Neptune
slowly moved out of the bay and into the sea, she gave a deep sigh.

“We have done it!” she murmured.  “
We have won!
 And now Stepmama – will not be able to reach me!”

She spoke very softly as if speaking to herself.

Then she suddenly turned towards the Marquis and slipped her hand into his.

“Thank you, thank you, my Lord, from the bottom of my heart.  How can I ever thank you enough for being so magnificent and for saving me?”

“You have saved me as well, Celina, but I think it is something we should wait to talk about tomorrow.  Go to bed now and happy dreams.  All your troubles are over.”

He thought as he looked at her in the moonlight that no one could have looked happier or more excited.

And so beautiful.

“I am not only going to thank you,” she said softly, “but also God because He heard my prayers.”

Then without waiting for his reply, she turned away and disappeared below.

The Marquis stayed on deck thinking that Fate, or perhaps the God to whom Celina had prayed had certainly saved them.

It had been very nearly a disaster – so close that it made him almost shudder to think about it.

He had to admit that the Countess had thought out her plot very cleverly.

There was no doubt in his mind that if he had drunk ‘the nightcap’ and if he had not been lucky enough to reach his yacht, everything would have been very different.

He would certainly have been trapped into walking down the aisle with Celina on his arm.

He looked up at the watery moon and smiled.

He was still a free man and he now vowed to go on fighting for that freedom.

‘Nothing and no one,’ he swore, ‘will force me to embark on matrimony until I am ready to do so.’

CHAPTER SIX

By the time the Marquis woke in the morning,
The
Neptune
had passed by Duncansby Head and was entering the Pentland Firth.

The Marquis had left it up to the Captain to choose which part of the Orkneys they visited first.

But he thought that he would be likely to make for Kirkwall, as it was, as far as he could remember, the most interesting and intriguing of the Orkney towns.

He went to the Saloon for breakfast and found that Celina was already there.

“It’s so thrilling!” she exclaimed.  “We are leaving Scotland behind and I am sure that you will be enchanted to see the Orkneys.”

“I have never really thought that much about them before,” admitted the Marquis.  “So you will have to help me with my history.”

“I have read a lot about all the Islands.  That is why I am so keen to visit the Orkneys, but, as I have told you, Papa does not have a yacht and it is very expensive to rent one.”

“Well, now you have your wish, so you must make the best of it.”

“You can be quite certain I will!”

The Marquis was thinking again that it suited him not to be in a hurry to return to England.

He could go to his house in the country rather than to his London house, but he was still worrying that Isobel would follow him there and try once again to make him marry her.

‘The longer I stay away the better,’ he decided.

He wondered if there was any good fishing in the Orkneys.  Perhaps he could rent a stretch on a river for a short time?

He did not mention this idea to Celina, as she might, after she had seen the Orkneys, then be longing to go to her grandmother.

In which case he would have to turn back and make for Bristol, the nearest port to Bath.

In the meantime with the charming Mrs. Gordon on board, no one could claim that the girl was not properly chaperoned.

That was really all that mattered.

Almost as if she knew what he was thinking, Celina piped up,

“Mrs. Gordon called me this morning and she was so nice and kind.  I think you are lucky to have someone so delightful on board.”

“The lucky one is you, Celina.  You do realise that if Mrs. Gordon had not been on board to chaperone you, your father and stepmother could easily make the same fuss about our being on
The Neptune
as they would have made about last night at the Castle?”

Celina stared at him in surprise and he realised that she had not thought of this possibility.

“But Mrs. Gordon is here,” she replied as if to reassure herself.

“Yes, indeed she is, and thus no one can ever claim you are unchaperoned and unprotected.”

Celina gave a deep sigh of relief.

“For a moment you scared me, because I am quite sure that Stepmama will not give up easily.”

“We will not think about her, Celina, and it will be best not to talk about her again.  We are going to visit some magical Islands and I want you to enjoy every moment.”

“I most certainly will,” enthused Celina.  “If they are magical Islands, it is you, my Lord, who have waved a magic wand to find a magical ship to take us there.”

The way she was speaking told the Marquis that she was changing the whole venture into a fairy story.

He just knew it would be a great mistake for her to go on thinking about her stepmother.

And the same applied to him.

If this was an adventure, he wanted to forget all the difficulties that had led to it – and that included Isobel.

The sea in the Pentland Firth was always known to be rough, as it is the point where the Atlantic Ocean met the North Sea.

The Marquis told Celina she was to sit and read a book or talk to him.

“I don’t want you,” he said, as they sailed pass the lighthouse on Duncansby Head, “to slip up and break your leg and it’s never very pleasant to be seasick!”

“I am never seasick,” she boasted.  “Papa and I ran into a storm once when we were in a small fishing boat and practically everyone felt sick except me.”

“I still think it would be wiser to sit down!”

“Of course I will, my Lord, even though I want to see the waves splashing over the bow.”

She did not argue with him, which he appreciated.

“I do wish I had thought to bring one of the books from Papa’s library, but I will try to remember some of the more interesting stories I have read about the Orkneys as we come to them.”

She paused before she continued,

“I expect that you know that the Islands were Scandinavian until 1468?  They came with Margaret of Denmark as part of her dowry when she married James III of Scotland, and the Islanders then became far from happy with Scottish rule.”

The Marquis admitted that he knew nothing about Scottish rule in the Orkneys.

“It all came to a head in 1565 and I must tell you how cruel Earl Robert Stewart, son of James V, was to the poor Islanders.”

The Marquis was not particularly interested to start with, but then Celina went on to describe how by a trick, and without a sanction from the Scottish Parliament, Earl Robert had managed to acquire the Islands for himself.

Her voice was very moving as she told him about the cruelty he inflicted on their people.

“Earl Robert started off,” she said, “by introducing a coinage of his own minting and then he raised the rents of the tenants to more than they could pay or endure.”

“Did no one interfere to stop him, Celina?”

Celina shook her head.

“I think the truth was the Orkneys were so far away and no one worried that he gave secret encouragement to pirates who shared their booty with him.”

“It seems extraordinary.  Why did the authorities in Edinburgh not help the people?”

“They might have, but the Earl forbade anyone to cross over the Firth without his permission.  So no one in Scotland knew that he made the people build his Palaces at Kirkwall and at Scalloway on the Shetlands by forced labour.  And the penalty in those days for dissent was torture and judicial murder.”

Now the Marquis was intrigued.

He listened attentively while Celina told him how the wicked Earl had forced people to work for him without any payment.

Finally the Czar of Russia heard of this tyrant in the Islands and alerted the Earl of Caithness.

“And about time!” exclaimed the Marquis.

“It certainly was.  Two great cannons were wheeled down from Edinburgh and shipped at Leith together with a strong military force.”

“So the people were freed!”

“To a certain extent, but they never wholly regained their freedom and happiness until recently.”

“I am very glad such horrors no longer exist.”

But, the Marquis reflected, there were still local horrors around – like Celina’s stepmother.

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