It would be quite a likely assumption. He talked to her a good deal and they often took the child walking in the streets; the servants were beginning to smile about them and whisper of romance.

I was delighted but I did not believe he was really attracted by Mary. Whenever I was near him I was aware of the effect I had on him.

Hessenfield said that he was an enthusiastic worker and had brought some valuable information about the position of the Jacobites in England.

“He has been working well for us in England,” he said. “He was just waiting for the right moment to come over here.”

I was not so sure of his fervent views. I was vain enough to think that he had come to see me.

He kept to his bargain, though. He never mentioned that time we had spent together and I was glad that everyone thought he was interested in Mary Marton, although I did hope that Mary, who was a sweet and rather innocent girl, was not going to be hurt. Sometimes, though, I thought he really was fond of her. It was not necessary for them to spend quite so much time together.

Hessenfield was often at court. I knew there was some very big project afoot.

At night when we lay in bed together he would be less discreet than he was by day. I knew that he was tense and uneasy.

He did tell me that this was going to be the most important venture so far.

“I know you are taking arms over to England,” I said.

“Did I tell you that? Then forget it, my dear.”

“You didn’t tell me where.”

“Nor shall I. The fewer who know the better. I know and two others—one of them the King. Even the men who are going do not know where yet. It is imperative that the secret is kept. It would be disastrous if it were betrayed.”

“Then I will ask you no more. Only this: You are not going … really not going?”

“No. I shall send them off and then start preparing for the next.”

A few days later there were visitors at the hôtel. They came ostensibly to pay a social call, but I knew it was not the case.

Hessenfield entertained them in his private study, which was on the first floor. I did not disturb them and gave orders that the servants should not do so.

On the floor there were three rooms leading from one another. The study was in the centre and the other rooms were never used. There were some books in one of them and they were really an extension of the study.

A rather disturbing thing happened while Hessenfield was entertaining his visitors. I had been playing with Clarissa in the nursery and she had suddenly become rather drowsy, so I carried her to her bed, covered her up and left her.

I came downstairs intending to go out, for I often wandered round alone. It was safe to do so if one did not stray from the Marais and I was quite fascinated by the little boutiques which abounded in the nearby streets. I liked to buy ribbons and fans, buttons and such trifles which seemed to have an extra charm when compared with those I had bought at home.

It was a tall house and the nursery and our bedroom were right at the top, and as I was about to descend I thought I heard a sound on the lower landing. I stopped. If Hessenfield’s visitors were just leaving it would be well for me not to run in to them. I knew that he’d not want them seen if that were possible, although he did not wish to labour the point. It was a very important matter and he wanted everything to seem as natural as possible. People called to see him at all times, and he wished this to appear as nothing out of the ordinary.

So I paused. Distinctly I heard the quiet shutting of a door. Then the sound of footsteps, obviously meant to be stealthy, going down the stairs.

I went down. As I came into the street I saw Mary Marton hurrying away.

Then it must have been Mary who had come out of the room next to the study. I wondered what she was doing there. Oh, of course, she would have gone to return a book. She was always trying to get books from the study. Then, having returned, she must have heard voices in the next room, realised she should not be there and tiptoed out.

I wondered whether I would catch up with her and was in the process of doing so when she rounded a corner. As I turned the corner in her wake I saw that she had met Matt.

I drew back. Then it must be true that he was attracted by her and had arranged to meet her. They went into an inn called L’Ananas. A large pineapple was depicted on the sign which creaked over the door. It was a place of good repute, where people could drink a glass of wine and talk in pleasant seclusion during the day, although perhaps at night it became more noisy.

I smiled. I was rather pleased. If Matt and Mary were falling in love my conscience would be relieved on one score. I always felt I had used Matt and abused his innocence.

I bought my buttons and went back to the house. Hessenfield was still in conference in his study.

It was late that night when he came to our bedroom. There was a certain increased tension in his manner.

“Did you complete your business?” I asked.

“Complete!” He laughed. “It has only just begun.”

Hessenfield took me to Court again. This time I stayed there with him for a few nights. It was exciting. I had never been to the English Court, for although in the old days my grandfather had been an intimate friend of Charles the Second’s, he had been an enemy of that King’s brother James; and he had never been on the same terms with William and Mary as he had with Charles. So it was a new experience for me. I soon began to prefer the life in Paris. The city had enchanted me. Every morning I would lie in bed and listen to the sound of Paris waking up. The quietness of the night would gradually by broken. Just a sound here and there and then by nine o’clock it would be completely awake again. I loved the smell of baking bread which seemed to permeate the streets; I loved to listen to the street cries of the various vendors. As I wakened I knew that the peasants who came in from the neighbouring country villages would already have arrived at the barriers with their vegetables and flowers, with their chickens and their rabbits and fish of all kinds. They would make their way to various parts of the town which they had come to regard as their territory; so that if one wanted a certain produce one knew where to go to get it.

It had been a great joy to me to go out with the cook and one of her assistants and watch her do the marketing. She would pretend to refer to me but of course I knew that I was completely incompetent either to choose or to bargain, which seemed to be an important part of the transaction.

I began to learn a good deal about the life of Paris and I loved it. All through the morning the hubbub continued; I enjoyed mingling with those shouting, gesticulating people. I was delighted by the apothecary’s shop, where I could try a variety of perfumes and choose which I liked best, always taking account of the apothecary’s advice, which he gave as though we were deciding a matter of life and death.

Sometimes I went riding with Hessenfield right out to the barriers which marked the boundary of the city. They were made of pine wood and iron and there were sixty of them enclosing Paris and there were customhouses at the river’s edge.

The days began to pass and all that time I was aware of Hessenfield’s eagerness to learn that his business was satisfactorily completed. He was not generally one to doubt success so I gathered that this was an operation of paramount importance. I did not mention that I noticed his preoccupation. I was determined that we should share that immense joy which I found in his company and which did not decrease as the weeks passed.

One day we had been with Clarissa in the carriage and had been out beyond the city into the countryside. It had been a very happy day. Clarissa scarcely mentioned Benjie now. She was as entranced by the new life as I was.

We arrived at the hôtel in the late afternoon. One of the servants met us in some agitation.

There was a gentleman from the Court who urgently desired to see milord.

Hessenfield pressed my hand. “Take Clarissa up to the nursery,” he said.

I went.

In a few minutes he was up there. He said: “I have to go to St. Germains at once.”

I nodded.

“I don’t know how long I shall be. Back tomorrow, I expect.”

He was back the next day.

It was late afternoon. I heard him arrive and went down to meet him. I saw at once that something was wrong.

We went straight up to our bedroom. He shut the door and looked at me.

“Disaster!” he said.

“What?” I stammered.

“Our men went right into a trap. They were waiting for them when they landed. Everything is lost … men, arms, ammunition … all.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“How … ” I began.

“Yes,” he said fiercely. “How! How did they know the exact spot where they were to land? Somebody betrayed them.”

“Who could?”

“That’s what I have to find out.”

“Was it someone in England … someone pretending to be with you while working against you?”

“It was a spy, all right. But not over there, I think.”

“Then where?”

“Here.”

“Here! But nobody knew. Who could possibly? You did not even tell me. It must have been someone over there.”

“I think it was someone here.”

“But who?”

“That is what I am going to find out.”

The following day Hessenfield went back to St. Germain-en-Laye. I tried to behave as though nothing had happened but I could not stop thinking of those men who had walked into a trap and were now probably in the Tower or some prison awaiting sentence, which would certainly be death. I was concerned for Hessenfield, who had cared so passionately that the arms which he had been given by the King of France should have been lost, but what was most disturbing was that some of their most gallant men had been taken.

I had never seen him so sad before. It was a new side to this character.

I went to the nursery.

“Where is my father?” asked Clarissa. She always called him my father. I think it implied that she had only recently acquired him.

I said, “He has gone to see the King.”

“He left in rather a hurry,” said Mary Marton.

“Oh, yes,” I answered. “Important business.”

“He looked a little distrait, I thought,” said Mary.

I lifted my shoulders.

Clarissa said: “Where are we going today?”

“I want to buy some lace,” I said. “Mademoiselle Panton”—she was my couturiere—“wishes to trim a dress with it and for once she is most anxious that I should choose the colors.”

“I expect it is unobtainable,” said Mary with a laugh, “and she will want to blame you because you will have to take a substitute. ‘It was of Madame’s choosing,’ ” she said, imitating Mademoiselle Panton to perfection.

“Mary can be Mademoiselle Panton and Jeanne and me …” said Clarissa looking with admiration at Mary.

We all went to choose the lace. We came back to dinner, and then in the afternoon Clarissa slept and I rested in my bedroom, reading. It was the quiet hour when everyone was either eating or digesting what they had eaten. By five o’clock the streets would be noisy again.

I wondered what Hessenfield was doing and what measures he would take to find out who had betrayed them. It was disconcerting to discover that there were spies in our midst.

It was a lonely evening. It was at times like this that I realised how much I missed him.

I was now deeply in love with him. Our union seemed to be perfect; he was what I had always wanted; I believed I was the same to him.

We were adventurous spirits, both of us. This life suited him and it suited me. I wondered what it would be like if they brought James back to the throne and we returned to England where we would lead the lives of an ordinary nobleman and his wife … except that I should not be his wife. I could not imagine it. Hessenfield would always have to have some plot to be involved in. In the old days he would have gone to sea and plundered the Spanish galleons. In the Civil War he would have behaved in much the same way as he did now, I suppose. He was a man who had to have a cause. Danger was a fillip to his existence. There were men such as that.

But what happened to them when they grew old?