Sidney Sheldon - Bloodline

Five days after they had met, Walther took her hands in his and said, “Anna, liebchen, I want to marry you.”

He had spoiled it. He had taken her out of her wonderful fairyland and brought her back to the cruel reality of who and what she was. An unattractive, thirty-five-year-old virginal prize for fortune hunters.

She had tried to leave but Walther had stopped her. “We love each other, Anna. You can’t run away from that.”

She listened to him lying, listened to him saying, “I’ve never loved anyone before,” and she made it easy for him because she wanted so desperately to believe him. She took him back to her room, and they sat there, talking, and as Walther told Anna the story of his life, she suddenly began to believe, thinking with wonder, It is really the story of my own life.

Like her, Walther had never had anyone to love. He had been alienated from the world by his birth as a bastard, as Anna had been alienated by her illness. Like her, Walther had been filled with the need to give love. He had been brought up in an orphanage, and when he was thirteen and his extraordinary good looks were already apparent, the women in the orphanage had begun to use him, bringing him to their rooms at night, taking him to bed with them, teaching him how to please them. As a reward the young boy was given extra food and pieces of meat, and desserts made with real sugar. He received everything but love.

When Walther was old enough to run away from the orphanage, he found that the world outside was no different. Women wanted to use his good looks, to wear him as a badge; but it never went any deeper than that. They gave him gifts of money and clothes and jewelry, but never of themselves.

Walther was her soul mate, Anna realized, her doppelgänger. They were married in a quiet ceremony at the town hall.

Anna had expected her father to be overjoyed. Instead, he had flown into a rage. “You’re a silly, vain fool,” Anton Roffe screamed at her. “You’ve married a no-good fortune hunter. I’ve had him checked out. All his life he’s lived off women, but he’s never found anyone stupid enough to marry him before.”

“Stop it!” Anna cried. “You don’t understand him.”

But Anton Roffe knew that he understood Walther Gassner only too well. He asked his new son-in-law to come to his office.

Walther looked around approvingly at the dark paneling and the old paintings hanging on the walls. “I like this place,” Walther said.

“Yes. I’m sure it’s better than the orphanage.”

Walther looked up at him sharply, his eyes suddenly wary. “I beg your pardon?”

Anton said, “Let’s cut out the Scheiss. You’ve made a mistake. My daughter has no money.”

Walther’s gray eyes seemed to turn to stone. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“I’m not trying to tell you anything. I’m telling you. You won’t get anything from Anna because she hasn’t got anything. If you had done your homework more thoroughly, you would have learned that Roffe and Sons is a close-held corporation. That means that none of its stock can be sold. We live comfortably, but that’s it. There is no big fortune to be milked here.” He fumbled in his pocket, drew out an envelope and threw it on the desk in front of Walther. “This will reimburse you for your trouble. I will expect you to be out of Berlin by six o’clock. I don’t want Anna ever to hear from you again.”

Walther said quietly, “Did it ever cross your mind that I might have married Anna because I fell in love with her?”

“No,” Anton said acidly. “Did it ever cross yours?”

Walther looked at him a moment. “Let’s see what my market price is.” He tore open the envelope and counted the money. He looked up at Anton Roffe again. “I value myself at much higher than twenty thousand marks.”

“It’s all you’re getting. Count yourself lucky.”

“I do,” Walther said. “If you want to know the truth, I think I am very lucky. Thank you.” He put the money in his pocket with a careless gesture and a moment later was walking out the door.

Anton Roffe was relieved. He experienced a slight sense of guilt and distaste for what he had done and yet he knew it had been the only solution. Anna would be unhappy at being deserted by her groom, but it was better to have it happen now than later. He would try to see to it that she met some eligible men her own age, who would at least respect her if not love her. Someone who would be interested in her and not her money or her name. Someone who would not be bought for twenty thousand marks.

When Anton Roffe arrived home, Anna ran up to greet him, tears in her eyes. He took her in his arms and hugged her, and said, “Anna, liebchen, it’s going to be all right. You’ll get over him—”

And Anton looked over her shoulder, and standing in the doorway was Walther Gassner. Anna was holding up her finger, saying, “Look what Walther bought me! Isn’t it the most beautiful ring you’ve ever seen? It cost twenty thousand marks.”

In the end, Anna’s parents were forced to accept Walther Gassner. As a wedding gift they bought them a lovely Schinkel manor house in Wannsee, with French furniture, mixed with antiques, comfortable couches and easy chairs, a Roentgen desk in the library, and bookcases lining the walls. The upstairs was furnished with elegant eighteenth-century pieces from Denmark and Sweden.

“It’s too much,” Walther told Anna. “I don’t want anything from them or from you. I want to be able to buy you beautiful things, liebchen.” He gave her that boyish grin and said, “But I have no money.”

“Of course you do,” Anna replied. “Everything I have belongs to you.”

Walther smiled at her sweetly and said, “Does it?”

At Anna’s insistence—for Walther seemed reluctant to discuss money—she explained her financial situation to him. She had a trust fund that was enough for her to live on comfortably, but the bulk of her fortune was in shares of Roffe and Sons. The shares could not be sold without the unanimous approval of the board of directors.

“How much is your stock worth?” Walther asked.

Anna told him. Walther could not believe it He made her repeat the sum.

“And you can’t sell the stock?”

“No. My cousin Sam won’t let it be sold. He holds the controlling shares. One day…”

Walther expressed an interest in working in the family business. Anton Roffe was against it.

“What can a ski bum contribute to Roffe and Sons?” he asked.

But in the end he gave in to his daughter, and Walther was given a job with the company in administration. He proved to be excellent at it and advanced rapidly. When Anna’s father died two year’s later, Walther Gassner was made a member of the board. Anna was so proud of him. He was the perfect husband and lover. He was always bringing her flowers and little gifts, and he seemed content to stay at home with her in the evening, just the two of them. Anna’s happiness was almost too much for her to bear. Ach, danke, lieber Gott, she would say silently.

Anna learned to cook, so that she could make Walther’s favorite dishes. She made choucroute, a bed of crunchy sauerkraut and creamy mashed potatoes heaped with a smoked pork chop, a frankfurter and a Nuremberg sausage. She prepared fillet of pork cooked in beer and flavored with cumin, and served it with a fat baked apple, cored and peeled, the center filled with airelles, the little red berries.

“You’re the best cook in the world, liebchen,” Walther would say, and Anna would blush with pride.

In the third year of their marriage, Anna became pregnant.

There was a great deal of pain during the first eight months of her pregnancy, but Anna bore that happily. It was something else that worried her.