1

The traffic at six o’clock was dense and slow moving; it was the worst part of the rush hour which nightly frayed the nerves of anyone travelling through the centre of Paris in a car.

By Friday afternoon, the rush to the country for the weekend had begun; it was strange how avidly the conservative French had adopted the English custom, left over from a more gracious age, when the exit to green fields and fresh air was smooth and unhurried. Now the fugitive from the noise and pollution of the city arrived exhausted and unnerved. It was a long time since Anna Campbell Martin had spent a weekend in Paris. She had woken up that Friday morning with a feeling of disquiet which was quite untypical. She was not, and she had spent her life proving it, a temperamental person.

She hadn’t quarrelled with Nicholas. He had taken her out to dinner and they had spent the night in her apartment as usual. He had bought her flowers, great bunches of sweet-smelling white narcissi; the scent was strong in the flat when they awoke.

He was a very affectionate lover, always touching her with tenderness, telling her how beautiful she was and how much she meant to him. It was as if he knew exactly how deeply her marriage had undermined her self-confidence. It had done more; it had left her without any faith in the fidelity of anyone who said they loved her. And this was the fourth time in six weeks that he had changed their plans without a really satisfactory explanation. He had told her the night before, after they had made love, and she noted this unhappily, that he couldn’t go down to Rambouillet with her that afternoon. ‘But why, darling? We always go down together …’

She had tried to hide the disappointment from him. They had spent every weekend at the Auberge St-Julien since they met and became lovers. Twice he had cancelled going on Friday, making the excuse that he had business. This time she waited for the explanation. He had very blue eyes and they were clear and innocent of deceit when he answered.

‘I have a very difficult author, darling. I promised to go through the typescript and let her have my suggestions by Monday. I can’t possibly work if I’m with you. I shall spend Friday in the office and we can drive down on Saturday morning. Please, don’t be angry with me. If you knew the lady and her books, you wouldn’t think it was from choice!’ He was difficult to argue with, difficult to blame when he smiled at her, and held her hand to his lips, kissing it gently. A very sensuous man, of whose passion she was still a little afraid. Sex hadn’t brought her any happiness until she met Nicholas. Six months ago, at a publishing party where she had known very few people and everybody else appeared to know each other, he had come over to her, when she found herself alone for a few moments brought her a drink and quietly taken her by the arm as though she had always belonged to him. That was the beginning.

There was a curiously old-fashioned quality about his courtship; the word was the only apt description of the way their relationship developed. He was always gentle with her, as if he understood that she was vulnerable, even before she told him the dismal story of squalid adulteries and disillusion which characterized her marriage. He was very much a man of the present day, and yet there was a quality about him which did not quite belong. She supposed it was because he was a Russian. And then, at the beginning of the month, he had asked her to marry him. It had been a proposal quite unlike any other, and there had been other serious contenders for her, before the one when she finally said, ‘Yes, yes, I’ll marry you’ – eight long years ago.…

‘I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time,’ he had said, looking into her eyes in the intent way that he had. ‘But I wanted to be sure you were ready. I wanted you to know I loved you. You do know that, don’t you?’ Anna had nodded, close to silly tears.

‘I haven’t any money,’ he said. ‘But I earn quite enough to keep you comfortably. I want you to belong to me, as completely as I shall belong to you. Will you trust me to make you happy?’ She had clung to him and cried, and she had seen the blazing happiness on his face as he kissed her. But still the doubts niggled, the habit of insecurity was too ingrained to disappear. Why had he decided to work on the author’s typescript that Friday; so throwing their weekend out of gear? Why not the day before – it was always a Friday when he changed their arrangements and the excuse was usually the same. Work on this or that manuscript. The mocking shade of her first husband grinned cynically at her from the subconscious. She hadn’t been enough for him; why should Nicholas be satisfied … of course he loved her but then wasn’t she very, very rich …?

They were murmurs, angrily suppressed, but strong enough to make her insist that they should meet at the Auberge St-Julien late on Friday night. There was no reason to wait till Saturday. She hated Paris at the weekend; it was such a joy to get out into the country, to take their long walks, to enjoy the homely comfort of the Auberge itself. She hadn’t quarrelled or argued, but it had been made an issue, and she felt instinctively that she was in the wrong. He had agreed to drive down when his work were finished, and meet her there. She spent the morning restless and reproachful of herself, and then determined to go down early anyway, just to get away from the apartment.

When the telephone rang she thought it was Nicholas and she ran to pick it up. But it wasn’t Nicholas. It was a voice she hadn’t heard for a long time, and in spite of everything, the colour rushed into her face and then receded. She hadn’t driven down to Rambouillet; she had stayed in Paris and it was now after six o’clock and she was on her way to keep an appointment that she had made in spite of herself, and only because Nicholas’s name was mentioned.

She didn’t take her car; she lived in a flat in the Avenue Gabriel. It was the most expensive and exclusive residential pocket in the city, a superb eighteenth-century hôtel particulier which had been beautifully converted. That was one of the very few advantages of being Sheila Campbell’s daughter; money was not a problem. Anna walked down the Rue St-Honoré to the Ritz, pausing to look in the shop windows, not because she wanted to buy anything, but because subconsciously she was delaying her arrival. Several men turned to look after her; despite ten years spent in Paris, five of them married to a Frenchman, she looked a foreigner.

Too tall for a Parisienne, her blonde hair worn casually to her shoulders, with a swinging walk, she wore the casual clothes that did not date. No ethnic look, no fashion extravagances; just the cool, thrown-together effect that is only achieved by spending a fortune.

It was exactly six-thirty as she turned into the Place Vendôme and crossed over to the Ritz. He was waiting for her in the bar; she saw him sitting at a banquette, a glass of whisky in front of him, and a cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth. He was reading Le Figaro.

A thin, slight man, with dark hair growing back from a wide forehead. Very dark eyes under heavy lids; a face usually described by women as sexy. She had been married to him for five years, and divorced from him for three. He looked up as she came towards him. He dropped the paper on the seat beside him, deposited the cigarette into an ashtray, and stood up. They shook hands; he wasn’t the sort of Frenchman who kissed a woman’s hand. An individualist, Paul Martin, a brilliant journalist with one of the big French left-wing political magazines, not by any stretch of the word a gentleman. A lover of good living, good conversation, and above all, of women. There had been so many women during Anna’s marriage that she had lost count. Yet he had always insisted that he loved her.

‘Anna – you’re looking marvellous! Sit down. What will you drink, still Scotch?’

‘No, thanks,’ Anna said. ‘Vodka. On the rocks.’

The dark eyes mocked her. ‘A sign of the times, eh?’

She ignored the remark. He offered her a cigarette: she shook her head. ‘Not for a moment, Paul. How are you?’

He shrugged. ‘Busy, but otherwise the same. You know, it’s a year or more since I’ve seen you – you look more attractive as you get older.’

‘Thanks,’ Anna said. ‘I’ve still got my own teeth.’ He burst out laughing.

‘Darling,’ he said. ‘I never could say the right thing, could I – never mind. Here’s your vodka. It was nice of you to come and meet me.’

‘You made it sound so interesting I couldn’t refuse,’ Anna said. She looked at him. ‘You said it was very important, Paul. I changed my arrangements for the weekend just to see you. What is it? And why all the secrecy – why did we have to come here instead of meeting at my flat?’

He leaned a little forward, his hands drooping between his knees; he was a man who moved loosely, and seemed totally relaxed when he was still. He had an animal quality about him, and she could see it quite dispassionately now. When they first met she had been blindly in love with him.

‘Neutral ground,’ he said slowly. ‘If you’re being followed. Nobody can listen to us here.’

Anna stared at him. ‘What nonsense! What on earth would anyone want to follow me for – you can’t be serious!’

‘I’m perfectly serious,’ he said. ‘You have been living with Nicholas Yurovsky since January, haven’t you – yes, well, if the KGB haven’t got on to you, then you can be sure that the SDECE have. Perhaps the CIA. They’re so clumsy you’d have noticed, so it’s probably the other two. I know you don’t like criticism of the Americans, darling, but they are the worst intelligence service in the world.’

‘Would you stop calling me darling,’ she said angrily. ‘This isn’t funny.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ he said. He looked at her for a moment; she had changed colour. There was a flush under the tan.

‘How much do you know about Yurovsky? I’m not playing the jealous ex-husband,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m really acting as your friend. Believe that.’ He reached out and held her hand for a moment. Anna drew hers away.

‘Nicholas has asked me to marry him and I’ve said I will. He works for Wedermans. We met at a party after Christmas.’

‘I see,’ Paul Martin said. ‘Wedermans is a very good publisher, prestige books, high-class artwork – it’s noted for its bright young men. Tell me, has he ever talked politics to you?’

‘No,’ Anna said. ‘Never. He’s not in the least interested. Paul, why can’t you get to the point of all this? What are you trying to say –?’

He didn’t answer; he signalled the waiter, and ordered them both another drink, ignoring Anna’s protest that she didn’t want one.

‘Nicholas Yurovsky is exactly what you say,’ he said at last. ‘The son of a White Russian army officer, born in France, educated here. Very intelligent, with a lot of charm. One of the brightest editors at Wedermans. No political affiliations at all. Except one.’ He paused, there was a serious look in the dark eyes, and the full mouth, usually twisted in a mocking smile, was set and grim.

‘He’s a leading anti-Soviet activist. There’s a group of them. They didn’t cause any trouble till he joined. There’s a lot of money involved suddenly: the word is out, Anna, that the money is coming from you. Is it?’

She squared herself to face him. He had always found her money an embarrassment. It was one of the main causes of friction between them. He had never understood that she couldn’t help being Sheila Campbell’s daughter.

‘I’ve never given Nicholas a centime. I’ve never heard anything so crazy in my life.’

He watched her for a moment. He lit another cigarette. ‘They’ve always been a pain in the neck, these Russians. They got what was coming to them in 1917, and they were damned lucky to get out alive. They’ve made trouble ever since. During the war, plenty of trouble. You’re probably being watched because you’re mixed up with Yurovsky. You’re a very rich woman and they think you’re giving him money. You’re getting into something very nasty; something dangerous.’

‘I see,’ Anna said quietly. ‘So “they”, whoever they are, have sent you to talk me out of whatever I’m supposed to be doing – is that it? Frighten me away from Nicholas. Who are “they”, Paul? Your left-wing friends, or just the thugs in the SDECE?’

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘They are thugs. I should remember that. Anna, please listen to me. I hear a lot of things, and I have contacts. Nobody put me on to you – I decided to talk to you myself. For old times’ sake, if you like. I loved you very much, though you wouldn’t believe it. I don’t want anything to happen to you.’

‘And if I marry Nicholas something might?’

‘Being the wife of a leading anti-Soviet political activist could be extremely dangerous,’ he said and his voice was low. ‘And not just from the Russians. Anna, I can’t make you understand. The big boys are beginning to look at Yurovsky and that’s bad news. All right, you love him. He hasn’t told you the truth about himself. That ought to make you hesitate. That’s all I’m suggesting. Hesitate. Don’t rush into anything.’

‘I don’t know why I should believe you,’ Anna said slowly.

‘Because you know I never lied to you,’ he said.

Anna stood up and they faced each other. There was something in his eyes she didn’t want to see. Some depth reminding her of how he used to look at her, so many years ago. Before her family’s attitude and his resentment of their social differences had started to turn their love to friction. His revenge had been terribly damaging; it had needed someone like Nicholas Yurovsky to restore the shattered self-confidence which was Paul Martin’s legacy. The first affair began within a year of her marriage. He had needed to be unfaithful in order to keep his self-respect for having married an American socialite with a fortune, the daughter of a famous right-wing publisher Sheila Campbell, in defiance of his own background and political convictions. He had betrayed himself and his remedy was to betray her. She didn’t hold out her hand. She felt the same old feeling of sick uncertainty, as if suddenly the clock hands had spun backwards, and she was still involved with him. Nicholas, Nicholas, her mind cried out the name – this is just a memory.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said. ‘I shall tell Nicholas exactly what you’ve told me.’

‘He’ll deny it,’ Paul Martin said. ‘But it’s true. He’s bringing you into danger. Real danger, and he’ll use you too.’

She turned and walked away. He spoke to her back. ‘Goodbye, Anna. Take care of yourself.’

She didn’t answer; she walked out into the foyer of the hotel, ignoring the reception clerk who smiled at her. She was well known there; her mother took a suite whenever she came to Paris. One of her former husbands had been a French duke.

She began to hurry back along the Rue St-Honoré, brushing against people in her haste. It was seven-thirty and the traffic was less concentrated. If she drove down immediately she would get to Rambouillet and the Auberge St-Julien around nine o’clock. Nicholas wasn’t expecting her until late.

She went up to her first-floor apartment and hurried through to the bedroom. For a woman whose taste in clothes was casual, even austere, the decoration of the flat was surprisingly feminine. Soft pastel colours, a mixture of beautiful Louis Seize furniture and elegant modern sofas, Constable watercolours, and a glowing Van Ostade still life in the dining room. As a person, Anna had perfected an image which was in direct contrast to the ultra female represented by her mother. Crisp, almost boyish, the side of her personality which was deliberately thwarted was expressed in her bedroom. There was a Directoire bed, swathed in green silk, an Aubusson carpet, Boucher drawings of erotic subjects, extravagant flowering plants.

She had supervised every detail herself, just before her marriage to Paul Martin came to an end. It was almost a compensation for the endless infidelities to spend so much money on such a superbly sensual room. Paul had laughed at her; sitting on the bed, smoking as always, he had bounced gently up and down.

‘It’s hard, sweetheart and for two people it’s not going to be very comfortable.’ She hadn’t intended to do what she did. It seemed to happen, as if everything in her life at that moment slotted into place.

‘It isn’t for two people,’ she said. ‘It’s for one. I’m going to divorce you. Please get up; you’re creasing the cover.’

He had left the apartment that night. It was the only time she felt that she had come out best in a situation since she married him.

The night Nicholas Yurovsky became her lover he had looked round the bedroom, taking time to appreciate everything, and then turned to her. ‘It is beautiful,’ he said. ‘Like you.’

By the morning, Paul and his secretaries and colleagues’ wives and girlfriends, might never have existed. Anna looked quickly at herself in the mirror. She had packed what she needed for the quiet country weekend that was her joy with Nicholas, and she looked at herself anxiously. He said he loved her face; he would run his fingers over it, touching her eyelids, tracing her mouth, making love to her with every movement. She had shadows under the eyes, a tense expression that made her look older. She brushed her hair, powdered the fine skin, lightly tanned from the previous weekend in the country, put on some lipstick because her mouth seemed too pale, and then rubbed it off again. Her hand shook, and this made her angry. Nicholas hated her to make up obviously; she had never set out to please any man until she met him. Now everything she did was geared to keeping him in love with her.

‘Dangerous.’ That was the word Paul had used about her position as Nicholas’s wife. The wife of a leading anti-Soviet activist. It didn’t make sense. Nothing he had said related to the Nicholas Yurovsky that she knew.

He had never mentioned politics; he never talked about his origins or his family, or showed any interest in the past. He didn’t use his title. She had met several groups of his friends, mostly in the literary or artistic world, and there hadn’t been a single Russian among them. And yet there had been anxiety in Paul Martin’s eyes, and with all his glaring faults as a husband, lying or exaggeration was not among them. She stood staring at herself, not seeing the reflection. He’s bringing you into danger, real danger. Paul had talked of others besides Nicholas – an influx of money that was presumed to come from her.… It was all quite crazy. Paul had always been mixed up in politics, it was his profession to know people and to hear things denied to the outside world.

She couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe Nicholas was involved in something dangerous and subversive. ‘He’ll use you –’ Paul knew how to probe a weakness. Her money, her family connections, the doubt instilled into her since childhood that she couldn’t take friendships or even love at face value. Remember who you are.… That was the best aspect of marriage to Paul in the beginning. He not only didn’t want her money, he actively hated it. Anti-Soviet activity. The very idea of a group of White Russians, descendants of the old émigrés who had fled with their lives after the Revolution, pitting themselves against the Soviet Union, was pathetic; not dangerous. But she couldn’t discount Paul’s fear, and the menace of that remark, ‘The big boys are beginning to look at Yurovsky –’

Anna had lived long enough in Paul’s world to know what that would mean. It seldom happened that the rival intelligence services combined against a common objective, but if they did, the consequences were merciless. Accidents, beating-up, unsolved murders. Prison sentences procured by deliberate framing of criminal cases – she had heard Paul talk about the methods, and viewed his complacency with horror. He had shrugged. Politics were dirty, intelligence was dirtier still. He had stopped talking to her about his work because she couldn’t sympathize or accept his standards of judgement. But she hadn’t forgotten. And this was threatening Nicholas. Nicholas, with his cultivated mind and gentle charm, his strength and integrity. She picked up her handcase, and was annoyed with herself for having to blink away tears. This was no time for emotionalism; she had to be calm and patient and wait till she could talk to him. Everything would become simple when they were together. It was the keynote of their relationship. They loved each other, and they lived for each other. She had no secrets from him. He would have none from her. They would discuss the problem together and she would help him come to the right decision. The only decision, if they were to marry and have children. Nicholas loved children; they had discussed this early on, and he had said that he wanted a family. It hadn’t been an issue with Paul; she hadn’t felt secure enough even to think of pregnancy. But she wanted to have Nicholas’s children, to make a home.

She hurried out and down to her car. The worst of the rush hour was over and she was soon speeding on her way out of Paris, on the road to Rambouillet.

The Auberge St-Julien was famous for its provincial cooking; it could accommodate a dozen people, in old-fashioned, comfortable bedrooms and it was a favourite place for Sunday lunch. It was surrounded by the forest of Rambouillet, once the hunting ground of the French kings, and still the haunt of stags. Nicholas had taken Anna there soon after they met; it was very quiet and casual, a perfect place to relax after a week spent in the hectic city atmosphere. He liked the trees and the sounds of the forest; he took her for long walks down the shaded rides, cut for the hunt to follow during the season. The greenness and silence was soothing; they walked with their arms around each other’s waists, like very young people in love. Anna’s head leaning against his shoulder; he was very tall.

The proprietor was a thin, bustling man, who spent most of his time in the kitchen, and waited personally on his guests. His wife, known as Elise, was fat and talkative, and lived behind the bar.

She was in her usual place when Anna walked in that night. ‘Madame Martin! Monsieur said you wouldn’t be down till late – we were going to wait up for you. Pierre! Take Madame’s case upstairs!’

Anna hesitated. There was no separate dining room: lounge, bar and tables were all together. She couldn’t see Nicholas.

‘Where is M. Yurovsky? – I’ll go to the room …’

‘He’s not there, Madame,’ Elise said. ‘He went out immediately after he’d had dinner. Come and have a drink. He won’t be long.’

Anna nodded. ‘I’ll be down in a minute. He’s probably gone for a walk. You know how he loves your woods.’

Elise watched her go upstairs. It wouldn’t do to have a lovers’ quarrel. She had a large glass of Pernod below the level of the bar. She sipped it; from the time the first customers came for a drink until they closed up for the night, that glass was never empty. It was said to induce madness and death in the addict.

Elise had never been drunk in her life; she had inherited her father’s immunity to alcohol. She could remember him in drinking sessions with some of his old friends, and he was always standing at the end. How her mother had disapproved. But then, being a little bourgeoise, she couldn’t be expected to understand a man like Elise’s father. Elise had seen the disappointment in the American girl’s face. She decided to give her a drink on the house.

Anna changed her clothes in the double bedroom; she felt hot and crumpled after the drive. Nicholas had unpacked; his suit was hanging in the wardrobe, the shoes neatly arranged below. His comb and hairbrush were on the dressing table, and he had emptied his pockets of the clutter of urban life. His apartment keys, a little leather folder with credit cards and driver’s licence, loose change, a gold pen which she had given him, two paper clips and an old-fashioned gold fob watch on a chain. Anna looked at it. She had never seen him wear it. She picked it up and turned it over. There was a crest engraved on the back, rubbed thin by years of handling. It was a shield with many quarterings, surmounted by a coronet. He never used the title of Count Yurovsky, or mentioned his family or their background in Tsarist Russia.

He was entirely a man of the present day, a successful editor in a prestige publishing house. He had never shown the least interest or involvement with the past. It was quite out of character to find this relic of a past age among his daily possessions. She must have held it tighter than she realized, pressing the top of the key winder, because the back half of it suddenly fell open. There was a photograph inside it, carefully covered with a tiny disc of glass. A man’s head, showing a line of collar buttoned high and to the side; Anna looked at it under the lamp.

It was a handsome face, immediately familiar because of the high cheekbones and the set of the eyes. Hair brushed back and worn very short, a mouth set in a slight smile. Nicholas, and yet not Nicholas. The print was faded with age. She closed the watch, and put it back on the dressing table. She felt ashamed for having looked at it, for having found something which he had never shown her.

It had never been left lying around when they were together at weekends or in her flat. The man in the tiny photograph could have been a grandfather, or his own father. There was no mistake about the likeness, or the Russian dress. She felt irritated with herself as well as guilty. There was no reason to suppose that he always carried it with him. No reason to suspect him of concealing it when he might easily have brought it out to show her.

She sat at the bar and drank a glass of wine with Elise, not listening to the flow of talk, watching the door for him to come. She saw by her watch that it was close to ten o’clock; the time she had said she would arrive. The tables were empty; people were not encouraged to stay too late at the St-Julien; two couples lingered over coffee on the sofas round the fire. Elise’s nervy little husband was giving them the bill. Anna’s back ached from sitting upright on the stool. She turned away from the door, and finished her wine.

‘I think I’ll go to bed,’ she said to Elise, and then she saw the older woman smile, looking beyond her, and at that moment she felt his hands on her shoulders and his face bending down to her cheek.

‘My darling, I’m sorry – have you been here long?’ Anna turned to him, slipped off the stool and into his arms. The eyes were so blue, so full of love and concern for her; the overhead light shone on his hair which was as fair as her own. Suddenly she was happy, excited.

‘I came down early,’ she said. ‘I’ve been talking to Elise and drinking lovely cold wine.’ He took her arm and they went upstairs; the fat lady watched them and smiled. He was so full of charm: the girl hadn’t even asked him where he’d been.

In the bedroom he undressed her; he was demanding without losing the tenderness that enhanced their erotic life. He told her endlessly how beautiful and exciting she was, and encouraged her to express her own passion in a way which Paul Martin had never done. Anna had never thought of having sex with Nicholas. It was simply making love. She told him she’d had a drink with Paul and avoided giving any details. Tomorrow was time enough to face reality. She fell asleep at last, lying so close to him that their bodies were entwined, the expression of serenity and tenderness on her face making her really beautiful. Nicholas lit a cigarette; the Russian tobacco was strong. Her head was on his shoulder, the long hair like strands of yellow silk. He looked down at her.

There was a shining honesty about her which he had never found in a woman before. No feminine twists and turns to gain advantage, no petty vanity. She had given everything of herself with total generosity. She had been sad, when he met her, in a subdued way, without really knowing it. Not a woman to go from one man to the next, too sensitive to enjoy casual encounters. Proud, and inclined to stand aloof. But lonely. He had sensed all these things, and taken time to get to know her. Time to lead her to love rather than follow the current trend and pull back the bedclothes the first night. He was surprised in himself; he liked women but he had never been in love with any of them. Long before he became her lover, he had thought of marrying Anna.

Nothing less than a total commitment would satisfy him. He knew that whatever her ex-husband had said had upset her. He had felt the tension in her body, seen a look of uneasiness in her eyes. Martin had been jealous, of course. Trying to make trouble while pretending to be concerned for her. Nicholas could imagine what had been said. A White Russian without any money, hooking a rich American wife. The classic pattern, a tired old cliché in pre-war society. She knew nothing about him, she was making a fool of herself. He could hear it all. It wouldn’t be too difficult to deal with. He would ridicule it, destroy it, convince her that Martin’s motives weren’t to be trusted. Mercifully, she had never equated her personal worth with money; she hated display, wore no jewellery or expensive furs. She was quite unspoiled; she didn’t indulge herself in extravagances, or challenge a man to keep up with her standards. She wasn’t the kind of woman, and Nicholas had known a few, to whom it was impossible to give a present because they already had everything.

He didn’t want her money. He wanted her. He stubbed out the cigarette; gently he eased his arm free of Anna and pulled the covers over her to keep her warm. His mind left her and traced back to the house he had visited in the early part of the evening, thinking her still in Paris. It hadn’t been an easy meeting. It had taken all his authority and persuasive power to hold the more violent in check.

Finally he slept too, his arm thrown protectively across her, he was restless, murmuring in his sleep. When Anna awoke he was already up and in the bathroom. She sat up in bed and stretched; he had pulled back the curtains and the sun was shining outside. A branch in full leaf waved across the window, heavy with wistaria blossom.

It was going to be a lovely day. She got up to brush her hair, inspect herself in the mirror so that she would look fresh when he came back.

The gold fob watch had gone from the dressing table.

It was a very warm day, and they ate their lunch on the terrace outside. He was in a very gay mood, teasing her for being silent. Suddenly he became serious. ‘What’s the matter, darling? You’re not yourself. You haven’t told me why Paul wanted to see you last night. Is that what’s upset you? What happened?’

Anna hesitated. This was the moment she hadn’t been able to bring about herself. The moment to tell him what Paul had said and hear him dismiss it as ridiculous. Which he would, of course. All she had to do was ask.…

‘Would it be easier,’ he said gently, ‘if I told you what he wanted?’ She stared at him, caught off balance.

‘Do you know?’

‘I think so,’ he said. He smiled at her; his eyes were very blue in the bright sunlight. ‘He wanted to warn you against marrying me. A Russian, with no money and some bogus title – I’m sure he mentioned that – he was only trying to protect you against some unscrupulous foreigner who was after your money. Am I right, darling?’

‘No,’ Anna said. ‘Not quite … he didn’t run you down.’

‘Only by inference,’ he said. ‘He’s a clever fellow, your ex-husband. Very sophisticated and rusé. He’s right to be suspicious, of course. You’re a very eligible woman, my darling. What a lovely day! Don’t let it worry you – I’m not offended. Tell me, when is your mother coming over?’

‘In three weeks,’ Anna said. ‘I got a letter on Thursday. She’s not an easy woman, Niki. She was so hostile to Paul that he never got over it. I don’t want her being high-handed with you.’

‘She won’t be,’ he said. ‘It was easy for a grand American lady to make someone like Paul Martin feel uncomfortable. She can’t do the same to me. I want to meet her and I want her to approve. Our wedding is going to be a happy occasion for everybody, a day for both our families. I have some Russian cousins, the Vorontzovs – they all want to meet you. There’s a cousin or two on my mother’s side. I want to invite them all. What about your father – will he come over?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘My mother’s quite friendly with him. She makes a point of keeping up with all her ex-husbands.’

‘Don’t be so bitter about her,’ he said gently. ‘You never mention her except to make some criticism. There’s nothing stronger than the blood tie.’

‘Not in my family,’ Anna said. She didn’t want to talk about her mother, or about their wedding. She couldn’t dismiss Paul from her mind. The opportunity to ask Nicholas for an explanation was slipping away in comparative trivialities. She felt almost panicked into saying something before it was too late.

‘Niki – tell me something. Are you involved in politics?’ It came out so abruptly that she reddened. It sounded almost accusatory. He was drinking coffee; he paused and put the cup down. There was no change in his expression except for a flicker in the eyes which vanished so quickly she could well have imagined it.

‘Politics? What sort of politics?’

‘Anti-Soviet,’ Anna said. ‘That’s what Paul wanted to see me about. He said you were in great danger, and I could be because we were living together.’ She stopped, wishing that he would look at her. He finished his coffee. His silence was so inhibiting that she found herself stumbling over the words.

‘He called you an anti-Soviet activist. I told him the whole idea was crazy and I didn’t believe a word of it. He even asked me if I was giving you money –’ He looked up at her and smiled: it was a half smile, slightly crooked and it gave his face a look of sharp cynicism.

‘You were able to put him right on that, at least.’

‘Nicholas, please – he went on and on about you. Is this true?’

‘I suppose it depends on what you mean by an anti-Soviet activist,’ he said quietly. ‘Let’s have some brandy. Elise?’

She came waddling over and he ordered two Armagnacs.

‘There are anti-Soviet activists in the Soviet Union,’ he said; he swilled the brandy round in his glass. ‘But they’re all in prison or labour camps. There are deviants, of course. That word used to apply to sexual perverts, but it’s used now to describe anyone who differs from the official party line. The West calls them dissidents.’

‘You’re not answering me,’ Anna said.

‘If you’re asking me am I anti-Soviet,’ he said, ‘then the answer is yes. I am certainly anti the system that murdered my family and drove them out of Russia. If your ex-husband wants to make something sinister out of that, then I can’t help it. Drink your brandy, darling. And stop looking so intense. Can’t you see that he’s just trying to make trouble?’

Anna shook her head. ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘I tried to convince myself it was just jealousy, but it’s not. Paul isn’t that sort of person. He said you were in great danger, that some of the top people in SDECE were interested in you. Probably the Russians too. I really believe he was worried for me, and that was his only motive.’

‘Which is exactly what he wanted you to think,’ Nicholas said. ‘Tell me, was he always so honest, so unselfish? I didn’t get that impression before from what you told me.’

Since they met at the beginning of the year they had spent all their spare time together, they had gone for a ten-day skiing holiday in the Italian Alps and they spent every weekend alone. But the man sitting opposite to her had become a stranger. The face was a mask, in which the eyes were cold and secretive; his upper lip was white with anger. ‘He’s lied to you,’ she could hear Paul’s voice. ‘He’ll use you, too …’

‘If you love me,’ she said quietly, ‘you’ll stop being furious and you’ll tell me the truth.’

‘If I said it was a pack of lies, would you accept that? – no, you wouldn’t, would you? – you are really asking me to say yes, I am doing whatever Paul Martin says I’m doing. Actually, I am going to bomb the Kremlin from a hot-air balloon next Thursday morning. He can run to his Secret Service friends with that. You know, darling, I could sue Martin for this story? What do you suppose Raoul Wederman would think if it got round that one of his senior editors was mixed up in some political mess!’

‘Nicholas,’ she said helplessly, ‘Nicholas darling, you know you can trust me, please. Last night I found a gold watch in our room. I didn’t mean to, but I opened it. There was a picture inside of a man. It was so like you I got quite a shock. I’d no idea you had such a thing, or carried it around. You’ve never talked about your family, you’ve never shown any sentiment about your background. Why did you put it away this morning?’

He looked at her. ‘Because it’s something very private,’ he said quietly. ‘Something I don’t leave lying around. It was my father’s watch and that’s his picture inside it. It was given to me by a friend of my father’s when I was eight years old. There’s nothing sinister in a son carrying his father’s watch.’

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But I don’t see why you should keep it hidden. You’ve never even mentioned your father. You talked about Russian cousins today. I didn’t know you had any family over here.’

‘Oh yes,’ Nicholas said. ‘A number of the aristocracy escaped during the Revolution. They didn’t succeed in killing us all.’

The sun was very hot; the air still. Anna closed her eyes for a moment. He was lying and she knew it. ‘Us.’ It was only a slip, that corporate description of the émigrés who fled to Europe when the Bolsheviks seized total power, but it jarred on her. The cold, set face, that curt voice, dismissing everything with a sneer, was not the same man as the lover who had held her with passion and tenderness the night before. He was not only angered, but frightened by what she had said.

‘It’s getting very hot,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll go up and rest.’

‘I should, Madame.’ She turned quickly, startled, and found the fat woman, Elise, standing beside the table.

‘More coffee, before you go?’ She asked Nicholas the question.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll have another Armagnac. Won’t you have one too, darling? It’ll help you sleep.’

She shook her head. She didn’t want him to see the tears in her eyes. She felt sick and hurt, and underneath there was a current of fear. Paul hadn’t lied. It was Nicholas who was lying to her.

‘I’ll go now,’ she said. He reached out and caught her hand as she passed him. The expression on his face was familiar again, tender and a little anxious.

‘You have a rest,’ he said gently. ‘And be a good girl. Forget all that nonsense. Journalists love making up dramas. Especially when they’re still in love with their ex-wives. I’ll come and wake you in an hour and we’ll go for a walk. There’s a new restaurant about six kilometres away – I think we might have dinner there.’

He brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed it. Anna released herself and hurried inside. Nicholas lit a cigarette; Elise came back with the brandy and busied herself collecting the coffee cups on a tray. She didn’t look at him.

‘I saw Madame Martin come inside just now; she looked upset. Is anything wrong between you?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘It’s not for me to say,’ the fat woman muttered, ‘but it’s a pity you brought her here – just at this time.’

‘I know it is.’ Nicholas looked at her, and she glanced down quickly. ‘But she knows nothing and she won’t be told anything. And you’re right, Elise, it’s not for you to say.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, Count. Forgive me.’ She hurried away.

They dined at the restaurant Nicholas had found; it was a small, unpretentious place but though the menu wouldn’t have disgraced Maxim’s in Paris, Anna didn’t feel like eating. They sat opposite each other, divided by a single candle, and she looked at him as he studied the wine list.

The resemblance to the man in the little photograph was more striking in the subdued light; he had hidden his father’s watch; his excuse that it was very private didn’t make sense. It was almost an insult to her. And that remark, about the aristocracy during the Revolution.

‘They didn’t succeed in killing us all.’ ‘Us.’ Was that really how he saw himself, in the secret places of his mind, a man born in France with a French mother whose only link with Russia was an émigré grandmother who had died in a nursing home and the cousins he had suddenly mentioned. The man she loved had no connection with what was literally past history. He was cultivated, a charming Frenchman, whose circle of friends was wholly French and largely intellectual. And yet, as she watched him, the element of strangeness was still there, as if the mask were not completely fixed in place, and the Nicholas Yurovsky she had seen that afternoon still lurked behind it.

He’d lied to her, without actually lying in words. He hadn’t denied Paul Martin’s accusation, he had simply evaded it.

One of the reasons she fell in love with him was because he had a quality of absolute integrity. After the quicksands of her marriage, Anna had tried to persuade herself that at last she was on solid ground, safe in a relationship where there were neither lies nor savage truths. Being the daughter of Sheila Campbell, owner and editor of the ultra-right-wing political journal Truth, had initiated Anna very early into the travesties of its title. Wealth and power and ambition, the inability to trust or to be trusted were part of the air she breathed, and it had stifled her. Her mother, armoured with millions made in steel by a Scottish immigrant father, had proved herself as tough and ruthless in her pursuit of power as the old pioneer himself. Her aim was one of the major embassies; her marriage to a penniless French duke had been part of this particular campaign. When the Paris post went to someone else, Sheila had promptly divorced him. Anna’s own father had been a shadowy figure, pleasant but ineffective – her mother overshadowed and dominated everyone around her. Anna’s life had been lived in the frantic aura of Sheila’s ambition and success, and she hated everything about it. If she were honest, marriage to a Socialist radical like Paul Martin had been partly an act of defiance, a rejection of the standards, political and moral, of her mother.

There were no hang-ups in her love for Nicholas. He had rebuilt her damaged confidence, assumed a responsibility for her which Paul had ruthlessly avoided; there was a quiet authority about him which she found both sexually and emotionally attractive. For the first time in her life, Anna could visualize a life which was both passionate and serene. It had made marriage inevitable. Nicholas was not the type to embark upon a domesticated affair, leaving the door open to escape.

She was the first woman he had ever asked to marry him. Knowing him, Anna appreciated the totality of that commitment. But now, springing back out of the past like a pantomime demon through the trapdoor, Paul had brought the one element she found most destructive: doubt. Doubt of Nicholas’s motives, of his actions, even of his love for her. ‘He’ll use you.’ She couldn’t get rid of that poisonous prediction. If Nicholas were in danger then she wanted to know; even if she were involved in risk because of him, she wouldn’t have run away.

But the old bogey of her early background stood in the forefront of her mind, wagging a warning finger. She was so vulnerable because of her money and her connections. She had to be careful when she made friends, or went on dates, that she wasn’t simply being used as a means to an end. She could remember, with real anguish, asking the boyfriend of her campus days the question that had such a special meaning for her: ‘You do like me, don’t you?’ Me, for myself, not my mother’s daughter, or the Campbell money, or the estate in Florida and the private jet … Like me … Love me.

She had fled to Europe as soon as she inherited her grandfather’s legacy, hoping for anonymity, for a chance to find herself and for someone genuine to find her. But the cornerstone of love was trust. The trust Paul Martin had found impossible to keep, when he slipped in and out of bed with other women, and told her coolly that it didn’t matter … he was still in love with her.…

‘Anna –’ He was reaching across the table to her. She gave him her hand and he held it firmly.

‘What’s the matter with you? You’re not yourself.’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing – there’s nothing the matter.’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve never seen you like this.’

‘I’m not the one who’s lying,’ Anna said. The grip on her hand tightened for a second and then relaxed. He took his own away.

‘It’s still that business with Paul Martin? That’s what is upsetting you, isn’t it?’

‘You know it is.’ He lit a cigarette and passed it to her. He did the same for himself. The waiter brought wine and Nicholas tasted, before signalling to pour a glass for each of them. Anna had the same feeling as she had that afternoon; he let the silence lengthen, sipping the wine deliberately.

‘Anna,’ he said suddenly, ‘Tell me something. Do you love me?’

‘You know I do.’

‘And do you believe that I love you?’

She nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Then I want you to promise me something.’ This was no stranger, but the man she loved, reaching out for her again across the table.

‘I want you to forget everything Paul told you. Put it right out of your mind, now and forever. It has nothing to do with us.’

‘I can’t do that,’ she said slowly. ‘Of course it has something to do with us. You can’t shut me out of a part of your life and pretend it isn’t there. Paul talked about danger, real danger.…’

‘I know he did,’ Nicholas said quietly. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. Danger to you, he said, didn’t he? …’

‘That doesn’t matter, I don’t give a damn,’ she began but he interrupted her.

‘It matters to me,’ he said. ‘It matters very much.’ There was silence between them then. He squeezed her hand hard. ‘What did Paul tell you to do?’ She wasn’t prepared for the question.

‘He told me not to rush into marrying you,’ she said. ‘He said being the wife of a leading anti-Soviet activist could be very dangerous for me. I didn’t know what he was talking about.’

‘No,’ he said gently. ‘Of course you wouldn’t. He didn’t suggest you took a trip?’

Anna stared at him. ‘No – what sort of trip? Why should he –’

He lifted her hand and looked at it: it was slim and without rings.

‘It might be an idea,’ he said. ‘Just for the next month. Go to the States, see your mother before she comes over. You could prepare the way for me to meet her. Then I’d join you. We could come back to Paris and be married in June or July – would you do that?’

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Anna said. ‘Why should I? Because you’re mixed up in something and you won’t tell me what it is – what’s going to happen in a month, Nicholas? Why is it dangerous for me to marry you in three weeks, and safe to do it in July?’

‘The more I think of it,’ he said, ‘the more I feel you should go – just for the month. I should have thought of this before.’

‘You should have told me the truth,’ Anna said. ‘Because I’m going to find it out. And I’m not going to go away and I’m not going to marry you until I do.’ Their food came, and she pushed the plate away. ‘Don’t you understand,’ she said, ‘I love you – I want to be part of whatever it is, because it’s part of you. I want to help. If you need money –’ She hadn’t intended to say it, and she felt herself redden.

He smiled at her, and shook his head. ‘No, my darling, I don’t need money. That’s one thing I shall never want from you. Eat your dinner; it’s very good. We’ll talk about this tomorrow. Let’s enjoy ourselves tonight.’

It was late when they got back to the Auberge: Elise left a key for them hidden under a stone by the entrance and they let themselves in. They made love, and it seemed to Anna that he was more tender than she had ever known him. As she lay in his arms she had a feeling almost of finality, as if something had ended and she didn’t know it. She woke and the bed was empty. The curtains were open and the morning sky was only faintly pink. She sat up and knew immediately that he had gone. The drawers were open, his belongings cleared from the dressing table. There was an air of departure in the room. The letter was standing wedged upright against the looking glass, where she had found the gold watch. She stood and ripped it open and read it by the window in the dawning light.

‘My darling. Since last night I knew that you and I couldn’t have our happiness. There is no place in my life for marriage and I have been selfish and a fool to pretend that there was. Paul Martin is right. I loved you. Never forget that. Nicholas.’

She went back to the bed, switched on the light and re-read it. He had tried to make her leave him the night before, with his suggestion of a trip to the States, and when she refused he had left her. It was as simple as that. As simple and as heartbreaking: ‘I loved you.’ In the past tense.

She didn’t cry: the feeling of loss was too acute to find relief in tears. Whatever he was doing was more important than their future; faced with a choice he had rejected her. To protect her – to protect himself – or in reality to protect his activities, because she had declared her intention of finding them out. ‘Since last night I knew we couldn’t have our happiness.’ He had left her with a memory of love that would take a long time to die. She knelt on the bed and shivered. She had lost everything: her hope for the future, the man she loved, her chance to find happiness with him. She threw her clothes into a bag, opened the window and looked out. Her car was parked in the yard. Nobody was stirring in the downstairs rooms. She didn’t want to see Elise or her husband, to stay another moment in the place where she had been so happy. She was going back to Paris, back to her empty apartment and her empty life. As she drove out on to the main road, pallid and dry-eyed, she thought that there was more of her gritty Scots ancestors in her than she realized. She had indeed lost everything but she was going to find out why.