Read Online Fragrant Flower by Barbara Cartland - Free Book Online

were extremely obvious.
    He was sorry for any man who was finally caught in the matrimonial net for either of the Osmund twins.
    Apart from the fact that the girls had little brain and even less personality, whoever they married would always be overpowered both by Lady Osmund and the General.
    It was strange, Lord Sheldon thought to himself, that two such unprepossessing people, although he did not question the General’s military ability, should have Azalea as a niece.
    He had not seen her again since the first dinner aboard, but he supposed that she, like every other woman on the Orissa , had succumbed to the tempest.
    As the steward offered Lord Sheldon the first course he had ordered, having difficulty keeping his balance as he did so, his Lordship remarked,
    “I appear to be alone in my glory.”
    “We are certainly not overworked at the Captain’s table, my Lord,” the steward replied. “The Captain has been on the bridge since we left harbour and has not been down for a single meal. You and Miss Osmund are the only passengers we have the pleasure of serving.”
    “Miss Osmund?” Lord Sheldon questioned.
    “Yes, my Lord, but she comes early for luncheon and dinner. Not a very social-minded young lady, if I may say so.”
    Lord Sheldon did not reply. He was thinking of what the steward had said.
    Now he remembered that he had imagined he caught a glimpse of Azalea only the day before. Then he had told himself he must be mistaken, for he had seen a figure that he thought resembled her on the Second Class deck.
    He wondered why she should be visiting someone who was not travelling in the same class as she was herself. Lord Sheldon had seen the passenger list when he came aboard. It was his invariable habit to have the list sent to him by the shipping company with his ticket, so that he could know who were to be his fellow-travellers on long and often tedious voyages.
    It was when he read the passenger list that he had realised the identity of Azalea.
    The Commander-in-Chief had merely asked him to look after Lady Osmund and her twin daughters.
    When he had seen their three names tabulated and after them, ‘Miss Azalea Osmund,’ he had known that his behaviour in the Study at Battlesdon House had been somewhat reprehensible.
    And yet how, he asked himself, could Lady Osmund and the General have produced a daughter who was so unlike her sisters?
    The Purser had enlightened him as soon as he came aboard.
    “Lady Osmund was asking for you, my Lord. She would be grateful if you would kindly notify her of your arrival.”
    The Purser had pointed to the plan of the ship in front of him.
    “Lady Osmund is in Cabin ‘B’,” he said, “Miss Violet and Miss Daisy Osmund are in Cabin ‘C’ and Miss Azalea is on the other side of the passage in Cabin ‘J.’”
    Lord Sheldon had looked at the position of the cabins as they were pointed out to him, and the Purser, as if he guessed at his unspoken comment, remarked, “Miss Azalea Osmund is only a niece, my Lord.”
    She might be “only a niece” as the Purser had said somewhat disparagingly, Lord Sheldon thought, but that did not really explain why she had not attended the farewell party the General had given at Battlesdon House, or why she had been wearing a servant’s apron.
    It was a mystery and Lord Sheldon enjoyed mysteries. He had, in fact, while he was in India, been very much more than a successful soldier.
    Those who knew that country, and the difficulties and perils encountered there by the British troops, were aware that there was within the Indian Administration an amazing system of espionage that extended from the Northern Passes to the Southernmost tip of the country.
    All sorts and conditions of different peoples passed information in various ways to the Government, and their identity was never revealed beyond the number by which they were known to each other.
    Lord Sheldon had been ‘C-z7’ and, when he communicated with a certain horse-dealer in