102. Alone and Afraid

Ever popular with the grasping and greedy beauties of the Social world, the handsome Marquis of Elkesley is becoming disillusioned with their constant requests for expensive gifts and so he travels to Paris to forget them. There he receives a pleading letter from his close friend, Celeste, one of Paris's most notorious demi-mondaines. She has taken under her wing a frightened but beautiful young waif called Kitrina and, Celeste's sinful lifestyle rendering her unsuitable as a Guardian, she asks the Marquis to make her his Ward. Faced with the fact that Kitrina is the illegitimate child of a distant, dead and disgraced relative of his, he has no choice but reluctantly to agree to Celeste's request. To his amazement he is soon captivated by Kitrina's unsullied innocence and charm, but just as he loses his heart, he also loses the young beauty who has stolen it when she is kidnapped by an evil Arab Sheikh bent on forcing her into marriage and join his harem in North Africa. She is desperately alone and afraid as she has never been before in her life and she prays fervently that God will send the man she loves to rescue her from a fate worse than death.