by Dorothy Eden
“Polsen,” she called, “what happened to the others?”
“I understand the Baron and Baroness von Sturpe have been reported heading for the Finnish border. They won’t be allowed over, of course. There will be some trouble with their passports. The brave Dr. Backe was found hiding in his sister’s bedroom with his sister guarding the door and his thesis, which he wanted published in Leningrad, in his briefcase. He had been planning to go, not to Copenhagen, but to Moscow, until Ebba sent him back with orders to lure me to his rooms. Last, Captain Morgensson has been taken off his ship and held for questioning.”
“Not last, Peter Sinclair’s last,” Grace said bitterly.
“His wife and children were put on a flight for London late this afternoon. I can tell you that. The children were happy and excited about the flight, I heard.”
“Polsen, thank you!”
“Sinclair himself is at the embassy. That’s out of our hands, of course. I believe the ambassador wants to see you tomorrow. But that’s tomorrow. Hurry up, Grace. Are you dressed? Am I to come and help you?”
“Going out without your glasses,” Grace fretted.
“Ja. You will have to be my eyes.”
The restaurant, the Teatergrillen, was warm and cozy with its red walls, its dangling puppets and theatrical costumes. It reminded Grace reassuringly, even pleasantly, that sometimes life could be theatrical. Though not necessarily a constant melodrama, as Willa, with her restless nature, had made it.
Polsen’s eyes, so much more obviously tender without the screen of the thick glasses, met hers over the candlelight.
“Champagne,” he said firmly. “We have to drink to a beginning, not an end.”
Her heart was jumping again, but not this time in alarm or cold fear.
“You wouldn’t talk the other morning, Polsen.”
“This is different.”
“Emotion recollected in tranquillity,” Grace murmured, and was pleased that he recognized the quotation.
“Ja. My emotions began when we went to Gripsholm, if you would like to know the exact moment.”
“Looking for Gustav. And we always thought he had to be a Swede. Otherwise I think I would have seen him in Peter’s face earlier. Do you think Ebba was in love with Peter?”
“That woman? She has never been in love with anything but power and intrigue and herself.”
“But he was with her. I suppose he was flattered at the beginning. After all, he was quite ordinary and only a minor diplomat. She, with her elegance and sophistication and her position, must have completely dazzled him. After all, admit it, Kate is a bit dreary.”
“He was a puppet like those,” said Polsen, pointing to the dangling puppets on the walls. “Don’t waste any sympathy on him, Grace. He was stupid and gullible; he betrayed a colleague for money and sex and was completely callous to his wife and children. He didn’t even deserve Willa’s inconvenient passion. Or perhaps he did, since it was fatal to him in the end. Spying in the grand manner for political beliefs is a corrupting enough profession, but in this nasty, furtive, low blackmailing way it is simply beneath contempt. So shall we talk of other things?”
But Grace had to probe her pain a little more.
“I suppose Willa deserved her end, too. She was stupid enough. And thoughtless and immoral. She never thought of what she was doing to Kate and Georgy and Alexander.” She sighed deeply. “Yes, let’s talk of other things. Tell me about Magnus.”
“Oh, he’s fine,” Polsen said enthusiastically. “He’s got into the football team. He’s a strong fellow. Can I bring him to see you on Sunday?”
“Polsen, that’s the first time you’ve suggested that,” Grace said in delight. “I thought you were keeping him away from me.”
“Naturally. Small boys require straightforward things, such as us knowing we belong to each other.”
“Do we?”
“Indubitably!”
“Oh, Polsen! You professor, with your long words. But I must go back to England first. I must talk to my father, my publishers, sort myself out.”
“Of course. I understand. When will you be back?”
Not if, when. Polsen, like his son, had a direct mind.
“By Christmas?” she said tentatively.
He gave his shy beaming smile.
“Splendid. You will still be in time for the snow.”
But she was in time now. For when they left the restaurant, the streets were white with a crisp crunching coverlet. The wind was blowing the last ragged leaves from the trees, and the air, whirling with snowflakes, had become intensely clean and invigorating. Grace thought of the suddenly transformed pure white forests, the frozen lakes, the immaculate fields. She laughed with excitement and tucked herself close against Polsen’s broad sheltering body.
About the Author
Dorothy Eden (1912–1982) was the internationally acclaimed author of more than forty bestselling gothic, romantic suspense, and historical novels. Born in New Zealand, where she attended school and worked as a legal secretary, she moved to London in 1954 and continued to write prolifically. Eden’s novels are known for their suspenseful, spellbinding plots, finely drawn characters, authentic historical detail, and often a hint of spookiness. Her novel of pioneer life in Australia, The Vines of Yarrabee, spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list. Her gothic historical novels Ravenscroft, Darkwater, and Winterwood are considered by critics and readers alike to be classics of the genre.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1970 by Dorothy Eden
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
978-1-4804-2979-6
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
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