I slipped away, not caring very much if I was missed. I had seen little of Freya all day. I believed she had been with Tatiana and Gunther, but as I rode out of the inn I saw Tatiana near the stables, so I presumed they had returned.

Conrad was waiting for me in the dark clothes he wore for these clandestine occasions. He caught me and held me in an embrace even more passionate than before.

"I had to see you," he said. "We'll go to the room here."

"I have something to show you," I told him.

We went up the back stairs and when we were alone he kissed me in the familiar demanding way.

"I have made a great discovery," I said. "It can change everything for us." I drew the paper from my bodice. He stared at it, then at me.

"This is it," I cried triumphantly. "The missing sheet from the register. I did see it after all. Then, before I could show it to you, someone removed it."

He was amazed. He said: "But the churchwarden ..."

"He was lying. Obviously he had been bribed to lie, by the man who took it. It is all so very clear to me now."

"Who?"

"I can even tell you that. It was Katia's brother."

"Katia ... ?"

"Katia Schwartz. She lives in the forest near the hunting lodge. She knew my sister. I discovered her when I saw that my sister's grave had been looked after. I trusted her and told her who I was, and she gave me this."

"It's incredible," he said.

"No, perfectly credible. Herzog Schwartz was spying for someone whose interest it was to remove that sheet."

He was looking at me oddly. "Who?" he said.

"I don't know."

"Pippa, you don't think I ordered it to be done?"

"You!"

"Well, if you are looking for a motive, who stands to gain most?"

"Conrad ... you didn't ..."

"Of course not."

"Then who could?"

"That is what we must find out."

"There is only one reason why it should be necessary to do it," I said.

He nodded. "If there was a child ..."

I cried: "There must be a child. Why otherwise should Francine have told me that there was? Why otherwise should it have been necessary to remove that sheet from the register?"

He was silent. I could see that he was stunned.

I went on: "If we could find the child ..."

"He would be the heir to the dukedom," he murmured very quietly.

"And you would be free, Conrad, to make your own life."

"If that child exists ..."

"He does exist. He must. Someone wants to hide the evidence of the marriage. He must be here ... somewhere near, perhaps. I am sure he is Francine's son and the true heir to the dukedom."

"We'll find him."

"And then?"

He took my face in his hands and kissed me. "You and I will have the freedom we want."

"And Freya?"

"She will probably have to wait until the boy grows up. How old would he be?"

"About four years old."

"A long time for Freya to wait."

"And you would be free, Conrad. But ... Freya would be hurt."

"It would be no slight to her. It is merely that the positions of power would be changed. If we can find that boy, I shall be free to act as I wish."

"I think I have found the boy."

"What!"

"His foster mother will not want to give him up and I am sure she will lie about his origins. But I feel certain of it."

"What have you discovered?"

"It is Katia Schwartz. Poor woman. She gave me the paper out of gratitude to Francine. It will be hard if through doing so she will lose the child."

"You have seen the child?"

"Yes. He is the right age, fair-haired, blue eyes and his name is Rudolph, which I know my sister's baby was called. She wrote to me about him and this is rather vital, I think. He had a toy—a troll, she told me in her letter—and he sucked one of its ears for comfort. When I was at the Schwartz home I saw the child; he had a troll and it came out that he sucked one of its ears for comfort and had been doing so since he was one year old."

"I will have everything checked concerning the woman. I will find out every detail concerning the child."

"If this could be proved true ..." I whispered.

He said with a little laugh, "I believe you are a witch. You come here in disguise ... you discover secrets that have baffled everyone else. You enchant me. What are you, Pippa?"

"I hope I am the one you love. That is all I want to be."

Then we talked of how we would proceed and what we would do if we could prove that the child in the forest was indeed the heir to the dukedom.

"I should have to be here until he was of age," said Conrad. "It would be my duty to hold the dukedom for him and to help teach him how to govern. We should have to spend long periods in the Grand Schloss but our home could be Marmorsaal. Oh, Pippa ... Pippa ... can you imagine that!"

I could and I did.

He said, "I will set everything in motion tomorrow. It should not take long. Katia Schwartz will have to prove that the child she has with her is her own. If we get the answers we want, then we shall let it be known that Rudolph was lawfully married and had a son. That will be the best possible news."

It was about two hours later when I left the inn. As we were about to go Conrad said to me, "I didn't want to tell you before—I thought it would spoil our time together—but in two or three days I have to go away. It will only be for a week or so. I have to return with our guests from Sholstein. There are certain treaties I have to work out with them. When I come back, whatever happens, I want you to come to the Marmorsaal. No more dallying. Unless of course we find our heir, then we shall have a wedding. Instead of living together in respectable sin, we shall be together in openly virtuous convention ... all that every subject in this dukedom could wish."

I could see that he took the matter more lightheartedly than I did and I was faintly disturbed. Would he regret just a little giving up that supreme power? Did it mean more to him than a regular union with me?

I thought he was the sort of man who could have been completely happy as long as I was there. My uneasiness increased. If an outsider had come in and been asked whose interest would be best served by hiding the marriage of Francine and Rudolph and the existence of their child, his answer would surely be Conrad's.

I shook myself free of such feelings, and reminded myself that he had been as eager as I was to find the child. He had kept the sheet from the register and said he would put it under lock and key, for it was unsafe for me to carry it around.

That had seemed the right thing to do when he said it. But I wished I could throw off my doubts.

It was two days before I saw him again, and he would be leaving the day after that. He came to the Graf's schloss unexpectedly when neither the Graf nor the Grafin was at home. Freya was riding with Gunther and a party. I think Tatiana was with them.

When I saw Conrad arriving my heart leaped. There was a great fluttering below because there was no-one to receive him. I heard him in the hall, putting them all at their ease with that affable manner of his which earned him so much popularity.

"Leave me," I heard him say. "I will amuse myself until the Graf returns." I had started to come down the stairs and he saw me. "Ah," he cried, "here is the English governess. Perhaps she will entertain me for half an hour. It will be good practice for my English."

I approached him and bowed. He took my hand and kissed it, after the custom.

"Let us go somewhere where we can chat, Fraulein ...

"Ayres, my lord Baron," I said.

"Oh yes, Fraulein Ayres."

I led the way into the small room which opened from the hall. He shut the door and laughed at me.

"For the life of me I couldn't remember your name. Darling Pippa I know well ... but Fraulein Ayres—she is a stranger to me."

Then I was in his arms.

"It is unsafe here. ..." I said.

"Soon we shall be free of such restrictions."

"Have you found anything about the child?"

He shook his head dolefully. "There is no doubt that the boy you saw was the son of Katia Schwartz. She was raped in the forest, so we do not know the father's name. The midwife who attended her has been questioned. She tended the birth of the child and looked after Katia afterwards. The boy was healthy, named Rudolph and several people will testify that he has been living with his mother ever since."

"But the fact that she knew my sister ... that I found the troll..."

"She knew your sister, yes. That has never been denied. The troll is a common child's toy. Children all over the country have them ... and I am told it is a custom for them to keep them and even suck their ears and toes. No, it is clear that Katia Schwartz's boy is her own."

"He must be somewhere else then."

"If he exists, we'll find him."

"How?"

"I can have discreet enquiries made. Depend upon it, if that boy exists we shall find him, for without him the sheet from the register is of no consequence."

"It is to me, even if we cannot find the boy, for it proves that my sister was telling the truth. It proves that she was not Rudolph's mistress but his wife. And if she was telling the truth when she wrote of the marriage, it follows that she was when she wrote of the boy."

"We'll find him."

We sprang apart suddenly, for the door had opened. Tatiana was standing there.

"I heard that you were here, Baron," she said. She was in her riding habit and had clearly just come in. "You must forgive us. It was most remiss of us not to be here when you called. What are you thinking of us?"

Conrad had stepped forward, taken her hand and kissed it as a short while ago he had kissed mine.

"My dear Countess," he said, "I beg of you do not ask my pardon. It is I who should ask yours for calling at such an inopportune time."

"The schloss is always at your disposal," she said. She was flushed and looking rather pretty. "It is unforgivable that there should be no one here to receive you."

"Fraulein Ayres has been doing the honours of the household." He turned to smile at me and I wondered whether Tatiana would notice the somewhat mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

"It was good of you, Fraulein," said Tatiana. "I dare say you have a great deal to do."

I knew what she meant. Dismissal. I bowed and went to the door.

"I sought the opportunity to improve my English," said Conrad.

"It is always so useful," murmured Tatiana.

As I went out I caught a glimpse of Conrad smiling at her.

I felt angry—ridiculously so. I seemed to forget that I was, after all, only the English governess.

I went up to my room. My euphoria of the last days had evaporated. The enquiries had come to nothing and Tatiana had made me realize how invidious was my position here.

It must have been an hour later when I saw him leave. I looked out of my window. Tatiana was with him. They walked together to the stables and seemed to be engaged in very amusing conversation.

I did not have an opportunity of seeing him again before he left for his week's trip. There was obviously no news or he would have found a way of telling me.

There was, however, a letter delivered to me on the day of his departure. It was the usual tender note, telling me that he was longing to be back with me and when he did return I must be with him. The Marmorsaal was waiting and there must be no further delay. He was having enquiries pursued in what he called Our Little Matter, and if anything came to light he would let me know at once.

A day passed and then another. Freya was absentminded. She was extremely lively at one moment and the next seemed to be plunged in perplexity. I wondered how I could ever tell her about myself and Conrad. The more I tried to reason with myself, the more despicable my situation seemed. How could I say, "I am in love with your future husband. We are already lovers and plan to continue so, even after your marriage."

I should never have believed that I could have fallen into such a situation. I wished that there were someone in whom I could confide. I had been to see Daisy now and then and I was always made welcome and enjoyed playing with little Hans.

The day after Conrad left I did confide in her to a certain extent, because I felt that Daisy was the sort of person who had a natural gift for picking up information and for fitting it together to make the picture complete. She liked to hear snippets of gossip about the reigning family and although she was not on the spot, she did know what the people in the streets were saying, and it seemed a fact that all sorts of information seeped out to them and that they sometimes had a clearer picture than those of us who lived more closely to events.