The Women in His Life. Barbara Taylor Bradford
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the time. The Troubetzkoys had lived as refugees in Lithuania, Poland and Silesia before journeying to Berlin and settling in the city ten years ago, which was when Ursula and Sigmund had first met them. Recently Princess Natalie had married a widowed Prussian baron, and for the first time in their twenty-one years of exile from Russia the two women had a real home at last.
Irina, Sigmund and Ursula were talking about her mother and the change for the better in her fortunes when Irina began to chuckle.
Sigmund stared at her, raised a brow, asked in perplexity, ‘What is it? Have either of us said something which amuses you?’
Irina shook her head. ‘No. I was just thinking that my mother has now acquired a degree of respectability since her marriage to the Herr Baron.’ She looked around, then dropped her voice. ‘As far as the Nazis are concerned, that is. How ridiculous when one considers that she has always been a woman of rectitude and impeccable moral character, with a spotless reputation, quite aside from the fact that she’s of royal blood and is a cousin of the late Tsar.’ Irina leaned closer to them, confided softly, ‘Incidentally, Göbbels just attached a label to us foreign exiles. International garbage he calls us.’
‘Ah yes, Doctor Göbbels –’ Sigmund began, and bit off the rest of his sentence.
A pair of SS officers, very typical of their breed, cold-faced and blue-eyed with short-cropped blond hair and ramrod-straight postures, were drawing to a halt in front of them. They clicked their heels together, made elaborate bows and focused their penetrating eyes on Irina. Both flashed her smiles, and one of them said, ‘Guten Abend, Prinzessin.’
‘Good evening,’ Irina responded, repeating his greeting politely, even proffering a smile. But her eyes, which were the colour of violets, turned almost black and they were glacial.
The officers inclined their heads courteously, and moved on, perfectly in step like carefully programmed robots.
‘And that’s Nazi garbage,’ Irina whispered. ‘A couple of Heydrich’s hatchet men. I felt like spitting in their faces.’
Ursula put a gentle hand on her arm, murmured, sotto voce, ‘Please, do be careful what you say, Irina, you never know who’s listening.’
‘Yes, informers are all over the place,’ she muttered in agreement. ‘One doesn’t know who to trust these days.’ Irina now spoke in a voice so inaudible the Westheims had to draw closer to her in order to hear what she said as she added, ‘But a foul regime such as theirs needs informers in order to function, to flourish.’
Renata von Tiegal, who had been scanning the reception room from the entrance, saw them and hurried over. She was always dramatic looking, and tonight more than ever, gowned in scarlet silk, this vivid colour most effectively setting off her inky-black hair and ivory skin.
‘Hello!’ she cried. ‘I was looking for you. How is everyone?’ Her dark eyes and her wide smile radiated affection.
‘We’re all well,’ Sigmund said, answering for the three of them. ‘And you look superb this evening, my dear.’
‘Why thank you, Sigi,’ she said.
Ursula slipped her arm through Renata’s and asked, ‘And where’s Reinhard?’
‘In the other reception room.’ Renata glanced about her with quickness, brought her gaze back to her friends. ‘What a happy crowd it appears to be tonight.’
‘But everyone is happy in Berlin,’ Irina said very, very softly, her voice dripping sarcasm. ‘They’re full of relief that Hitler averted war when he signed the Munich Pact with the British Prime Minister and the French Premier in September.’
‘Berliners have their heads stuck in the sand,’ Renata responded, and made a sour face. ‘How can anyone think that that odious little man has stopped a war?’ she asked in an even lower key, sounding scornful. When Irina was silent, she turned to Sigi. ‘Do you believe he has?’
‘I’m hoping against hope,’ Sigi answered.
Irina looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was eavesdropping on their conversation, saw that they were quite isolated where they stood, then remarked quietly, ‘Hitler might have duped Chamberlain and Daladier, bluffed them into thinking that he wants peace as they do, but he hasn’t convinced me and my mother, or the baron for that matter. Helmut thinks he aims to go against the Western democracies next year.’
Renata said, ‘I suspect your stepfather’s not far from the truth.’
‘I pray that Helmut is wrong.’ Sigmund’s voice was as sombre as the expression on his face.
Renata began to shake her head. ‘I tremble at the thought of the poor Czechoslovakians. When Hitler marched into the Sudetenland last month they were finished.’
‘Please, don’t let’s talk politics tonight,’ Ursula whispered. ‘Not even here in the relative safety of the British Embassy. It makes me nervous.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ Sigmund agreed. ‘It’s a dangerous game anywhere these days.’ Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that the von Wittingens had just arrived, and wanting to bring this conversation to a close, and needing an excuse to speak privately to Irina, he said, ‘Come along, Irina my dear, let’s go over and have a word with Kurt and Arabella, and find ourselves a drop of champagne on the way.’
Irina nodded in consent, and they both excused themselves and sauntered off in the direction of the prince and princess.
Left alone together, Renata faced Ursula, frowning slightly. ‘Are you feeling all right, Ursi?’ she asked, peering at her friend. ‘You look so very pale tonight.’
Ursula was silent for a moment, and then she gave Renata a direct look and, suddenly wanting to unburden herself, she confessed, ‘I live with the most corrosive anxiety, Ren. It’s perfectly awful. So debilitating. And although I try desperately to control myself, I’m filled with terrible apprehension most of the time.’
Renata’s face reflected her sympathy and her understanding. ‘We all feel the same way, and with good reason. We’re in the hands of criminals. Let’s face it, the German Government is being led by a bunch of gangsters.’
‘Keep your voice down,’ Ursula cautioned in a whisper, ‘the Gestapo’s everywhere. Even at this party, I’m sure.’
‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ Renata replied dully, adopting the same whispering tone.
Automatically they both edged further into the corner, and Renata stared at Ursula in dismay and let out a weary sigh. ‘I wonder why we bothered to come here tonight, knowing the place would be seething with them and the SS-and God knows who else?’
‘To be together in a friendly atmosphere at a friendly embassy where there are still a few civilised people left to talk to, and to have a pleasant evening with each other, I do believe,’ Ursula murmured, and squeezed her arm, wanting to reassure her friend.
‘Hello, you two,’ a husky, very cultured, very English voice said, and knowing that it was Arabella von Wittingen standing behind them they swung around and greeted her lovingly.
She was an English aristocrat, the former Lady Arabella Cunningham, and the sister of the Earl of Langley. Tall, slender, and elegant this evening in a bottle-green brocade dinner suit composed of a long skirt and a tailored jacket, Arabella had light-blue eyes and a skin like a peach.
Her manner was insouciant, and her pretty mouth twitched with amusement when she said, ‘I can hardly believe my eyes! A member of the Ambassador’s staff must have gone slightly mad. What an invitation list! Some of the raciest ladies in Berlin are present this evening, not to mention those cuties over there, the ones draped all over the Nazi officers.’ She laughed uproariously. ‘The three of them look as if they’ve just stepped out of Madam Kitty’s front door,’ she continued, referring to the most famous brothel in Berlin. ‘Out of several beds in Madam Kitty’s, I should have said,’ she added as an afterthought,