‘You told him not to propose to me?’ Panic bubbled in Vicky’s throat. ‘But I want him to propose to me, Papa! I don’t need to give it serious thought. I don’t want to wait another six months before you give him permission to speak to me. I want him to propose to me now! Tonight!’

The next morning, with her father’s permission, Berthold took her into the mansion’s vast, glass-enclosed winter garden.

‘I would very much like it if…I would be very honoured if…’ He ran a finger round the rim of his stiff wing collar, so nervous and awkward she could hardly bear it. ‘I would be very honoured if you would become my wife,’ he managed at last.

Then, before she could give him her reply, he said pleadingly in a rush of such emotion all her heart went out to him: ‘Do love me a little, Liebchen, because I love you so much.’

He looked so anxious, so terrified she would turn him down, that she flung her arms around his neck, saying passionately, ‘But I already love you far more than a little, Berthold! I love you lots and lots—truly I do!’

For a second there was disbelief in his eyes and then relief flooded them. He gathered her into his arms, saying in a voice cracking and breaking with the force of his feelings, ‘I’ll always love you, Vicky. Always and for ever.’

He was holding her so close she could smell his skin and feel his heart beating against hers. With sensations she had never before experienced flooding through her, she raised her face for his kiss, closing her eyes, knowing it was a moment she would remember always, a moment she would never forget, no matter how long she lived.

His kiss was long and sweet and, as she had known it would be, utterly perfect.

The ring too, when he gave it to her, was beautiful beyond description.

‘It was my mother’s,’ he said simply, slipping a huge solitaire pink diamond onto the third finger of her left hand. ‘I never thought I’d find anyone I loved enough to give it to.’

Then, hand in hand, her head resting against his shoulder, they walked back into the house to break their news to his father and to Zelda.

‘What do you say has just happened, Vicky darling?’ Zelda was lying on her bed, resting. ‘Berthold has proposed to whom?’

‘To me, Zelda.’ Vicky was fizzing with joy. ‘To me!’

Zelda sat upright so quickly a comb flew out of her upswept hair. ‘But you’ve only known him a matter of days!’

‘I know, isn’t it magical? I’m so in love with him, Zelda. He’s everything I want my future husband to be. He’s kind and decent and he makes me laugh and—‘

‘And he wears pebble-thick spectacles and is as homely as grits.’

And then Zelda saw the enormous pink diamond on Vicky’s left hand and immediately regretted her unkind words. What did it matter if Vicky thought the homely Berthold as handsome as a prince? What did matter was that via Vicky she and the Remer family would be permanently linked. There would be lots of opportunities for her to work her charm on Josef Remer, heir to the Remer steel fortune. There would be the wedding, for one thing, when she would be Vicky’s matron of honour and Josef would be Berthold’s best man.