Anne sighed at the realisation that it was her pride and self-will that had heaped these difficulties on her, and the Count, who had evidently been pursuing a train of thought of his own, said, ‘I have been very much to blame in this matter. I have behaved recklessly and selfishly, and brought great trouble to you.’
‘No, no, sir, you must not blame yourself. It was by my own decision that I left the Murrays.’
‘But if I had not asked you to dance, the situation would never have arisen.’
‘That was the immediate cause, sir,’ Anne admitted, ‘but–’
‘No, no, it was all my fault. My wretched high spirits!’ he groaned. ‘When I was a cadet, I was forever playing practical jokes and finding myself in trouble. My son is the same way – he takes too strongly after me, I’m afraid. And even now, when I am supposed to be a staid and respectable diplomat, I cannot see a lion without wishing to tweak its tail.’
‘Then you mean that you danced with me only to annoy the Murrays?’ Anne asked.
‘What? No, no!’ He shook his head in self-reproach. ‘That was clumsy of me. I danced with you because I wanted to, and if it is any compliment to be asked by me, then that compliment is all your own.’ He smiled down at her. ‘I can give reasons in plenty for my bad behaviour. I have been a long time away from home, and away from my wife, whom I love dearly, and I have missed the solace of female companionship. And I so much enjoyed our conversations, brief though they were! You cannot imagine how many stupid people I have to talk to in the course of my work, and how much I long for wit and intelligence.’
‘I can imagine that very easily,’ Anne said.
‘Of course you can! You have a vigorous and original mind, Miss Peters, and contact with it has been a privilege. But you must not distract me from my confession -1 was telling you all my selfishness! I enjoyed talking to you, and I wanted very much to dance with you, but I knew – yes certainly, I knew! – that I should not. I allowed myself to be carried away by the moment, but I did not anticipate that it would have such serious consequences for you. If I had, I should certainly have behaved otherwise. I hope you believe that.’
‘Of course,’ she said, and they walked on in silence for a while. They crossed the place du Theatre and walked up the rue Richelieu.
‘Here is my house, mademoiselle,’ the Count said, halting in front of an old, narrow house with new white stone facings. ‘Here you will be quite safe. I share it with another member of the Embassy, Poliakov, and his wife and servants, so you need not be afraid to enter,’ he added delicately. ‘They will be as eager to help you as I am.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Anne said, and allowed him to usher her in. An elderly manservant met them, and the Count, having introduced Anne in French, embarked in Russian on what she assumed must be an explanation of her plight. The manservant asked a question, and the Count turned to Anne.
‘May I ask where are your belongings?’ Anne gave the address of her lodgings. ‘Boris will send a man for them, to bring them here. It will be better, I think, if you do not go back for them. Inside this house, no one can harm you, but if you venture onto the street, I shall have less power to protect you. And now, I am sure you would like some refreshment.’ He led Anne into a parlour off the hall, and in a few moments the manservant brought cake and wine for them both.
‘Well, now,’ the Count said, standing by the fireplace and looking down at her, where she sat on the sofa, ‘having brought you so much trouble, I must somehow put things right.’ He pulled his chin. ‘It should not be too difficult, if we move immediately, to get you back to England, though it might be better to travel by way of–’
‘But I don’t want to go back to England,’ Anne protested.
‘Not want to go home?’ he asked in surprise. ‘Surely you cannot be serious?’
‘That was the greatest part of my reason for not going with the Murrays,’ she said. ‘It’s true that I left them in anger, but I had also come to realise that I love Paris, and I wanted to stay here.’
He looked worried. ‘Well, you cannot stay in Paris now.’
‘Yes, I understand that,’ she said wretchedly. ‘But what is there for me in England? I have no family, no home, no friends. All I can do is to try to find myself some work to keep me in food and lodging. The Murrays, I fear, will see to it that I cannot get another place as a governess; at least, not with the sort of family I would prefer. I should probably end up as a seamstress or a serving-woman, and if I must be disgraced, I had sooner be disgraced in a foreign country, where I am not known, than in England.’
‘This is too black a picture, surely,’ he said tentatively. ‘There must be something else you could do.’
She looked up at him with a sort of grim humour. ‘There is, but I would not contemplate it.’
He looked embarrassed, and walked across the room and back, twisting his hands behind him, and then paused in front of her gravely. ‘I have done you a greater wrong than I feared,’ he said. ‘I have ruined you, and made it impossible for you to go home. I cannot tell you how much I regret that foolish impulse of mine. If I could only have the time over again, and put things right–’
‘Please don’t!’ she said quickly. ‘I am not sorry. If I had the choice, I would dance with you again. It was my choice, you know – I could have stopped you, if I had tried hard enough. And,’ she added with a small smile, ‘I never really liked working for the Murrays.’
His eyes creased up in a smile and he held out his hand to her, and when she offered hers, he took it in both his and pressed it warmly. ‘You have all the famous courage of your race, mademoiselle! Well, I promise you you shall not suffer. Tell me, do you like to travel?’
She laughed. ‘I cannot say, sir. The only place I have ever been outside my own country is here.’
‘Would you like to see Russia?’
She stared at him, stunned. ‘Russia?’ she managed to say at last. ‘Can you mean it?’
‘Nothing could be simpler! My tour here is over, and 1 am to go home in the next day or two. I shall persuade Markov to give you a passport, and you shall come with me. You can travel as my niece. With a Russian passport, you will have no difficulty at the frontiers.’
‘The frontiers,’ she said, as through it were a magic word. She visualised their route northwards across Europe, through France and the German states, and Poland, and then to Russia! Mighty, mysterious, the most foreign of foreign lands – ‘But, sir, what should I do in Russia? How shall I live?’
‘Oh, I have thought of that,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘Listen!’ And he sat down on the sofa beside her, looking, in his eagerness, more her age than his. ‘I have two daughters, one nine years old, and one just two. Now Yelena, the elder girl, has a German governess, dear old Fräulein Hoffnung, who taught my sisters when they were young, an excellent woman, though not widely educated as you are, Miss Peters. And Yelena is high-spirited and growing difficult to manage, too much for poor Fräulein Hoffnung, who ought by rights to be sitting by the fire and knitting, at her age. The little one, Natasha, was still with her nurses when I last saw her, but soon she will need the guidance and instruction of a proper governess.’
He jumped up again, and walked back to the fireplace, as if his thoughts were running so rapidly that only physical movement could relieve them. ‘Since I first met you, Miss Peters, I have greatly admired your intelligence, your education, your spirit and your character, and in fact it did once cross my mind that I should be very happy to be able to get someone to teach Yelena who had your abilities! Of course, the situation was very different then. I should not have thought of asking you to leave your safe employment and travel half-way across the world to a foreign country, but as matters stand now… Would you consider it? Would you come with me to Russia, and be governess to my daughters?’