101. A Call of Love by Barbara Cartland

involve me in one of his adventurous but frightening missions.”
    “I will not allow Papa to do anything frightening when I am there,” Aisha replied. “I only hope he will soon retire and come back to England.”
    “A great number of people would protest about that,” Lord Kenington said. “The Prime Minister spoke of him in glowing terms and I gather he is so valuable at the moment that you will have the whole British Army against you if you try to take him away.”
    Aisha laughed and they had been standing outside their cabins as they talked.
    “I expect you are wanting, my Lord, to get to work or enjoy yourself with one of those delightful books you brought with you. So I must not delay you any further or, of course, damage your reputation!”
    “I thought it was your reputation we were worrying about, Aisha,”
    “I am of no real importance. It is quite obvious it is you they will talk about, not me.”
    Lord Kenington did not argue. He merely smiled at her before he said,
    “Goodnight, Aisha, and tomorrow I suggest that we start the morning with a game of tennis. I intend to beat you hollow.”
    “I suppose you can try, but as luck is with me at the moment or rather it is you have made me lucky, I may easily win.”
    “I promise you it will not be easy,” Lord Kenington said, as he opened his cabin door.
    His valet had left everything ready for him and, having undressed, he sat in a comfortable chair and picked up the book he was reading.
    But he found himself thinking about Aisha and how clever she was and how amusing their talks had been.
    Tonight at dinner he felt that he had heard from the Dartwoods the same old stories about the same people over and over again – every one of them had been either cynical or damaging to the people concerned.
    And it made him wonder why gossip, especially by women, was seldom pleasant or complimentary.
    The gossips made it seem as if the Social world was concentrated entirely round themselves and seldom looked further than the end of their noses.
    In the next cabin Aisha thought the arrival of Lord Kenington’s friends had not been as depressing as she had feared it would be.
    At the same time she deeply regretted they were not still together, when they could talk on subjects that really interested her rather than just about other people.
    ‘The people I admire,’ she thought to herself, ‘have either been dead for years or are explorers and adventurers. One knows so little about them and I long to know more.’
    She thought that there was a question here that she might ask Lord Kenington the next time they were alone.
    The difficulty was when this would happen.
    *
    It was in fact very difficult for them to talk together during the rest of the voyage as they steamed towards the Suez Canal and then down the Red Sea and across to India.
    At night Aisha would think out questions that she longed to ask Lord Kenington and to which she was quite certain he would give her an answer.
    But unless they were actually playing deck tennis, the Countess always seemed to be hovering around them, monopolising Lord Kenington and making it clear that he must talk to her.
    And the result was that Aisha had to keep silent or disappear.
    It was only their tennis and that Lord Kenington insisted on walking round the deck in the morning, when Aisha could accompany him, that made it possible for them ever to be alone together.
    The Earl and Countess sat with them at every meal and, whenever they found a quiet secluded place on deck, the Countess invariably appeared after they had been there only a few minutes.
    It was when they were within sight of Calcutta that Aisha said a little wistfully to Lord Kenington,
    “I do hope we will meet again. There are so many questions I want to ask you, but since Naples I have never had the chance.”
    “And I should have enjoyed answering them,” Lord Kenington replied. “But of course we will meet again. When I meet your father, I will ask him if