Ken Follett - Fall of Giants

“This crisis,” Maud said anxiously. “In the long run… it’s not going to split us up, is it?”

“Not if I can help it,” Walter said.

He drew her behind a bookcase, so that they could not be seen immediately by someone coming in, and kissed her again. She was deliciously needy today, rubbing her hands over his shoulders and arms and back as she kissed him. She broke the kiss to whisper: “Lift my skirt.”

He swallowed. He had daydreamed of this. He grasped the material and drew it up.

“And the petticoats,” she said. He took a bunch of fabric in each hand. “Don’t crease it,” she said. He tried to raise the garments without crushing the silk, but everything slipped through his hands. Impatient, she bent down, grasped skirt and petticoats by the hems, and lifted everything to her waist. “Feel me,” she said, looking him in the eye.

He was nervous that someone would come in, but too overwhelmed with love and desire to restrain himself. He put his right hand on the fork of her thighs-and gasped with shock: she was naked there. The realization that she must have planned to give him this pleasure inflamed him further. He stroked her gently, but she thrust her hips forward against his hand, and he pressed harder. “That’s right,” she said. He closed his eyes, but she said: “Look at me, my darling, please, look at me while you’re doing it,” and he opened them again. Her face was flushed and she was breathing hard through open lips. She gripped his hand and guided him, as he had guided her in the opera box. She whispered: “Put your finger in.” She leaned against his shoulder. He could feel the heat of her breath through his clothes. She thrust against him again and again. Then she made a small sound in the back of her throat, like the muted cry of someone dreaming; and at last she slumped against him.

He heard the door open, and then Lady Hermia’s voice. “Come along, Maud, dear, we must take our leave.”

Walter withdrew his hand and Maud hastily smoothed her skirt. In a shaky voice she said: “I’m afraid I was wrong, Aunt Herm, and Herr von Ulrich was right-it’s the Danube, not the Volga, that runs through Belgrade. We’ve just found it in the atlas.”

They bent over the book as Lady Hermia came around the end of the bookcase. “I never doubted it,” she said. “Men are generally right about these things, and Herr von Ulrich is a diplomat, who has to know a great many facts with which women do not need to trouble themselves. You shouldn’t argue, Maud.”

“I expect you’re right,” said Maud with breathtaking insincerity.

They all left the library and crossed the hall. Walter opened the door to the drawing room. Lady Hermia went in first. As Maud followed, she met his eye. He raised his right hand, put the tip of his finger into his mouth, and sucked it.

This could not go on, Walter thought as he made his way back to the embassy. It was like being a schoolboy. Maud was twenty-three years old and he was twenty-eight, yet they had to resort to absurd subterfuges in order to spend five minutes alone together. It was time they got married.

He would have to ask Fitz’s permission. Maud’s father was dead, so her brother was the head of the family. Fitz would undoubtedly have preferred her to marry an Englishman. However, he would probably come around: he must be worrying that he might never get his feisty sister married off.

No, the major problem was Otto. He wanted Walter to marry a well-behaved Prussian maiden who would be happy to spend the rest of her life breeding heirs. And when Otto wanted something he did all he could to get it, crushing opposition remorselessly-which was what had made him a good army officer. It would never occur to him that his son had a right to choose his own bride, without interference or pressure. Walter would have preferred to have his father’s encouragement and support: he certainly did not look forward to the inevitable stand-up confrontation. However, his love was a force more powerful by far than filial deference.

It was Sunday evening, but London was not quiet. Although Parliament was not sitting, and the mandarins of Whitehall had gone to their suburban homes, politics continued in the palaces of Mayfair, the gentlemen’s clubs of St. James’s, and the embassies. On the streets Walter recognized several members of Parliament, a couple of junior ministers from Britain’s Foreign Office, and some European diplomats. He wondered whether Britain’s bird-watching foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, had stayed in town this weekend instead of going to his beloved country cottage in Hampshire.

Walter found his father at his desk, reading decoded telegrams. “This may not be the best time to tell you my news,” Walter began.

Otto grunted and carried on reading.

Walter plunged on. “I’m in love with Lady Maud.”

Otto looked up. “Fitzherbert’s sister? I suspected as much. You have my profound sympathy.”

“Be serious, please, Father.”

“No, you be serious.” Otto threw down the papers he was reading. “Maud Fitzherbert is a feminist, a suffragette, and a social maverick. She’s not a fit wife for anyone, let alone a German diplomat from a good family. So let’s hear no more of it.”

Hot words came to Walter’s lips, but he clenched his teeth and kept his temper. “She’s a wonderful woman, and I love her, so you’d better speak politely of her, whatever your opinions.”

“I’ll say what I think,” Otto said carelessly. “She’s dreadful.” He looked down at his telegrams.

Walter’s eye fell on the creamware fruit bowl his father had bought. “No,” he said. He picked up the bowl. “You will not say what you think.”

“Be careful with that.”

Walter had his father’s full attention now. “I feel protective of Lady Maud, the way you feel protective of this trinket.”

“Trinket? Let me tell you, it’s worth-”

“Except, of course, that love is stronger than the collector’s greed.” Walter tossed the delicate object into the air and caught it one-handed. His father let out an anguished cry of inarticulate protest. Walter went on heedlessly: “So when you speak insultingly of her, I feel as you do when you think I’m going to drop this-only more so.”

“Insolent pup-”

Walter raised his voice over his father’s. “And if you continue to trample all over my sensibilities, I will crush this stupid piece of pottery beneath my heel.”

“All right, you’ve made your point, put it down, for God’s sake.”

Walter took that for acquiescence, and replaced the ornament on a side table.

Otto said maliciously: “But there is something else you need to take into account… if I may mention it without treading on your sensibilities.”

“All right.”

“She is English.”

“For God’s sake!” Walter cried. “Well-born Germans have been marrying English aristocrats for years. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha married Queen Victoria-his grandson is now king of England. And the queen of England was born a Württemberg princess!”

Ottoraised his voice. “Things have changed! The English are determined to keep us a second-rate power. They befriend our adversaries, Russia and France. You would be marrying an enemy of your fatherland.”

Walter knew this was how the old guard thought, but it was irrational. “We should not be enemies,” he said in exasperation. “There’s no reason for it.”

“They will never allow us to compete on equal terms.”

“That’s just not true!” Walter heard himself shouting, and tried to be calmer. “The English believe in free trade-they allow us to sell our manufactures throughout the British Empire.”

“Read that, then.” Otto threw across the desk the telegram he had been reading. “His Majesty the kaiser has asked for my comments.”