By now a housekeeper was showing them to their rooms and Vicky wondered if Zelda was always so careless about what she said and who she said it in front of.

Reading her thoughts, when the housekeeper left them Zelda said, ‘Don’t worry, Vicky darling, the Schulenburg household is all fiercely anti-Nazi and that includes the family retainers. The only people with whom conversation might need to be guarded, are Claus and Berthold.’

They’d gravitated into the room that had been assigned to Zelda and Josef. From the long corridor outside it came the sound of other arrivals: luggage being carried up the stairs, people who hadn’t seen each other for a while squealing greetings.

Vicky sat down on the nearest elegant chair and looked across at Zelda. Whippet-thin and supremely elegant, she was standing at the window, looking down into the courtyard at the taxis and chauffeur-driven cars that were arriving in a long unending stream, laden with guests. Her mid-calf-length black tailored skirt was arrow-straight and her white hip-length jacket was belted at the waist with a crocodile-skin, silver-buckled belt. Her shoes were as suicidally high as always and her small white hat, dipping provocatively low over her forehead, crowned black satiny hair worn in the style that had become her trademark—a sharp bob with a low heavy fringe emphasizing her superb cheekbones.

‘What about Josef, Zelda?’ she asked, well aware she looked very unsophisticated in comparison. ‘Are people going to have to be guarded about what they say in front of him this weekend?’

Zelda took a cigarette case, lighter and jade cigarette-holder from her crocodile-skin bag and tossed the bag onto the nearest available surface.

‘Possibly, but not to the same extent,’ she said, lighting up a black Sobranie and tossing the cigarette case and lighter in the general direction of her bag. She inhaled deeply and then said, ‘Whatever Josef overhears he won’t repeat it in Nazi hearing. He’s too terrified of reminding the Nazi hierarchy of his existence and consequently of reminding them of my existence. This wedding is my first public outing in months.’

‘Does Claus know why Josef handed the House of Remer over to him?’ Vicky asked, curious. ‘Does he know the veiled threats that were made where you were concerned?’

Zelda’s mouth tightened. ‘No—and the threats weren’t so veiled, Vicky. They were pretty damned explicit. Josef had to either divorce me—and not care what happened to me after he divorced me—or give up the House of Remer. And if it wasn’t for the fact that Claus is such a freak of nature and to all outward appearances such a magnificent example of Aryan manhood, the steelworks would have been lost to the family completely.’

She blew a plume of blue smoke into the air, her dark eyes hard and bitter. ‘And the reason Claus doesn’t know the reason behind the handover is that if he were to know, he’d be so incensed I doubt he’d be able to continue honouring contracts for the government; and if he didn’t do that, the House of Remer would, most definitely, be lost to him and to the son I hope he will one day have.’