As he led her out onto the dance floor and took her in his arms she saw, over his shoulder, Nicholas spreading upturned hands in an expression of amused, rueful despair. She shot him her bewitching smile. If this dance was a foxtrot, the next was bound to be a waltz. And she knew Nicholas would far prefer to waltz with her than foxtrot.

Max watched the proceedings through narrowed eyes. Outwardly, he looked completely at ease, even a little drunk, his chair pushed away from the table, one leg nonchalantly across the other, a hand resting on his ankle.

The talkative girl who had joined the table with Nicholas and his friends, and whose name he hadn’t registered, kept looking meaningfully across at him and he knew she wanted him to ask her to dance. She was a pretty girl and, under normal circumstances, he would have done so automatically. Tonight, he didn’t do so. Tonight, he watched the cousin he had always regarded as the baby of the family turn all heads as, light as a feather and beautiful as an angel, she danced in the arms of Prince Vladimir Ovelensky.

When the music changed to a waltz he saw her gently insist to Vladimir that they leave the floor. Nicholas was immediately on his feet, not even allowing her to sit down before he waltzed away with her.

The nightclub’s dance floor was too small for the kind of extravagant waltz Nicholas was no doubt capable of and Max found his hands clenching as he watched them barely moving to the music, intimately close and deep in conversation.

‘I saw your parents walking along the promenade together at Wannsee last weekend,’ Nicholas was saying, blissfully unaware that the person he was making jealous wasn’t Vladimir, but Max. ‘It was quite extraordinary. They didn’t see me, because they had eyes for no one but each other. One could have almost believed they were a honeymoon couple.’

Ilse smiled up at him. ‘I know. It is extraordinary, isn’t it? And it’s all happened over the last few weeks. I’m sure they’ve always been happy together, but it wasn’t very visible, if you know what I mean. And then for quite a few years Mama lived mostly at Schloss Niedernhall, while Papa was always either in Berlin or in the Ruhr. And now, since Papa has taken retirement, they are completely wrapped up in each other again.’

‘And Claus and Nancy?’ he asked. ‘Are wedding bells in the offing yet?’

A cloud passed over Ilse’s classically beautiful face. ‘No. There are too many issues between the two of them.’

She didn’t say any more; she had no need to, for Nicholas knew very well the kind of issues marring Claus and Nancy’s romance.

‘Some people are beginning to make compromises,’ he said at last. ‘Especially now Röhm is out of the picture and Hitler is presenting a more respectable face to the world.’

‘And are you now making compromises?’ she asked, tilting her head slightly so she could look into his eyes.