“Bother my diplomatic career,” Jimmy said, “you are more worry than all the Diplomatic Service put together. What you want is a husband and the sooner you get one the better.”

Skye laughed.

“So you think that only a husband could protect me from the band of robbers. Don’t worry, Jimmy, I can look after myself. I am not afraid of any man – not even El Diablo himself!”

Chapter 2

“I am alone!”

Skye said the words aloud as she awoke to the sound of the waves lapping against the sides of the yacht. Then she sprang out of bed and ran to the open porthole to feel the breeze from the sea fanning her face.

“I am happy – so, so happy!” she cried to the sea.

It had been almost breathlessly hot the night before but now, although the sun was blazing, the air was cool and Skye stretched her white arms high above her head. It was the ecstatic action of someone tinglingly alive with the joy of living and reaching out towards the unknown.

“Alone! Alone!”

She turned from the porthole and had a sudden glimpse of herself reflected in the long mirrors over the dressing table.

Her chiffon nightgown, blown by the wind, clung to her figure and the sunlight shining through the sheer transparency of it revealed the beauty of her body. The small, firm, tip-tilted breasts, the tiny waist and the exquisite curves of her hips.

She was as beautiful at that moment as a Greek Goddess, but Skye’s thoughts were very far from appreciation of her own beauty.

She was alone at last! She was alone to do as she liked, her own Mistress, her own keeper.

For years she had chafed against the careful chaperoning of her Guardians. When her father was killed at Dunkirk, she had been left in the care of her aunt. Skye had loved her father’s only sister, and yet at the same time she had felt stifled by the soft gentleness which dominated her existence and the conventions that Aunt Hilda would not set aside however much she protested against them.

“I don’t think we will do that, dear!” she would say quietly, but with an inflexible determination behind the sweetness of her smile.

When Skye’s American grandfather died and she became heir to his great fortune, she found things no easier for her in America.

There were always relations, lawyers, bankers and financial advisers of all descriptions directing her life, telling her what she should do, forbidding her the very things she wanted most – solitude and the chance to see the world.

“No! No! No!” How Skye hated the word!