she said.
“Yours,” he replied. “If you want it.”
She stared at him. What did he mean?
“You could live here with the baby,” he explained. “It was occupied for years by an old lady who used to be my father’s housekeeper. She died a few months ago. You could redecorate it and buy new furniture.”
“Live here?” she said. “As what?”
He could not quite bring himself to say it.
“As your mistress?” she said.
“You can have a nurse, and a couple of housemaids, and a gardener. Even a motorcar with a chauffeur, if that appeals to you.”
The part of it that appealed to her was him.
He misinterpreted her thoughtful look. “Is the house too small? Would you prefer Kensington? Do you want a butler and a housekeeper? I’ll give you anything you want, don’t you understand? My life is empty without you.”
He meant it, she saw. At least, he meant it now, when he was aroused and unsatisfied. She knew from bitter experience how fast he could change.
The trouble was, she wanted him just as badly.
He must have seen that in her face, for he took her in his arms again. She turned up her face to be kissed. I want more of this, she thought.
Once again she broke the embrace before she lost control.
“Well?” he said.
She could not make a sensible decision while he was kissing her. “I’ve got to be alone,” she said. She forced herself to walk away from him before it was too late. “I’m going home,” she said. She opened the door. “I need time to think.” She hesitated on the doorstep.
“Think as long as you want,” he said. “I’ll wait.”
She closed the door and ran away.
Gus Dewar was in the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, standing in front of Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait at the Age of Sixty-three, when a woman standing next to him said: “Extraordinarily ugly man.”
Gus turned and was surprised to recognize Maud Fitzherbert. He said: “Me, or Rembrandt?” and she laughed.
They strolled through the gallery together. “What a delightful coincidence,” he said. “Meeting you here.”
“As a matter of fact, I saw you and followed you in,” she said. She lowered her voice. “I wanted to ask you why the Germans haven’t yet made the peace offer you told me was coming.”
He did not know the answer. “They may have changed their minds,” he said gloomily. “There as here, there is a peace faction and a war faction. Perhaps the war faction has gained the upper hand, and succeeded in changing the kaiser’s mind.”
“Surely they must see that battles no longer make a difference!” she said with exasperation. “Did you read in this morning’s papers that the Germans have taken Bucharest?”
Gus nodded. Rumania had declared war in August, and for a while the British had hoped their new partner might strike a mighty blow, but Germany had invaded back in September and now the Rumanian capital had fallen. “In fact the upshot is good for Germany, which now has Rumania’s oil.”
“Exactly,” said Maud. “It’s the same old one step forward, one step back. When will we learn?”
“The appointment of Lloyd George as prime minister isn’t encouraging,” Gus said.
“Ah. There you might be wrong.”
“Really? He has built his political reputation on being more aggressive than everyone else. It would be hard for him to make peace after that.”
“Don’t be so sure. Lloyd George is unpredictable. He could do a volteface. It would surprise only those naive enough to have thought him sincere.”
“Well, that’s hopeful.”
“All the same, I wish we had a woman prime minister.”
Gus did not think that was ever likely to happen, but he did not say so.
“There’s something else I want to ask you,” she said, and she halted. Gus turned to face her. Perhaps because the paintings had sensitized him, he found himself admiring her face. He noticed the sharp lines of her nose and chin, the high cheekbones, the long neck. The angularity of her features was softened by her full lips and large green eyes. “Anything you like,” he said.
“What did Walter tell you?”
Gus’s mind went back to that surprising conversation in the bar of the Adlon Hotel in Berlin. “He said he was obliged to let me into a secret. But then he didn’t tell me what the secret was.”
“He thought you would be able to guess.”
“I guessed he must be in love with you. And from your reaction when I gave you the letter at Ty Gwyn, I could see that his love is returned.” Gus smiled. “If I may say so, he’s a lucky man.”
She nodded, and Gus read something like relief on her face. There must be more to the secret, he realized; that was why she needed to find out how much he knew. He wondered what else they were hiding. Perhaps they were engaged.
They walked on. I understand why he loves you, Gus thought. I could fall for you in a heartbeat.
She surprised him again by suddenly saying: “Have you ever been in love, Mr. Dewar?”
It was an intrusive question, but he answered anyway. “Yes, I have-twice.”
“But no longer.”
He felt an urge to confide in her. “The year the war broke out, I was wicked enough to fall in love with a woman who was already married.”
“Did she love you?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I asked her to leave her husband for me. That was very wrong of me, and you will be shocked, I know. But she was a better person than I, and she rejected my immoral offer.”
“I’m not so easily shocked. When was the second time?”
“Last year I became engaged to someone in my hometown, Buffalo; but she married someone else.”
“Oh! I’m so sorry. Perhaps I should not have asked. I have revived a painful memory.”
“Extremely painful.”
“Forgive me if I say that makes me feel better. It’s just that you know what sorrow love can bring.”
“Yes, I do.”
“But perhaps there will be peace after all, and my sorrow will soon be over.”
“I very much hope so, Lady Maud,” said Gus.
Ethel agonized for days over Fitz’s proposition. As she stood freezing in her backyard, turning the mangle to wring out the washing, she imagined herself in that pretty house in Chelsea, with Lloyd running around the garden watched over by an attentive nurse. “I’ll give you anything you want,” Fitz had said, and she knew it was true. He would put the house in her name. He would take her to Switzerland and the south of France. If she set her mind to it, she could make him give her an annuity so that she would have an income until she died, even if he got bored with her-although she also knew she could make sure he never got bored.
It was shameful and disgusting, she told herself sternly. She would be a woman paid for sex, and what else did the word prostitute mean? She could never invite her parents to her Chelsea hideaway: they would know immediately what it meant.
Did she care about that? Perhaps not, but there were other things. She wanted more from life than comfort. As
