“I have heard of you! You are famous and, of course, you have a yacht. That is why you are here. Oh, please – please, take me to France. I have to get away – and quickly!”
“From the man upstairs who is abducting you?”
“Yes – I never imagined – I never dreamt for one – moment that he would behave – ”
Her words seemed to fail and she made a kind of helpless gesture with her hands that was somehow pathetic.
“I am waiting for you to tell me your name,” the Marquis said.
“It is – Ola Milford. My father was Lord Milford and we live near Canterbury.”
“I seem to have heard the name,” the Marquis admitted cautiously.
“Papa did not often go to London. He preferred being in the country and he was not well for two years before he – died.”
“You say it is your stepmother you are running away fro
