Ideas came to her so thick and so fast that she felt almost overcome. Sophie’s throat rose with tears and embarrassment. She was bitterly ashamed of herself. Such basic questions, questions she had not thought to ask. She had been blinded by Gregoire’s smile and dancing eyes. As she disembarked at the offices, she resolved instantly to put a stop to it all. But there was fear, too, of him and his reaction, and of what she might find once she started to dig.

The vast majority of their family wealth, Tom’s money, was bound up in this company’s stock. It was his inheritance. And more than money, it was a name. She knew what it would mean to her son to see House Massot destroyed. Hugh Montfort, the threat from outside, was still there, but before she could think of a defense, there was the danger from within.

Last time she had arrived here, Sophie saw now, it had been a charade. An expensive, shameful charade. A dreadful calm descended over her. For that, she had nobody to blame—not Gregoire Lazard nor lazy shop assistants—for that, she could blame only herself.

Well, she had promised Claudette that things were going to change. No time like the present. She told Richard to park the car, and walked into her husband’s offices.

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

“Nothing but a diamond can scratch or cut a diamond,” the children chorused. “Because a diamond is the hardest thing known.”

Vladek was silent; he sat in his thin, raglike clothes and stared at the book.

“Vladek, I don’t hear you.” The teacher, Mr. Kovec, was angry. “You don’t join the class. Do you understand?”

The boy lifted his head and stared back impassively.

“I understand perfectly, sir.”

“Then you are insolent.” Kovec couldn’t stand Vladek. Skinnier than most of these little brutes, he had those dark, brooding eyes that disturbed the older man. Most of the orphans were easy to manage; they cowered in fear, or fawned, in the hope of an extra scrap of food or clothing. They never answered back and knew their betters. In time they would grow up and be given jobs by the state—the boys, at least; the girls would try desperately to marry, or fall into begging and prostitution. And the orphanage was so poorly heated, at least a handful did not survive each winter.

Kovec, a Pole who had taught in this place for fourteen years, had initially felt some guilt. And then, to relieve himself of the guilt, he discovered anger—which was much easier to handle. And vodka. Now there was a bully’s casual cruelty in everything he did. Once a bright man with a future in Warsaw, he had crossed a party apparatchik and been exiled to this hellhole. Unable to take it out on anybody else, he made sure to share his misery with the children.