Remember (34 page)

He went on, “You’re obviously still flying around the world, covering disasters and the like. But you’re not married, I see.

Or rather, I should say you’re not wearing a ring. Are you married, by any chance?”

“No, I’m not married.”

“There’s no special man in your life?”

“Yes, there is, as a matter of fact, but only recently.”

“Are you in love with him?”

“I think so—I’m not sure.”

“Are you going to marry him?”

“He hasn’t asked me.”

“He’s a fool if he doesn’t. And if he does ask? Will you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I wouldn’t have done you any physical harm, you know,” Charles remarked, changing the subject. “However, I can’t say

that I blame you for wanting your own car and driver to come out here to see me.”

“I was being cautious.”

“And independent. That was one of the many things I always loved about you.”

She turned to walk into the foyer and he caught hold of her arm, pulled her to him and held her tightly, held her very close to him.

Nicky was taken by surprise, but she did not resist him. She let him hold her in this way, understanding that he needed to do this, needed to be close to her. She could feel his heart hammering under his thin shirt, and with a sudden flash of insight, she thought, Oh God, he still loves me. Swallowing hard, she gently pushed him away.

“It’s better that I leave now,” she murmured softly, and then against her own volition she reached up and touched his cheek.

“Please don’t worry, I will never betray you, Charles.”

“I believe you, Nicky,” he said, taking her arm, walking with her to the front door. “I trust you. With my life.”

Once she was back at the Ritz Hotel and in the privacy of her suite, Nicky broke down.

She lay on the bed and cried bitterly, sobbing as if her heart would break. Her tears were for Charles and the dangerous and lonely life he had chosen to lead, for herself and what they had once had together, and for what might have been.

But eventually she calmed down and took control of herself. She lay for a long time propped up against the pillows, thinking of everything that had happened in the past few weeks. And not unnaturally, she felt a sharp stab of guilt when she considered some of the dreadful things she had ascribed to Charles. How could she have ever thought that he was some sort of criminal—an arms smuggler, a drug trafficker? She should have known better.

Yes, he had sacrificed her, their love, their future, the future of the children they might have had together. But he had done it for a noble cause. He had done it for his country. And yes, she ought to have known it was something like this, not some grubby deal. After all, his mother’s family, the famous Cliffords of Pullenbrook, had always been in service to the Crown of England, and since time immemorial. Honor and duty and loyalty to country had been inculcated in him since birth.

He was simply following in the footsteps of his ancestors.

PART FOUR.

It was that time of the year when Parisians have fled to summer resorts for their annual vacations and the tourists have invaded.

Paris was awash with foreigners, but Nicky did not care, she was both relieved and glad to be here.

Madrid was not a city she knew well, and she had visited it only once before this last trip, but she had no desire to return. The past forty-eight hours had left their mark on her, particularly the confrontation with Charles yesterday, and she knew that thereafter Madrid was always going to hold unpleasant memories for her.

She had managed to get a flight out of Madrid late on Saturday afternoon, and had checked into the Plaza-Athenee when she arrived at night. Clee was not returning until Sunday evening, and was not expecting to see her until Monday. And, in any case, she needed some time alone, time to sort out her turbulent thoughts,

to come to terms with all that had happened since she had last seen him in New York at the beginning of August.

On an urgent quest for Charles Devereaux though she had been, the unexpectedness of suddenly coming face-to-face with him had been an enormous shock, as indeed was the news that he had a secret life as an agent with British intelligence. She had not slept well last night, even though she had been bone tired, and after restlessly tossing and turning for hours she had finally fallen asleep as dawn broke.

When she awakened around ten, she had felt out of sorts with herself, and by noon a heavy sadness had settled over her. It was a sadness so acute it verged on depression, and in an effort to throw this off she had dressed and left the hotel.

Optimistic by nature and generally upbeat, Nicky was not accustomed to being down in the dumps, and she loathed the feelings enveloping her now. So she hoped that being outside in the sunshine, walking the familiar streets and visiting favorite haunts, would help to lighten her mood.

For as long as Nicky could remember she had felt a spiritual affinity for Paris. It was her city in so many different ways, and the childhood years she had spent here in the sixties had been extraordinarily happy. And so it was that she tried to recapture some of that youthful joy as she walked along energetically, perhaps the happy memories of the past would help to chase away the demons of the present.

Nicky was not sad for herself but for Charles. Long ago, long before he had known her, he had clearly set himself upon a deadly course that was now irrevocable. He had made a choice, one that had ultimately led him to that safe house in Madrid, where they had met yesterday. In deciding to serve his country, he had elected to live in the covert world of espionage, a dangerous netherworld of secrets and spying, duplicity and double-dealing-and, more often than not, death.

A chill ran through her, despite the warmth of the day and the radiant sunlight. Such a life had little to commend it, or to offer a man, she knew Charles could never marry now, never have children, never lead a normal existence. The loneliness and fear he had to contend with must be excruciating, and the specter of betrayal, or discovery, unnerving.

That kind of terror must strike close to the bone, she thought, and she shivered involuntarily.

Nicky walked on at a steady pace, but her mind raced. All manner of different thoughts jostled for attention, and one, in particular, took precedence over the others, Charles had admitted to being a British agent since the age of twenty-five, and since he was so obviously deeply committed, then why on earth had he ever become involved with her in the first place?

She wished she had asked him this, she also wished she had asked him why he had not left one last word for her, as he had for his mother.

Maybe he had not known what to say to her, or had had nothing to say, perhaps, certainly the letter to Anne had been brief and to the point, a bleak little epistle, if ever she had read one. Well, she would never find out now. It was too late, the chance had gone.

Having come down the avenue Montaigne from the hotel and turned onto the Champs-Elysees, Nicky now struck out across the vast place de la Concorde, and was soon entering the Jardin des Tuileries. She slowed her steps and glanced around. It was years since she had been here in the gardens, but there were so many good things to remember, so many lovely memories of her childhood associated with them.

Quite unexpectedly she thought of Marie Therese Bouret, the all pair who had looked after her. She had been seven years old,

Marie Therese seventeen, when the young French girl had come to live with them, being more like a big sister than a nanny.

Vivacious, loving and joyful of spirit, Marie Therese had brought Nicky to the gardens to play almost every day in summer. And she had taken her to so many other places as well, during the six years her parents had been based in Paris for their respective newspapers. It was with Marie Therese that she had gone to the Louvre for the first time to see the Mona Lisa and other great paintings, together they had gone up the Eiffel Tower to view Paris from on high, and, as the young nanny had explained, for her to see how the Arc de Triomphe resembled the hub of a giant wheel, with the great avenues and boulevards designed by Baron Haussmann stretching out from it like long spokes.

And when her mother had taken her to Fontainebleau, Versailles and Malmaison on her”historical outings,” as she called them, Marie Therese had always accompanied them. She, too, had been treated to her mother’s unique lessons in French history, which were never dull and boring but intriguing and fascinating. And it was Marie Therese to whom she had clung when her parents were away, doing their work as journalists, and to whom she had said her first halting words in French. Yes, she had been indispensable to her when she was little, had loved her dearly, taught her so much about the language, about Paris and the French way of life.

They had stayed in close touch over the years, and saw each other from time to time, whenever Nicky was in Paris. Marie Therese had married at twenty-three, and had had a son a year later. Sadly, her husband, Jean-Pierre, had been killed ten years ago in a car crash in Mozambique, where he was working on an engineering job.

Her son, Paul, now twenty-two and an engineer like his father, had recently married.

I must call her, Nicky thought. I’ll do it later when I get back to the hotel and take her to lunch tomorrow. I hope she can make it. The thought of seeing the woman she held in such affection, and who had played such an important role in her life when she was a child, cheered Nicky, a little of the sadness evaporated.

After walking in the gardens for a while, Nicky finally went on her way, past the Jardin du Carrousel and across the Pont des Arts. This was the only metal bridge in Paris, and one she knew well, since her father had a very good painting of it by Jacques Bouyssou, the official painter of the French navy.

When she came to the quai Malaquais, Nicky hesitated, she looked up and down, wondering whether to wander along the Seine to Notre-Dame or to plunge into the streets behind the quai. The apartment she and her parents and Marie Therese had lived in had been on the two top floors of an eighteenth-century house on the The Saint-Louis. It stood in the shadow of the ancient cathedral, and she loved that particular part of the city. She decided to wander up there later.

Striking out down the rue Bonaparte, she headed for the place SaintGermain-des-Pres. “Napoleon Bonaparte,” she murmured under her breath, recalling how that name had been a familiar one in their home for years. She had learned it young, and at once it evoked another rush of memories. Her mother had been fascinated by Bonaparte, and after years of scholarly research had finally written a masterly biography of the great general and France’s first emperor.

To Nicky the book had been extraordinary, and she still believed it to be her mother’s best. It was a portrait that was extremely fair and well balanced, and her mother had made the man accessible in modern terms. He had been all too human, and so had Josephine, his grand passion, the only woman he had ever

really loved. But their love had foundered on the rocks of his overweening ambition, he had had their marriage annulled in order to beget an heir to his empire with a younger woman.

According to her mother, this heartbreaking decision had ruined their lives. Without Josephine at his side, Napoleon’s luck turned bad, and Josephine died of a broken heart just after his first abdication and exile to Elba in 1814. “They never stopped loving each other,” her mother had said to her time and time again when she was writing the book. “And that was the tragedy of it all.”

Nicky sighed. The anguish men and women caused each other, the terrible things they did to each other in the name of love never failed to amaze her. Nothing has changed and it never will, she thought, because human beings are exactly the same as they were hundreds of years ago. And we’ve learned nothing over the centuries. What Charles had done to her was cruel, unconscionable, however important his cause might be. It had been wrong of him to even contemplate marrying her under the circumstances. He had been selfish. But then who isn’t?

she asked herself.

By the time she reached the place SaintGermain, Nicky was damp with perspiration, tired from the heat and footsore. Heading in the direction of a cafe on the shady side of the square, she took a table and ordered cafe all lait, bread, a tomato salad, sliced chicken and a bottle of water. She had not eaten much in the last few days, and she discovered she was starving.

The waiter brought the bottle of water immediately. She thirstily drank a glass straight down and then leaned back in the chair.

The long walk had done her good, and she felt certain she would sleep tonight, and tomorrow she would be with Clee. This prospect filled her with warmth and pleasure. She could hardly wait to see him.

Taking off her sunglasses, Nicky blinked and looked around. The area was busy. People were strolling around or sitting at cafes as she was, whiling away the time, enjoying the nice weather on this pleasant Sunday afternoon. The noise of people talking and laughing surrounded her, and as her eyes scanned the place SaintGermain she could not help thinking how ordinary and normal everybody looked and sounded. This was reassuring, and she pulled her thoughts away from Charles Devereaux and the treacherous and cynical world he occupied. Suddenly it struck her that he had done her a favor by vanishing when he did. How terrible her life might have turned out to be if she had married him.

Marie Therese lived on the opposite side of Paris, just off the boulevard de Belleville. Since this was quite a distance from the Plaza-Athenee, Nicky allowed herself a good half hour to get there by taxi on Monday. Even so, she was a bit late when she finally arrived, because of the distance and the heavy traffic congesting the streets at this busy time of day.

As she climbed the long flight of stairs to the apartment she could not help wondering why her friend now lived in this section of the city.

Belleville—pretty town—certainly did not live up to its name.

It was an odd area, totally lacking in elegance and even a bit scruffy.