Never Leave Me

by Margaret Pemberton

  Conversation at dinner had been, at first, stilted. The Comte had done his best to pretend that he was a voluntary host with an invited guest but the Comtesse had been unable to join him in the charade. Good breeding had determined that she be polite, but it was an icy politeness that would have frozen anyone less assured than himself. The assurance did not come from the power he wielded it came from the inborn knowledge that, socially, their worlds and background were very little removed.

  His family were Prussian aristocrats, a great landowning Junker family in the traditional mould. The first world war had altered their way of life but had not destroyed it. His family home had been a moated castle on the outskirts of Weimar, feudal, magnificent and unbearably cold and unsanitary. His childhood summers had been spent there, but his mother seldom moved from her lavish and comfortable apartment on the fashionable Unter den Linden. By the time Dieter was nine, he was an assured and sophisticated Berliner.

  Family tradition destined the eldest son for a military education but Dieter’s father, shamed by the terms of the Versailles Treaty, appalled by the great inflation of 1923 that had made so many fortunes worthless, broke with tradition and instead of sending Dieter to a military academy, sent him instead to the most expensive and exclusive boarding school in Europe. Le Rosey, Switzerland, where his schoolmates’blood was as royal as the Wittelsbach blood that ran in the distaff side of his family. Le Rosey had insured that no one, least of all a mere Comte and Comtesse, could make him feel their social inferior.

  Though for political reasons Dieter no longer sported the aristocratic ‘von’before his surname, it had taken the Comte only seconds to realise that his unwelcome guest was his social equal. The knowledge eased him. The Major paraded none of the usual Nazi pretentions. He was a man who, in another place, another time, he would have liked greatly. In discovering that the Major shared his passion for polo and had played on the most prestigious circuit in Germany, he had forgotten that the man was his enemy. Only the shock and accusation in his daughter’s eyes brought him back to reality.

  ‘Major Meyer skied at Gstaad regularly before the war,’ he finished lamely as Lisette sat still and silent, her face a polite, frozen mask. ‘He used to stay at the Steigenberger.’

  Lisette winced. The Steigenberger, Gstaad’s most luxurious hotel, standing in chocolate-box grandeur on the south-facing slopes, had been the setting for several childhood holidays. The knowledge that Major Meyer had also frequented it tarnished her many happy memories. Her father’s eyes were pleading. He needed her co-operation. Perhaps he had not yet gained Major Meyer’s permission to engage Marie’s ‘niece’as cook.

  She turned her head slowly towards the Major, her heart beating fast and furious. ‘How nice,’ she said politely, but the words did not come out cool and indifferent as she had intended. Her voice seemed to be filled with smoke and there was an underlying throb to it that would not be stifled.

  He had resolved not to take the slightest notice of her. She was too disturbing. Too innocently provocative. A pine log fell and splintered, sending a flurry of sparks up the great chimney, filling the room with pungent scent. Her remark scarcely warranted a comment. With an imperceptible shrug of his shoulders he turned to her, about to make some meaningless rejoinder. His eyes met hers and desire sliced through him so naked and primeval that it almost robbed him of breath.

  Her hair fell in one long smooth wave to her shoulders, pushed away from her face on one side with an ivory comb. Her eyes were violet dark in the pale perfection of her face, thick-lashed pools that drew him down and down, robbing him of logic and common sense. The high-necked sweater and country tweed skirt that she habitually wore had been, discarded. Her dress was of rose-red wool, the neckline deeply, cowled, the skirt clinging gently to her hips and flaring out around her knees. Her hands were clasped in her lap, the beautiful almond-shaped nails unpolished. Her legs were crossed lightly at the ankles, long and slender, bereft of stockings despite the chill draughts that lurked in every corner of the chateau. He remembered the heavy stockings she wore in the daytime and knew with what contempt she would refuse silk ones if he were to offer them. Just as she would reject with contempt anything that he offered her.

  ‘The proprietors are family friends,’ he said, the tight control he was exercising over himself making his voice harsh.

  The room seemed to have closed in on her. She knew the proprietors well. They were not the kind of people to entertain Nazi sympathies, yet it was not the shock that her family and Major Meyer should have acquaintances in common that was making her feel so faint. It was something else. The same, nameless emotion that overcame her whenever she was in his presence.

  She had hated before, but never with a passion that made her feel physically weak. She had hated the Germans when two thirds of the villagers of Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts had been marched off as forced labour. And she had hated them when she had known that they were to defile Valmy. But it had been a cold, murderous hatred. A hatred that she was in command of. She was in command of nothing when Major Meyer looked at her with his hard grey eyes, his body as lean and lithe as that of a panther about to spring on its prey.

  She tried to speak again, but the words would not come. Her father and mother had receded into a hazy distance and she was conscious only of Major Meyer; of blond hair gleaming like dull gold in the firelight; of the abrasive, masculine lines of his face. Of broad shoulders and the lightning of flashes on his collar; of strong well-shaped hands as they nursed his cognac. Of the sense of power under restraint. His masculinity overwhelmed her and suddenly she understood. In a moment of clarity so agonising that she cried out loud she knew what the emotion was that confounded her whenever she was in his presence. It was not hatred. It was physical desire.

  ‘Lisette, are you ill?’ Her father was stepping towards her anxiously.

  She rose to her feet, fighting for air, her face deathly pale. ‘No … Please … Excuse me…’ Shaking violently she fended away her father’s arm, knowing only that she must escape from the room. Escape from Major Meyer’s presence. Escape from a truth too monstrous to live with.

  Chapter Three

  He fought the almost overwhelming instinct to leap to his feet and stride after her. His powerful shoulder and arm muscles clenched as he remained where he was, the glass of cognac in one hand, the other still clasping the ankle of a booted foot as it rested with apparent ease across the knee of his other leg.

  The Comtesse had been busy with her embroidery. At her daughter’s strangled cry the work had fallen from her hands and now her eyes met her husband’s in alarm.

  The Comte gave her the merest frown, intimating that she behave as if nothing untoward had happened and said, with an underlying note of strain in his voice, ‘My daughter’s headache is obviously still troubling her, Major Meyer. Please forgive her abrupt departure.’

  Dieter nodded, barely trusting himself to speak. Waves of shock still reverberated through him. It was as though he had touched a live switch. He had to tighten his hold on his ankle in order to prevent his hand from trembling.

  ‘I have some aspirin in my room,’ he said, controlling his voice with care, appalled at the intensity of the sexual desire that had swamped and almost submerged him.

  ‘Thank you, Major Meyer,’ the Comtesse said, rising to her feet, the skin taut across her finely sculpted cheekbones, ‘but I have a supply myself. Perhaps you would excuse me while I find them and take them to Lisette?’

  ‘Of course.’ This time his voice was sharp-edged. Anger had come hard on the heels of desire. He was a man who prided himself on always having his emotions under tight control. That he had momentarily lost that control was, to him, unforgiveable.

  ‘Le Rosey explains your flawless command of French,’ the Comte said, striving to recover the easy atmosphere that had existed before Lisette had entered the room and then left it in so extraordinary a manner.

  The slight, almost imperceptible shrug of Dieter’s shoulder
was almost Gallic. ‘It is my second language,’ he said, suddenly bored with the evening, annoyed by the Comte’s blatant desire to please.

  Henri shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. The rapport that had so unexpectedly sprung up between them had been irretrievably lost. If he failed in his task, it would be Lisette’s fault, not his. He cleared his throat. ‘My wife is not very strong, Major Meyer. Before the war we had plenty of staff but since then, things have become very difficult. Lisette helps admirably, but the chateau is large and my wife is beginning to feel the strain. Marie has a niece who would be willing to come and take over most of the chores in the kitchen … with your permission, of course.’

  Dieter swirled the cognac around in his glass, suddenly wary. ‘Is Marie’s niece a village girl?’ he asked with deceptive lack of interest.

  ‘No.’ The Comte’s reply was uncomfortably swift. ‘She’s from Caen. A good girl. Reliable.’

  Dieter held the Comte’s eyes steadily for a moment. ‘Are her papers in order?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes,’ the Comte said eagerly. Too eagerly.

  Dieter felt disappointment settle cold and hard deep in his gut. Henri de Valmy, a man who had probably never lied in his life, was lying now. He drained his cognac, setting the empty glass carefully on a nearby table. ‘Then you had better tell her to come immediately,’ he said, his voice so indifferent that Henri de Valmy suppressed a heartfelt sigh of relief.

  It was done. The girl would be here, within Valmy. The first task of his self-appointed mission was complete.

  ‘The polo at Deauville, before the war, was the best in Europe,’ he said, resuming the earlier topic that had seemingly bridged the barriers between them. ‘I played myself until I broke my wrist. It’s an infuriating thing to happen to any player. I never had the same strength again.’

  His voice was filled with regret and Dieter’s eyes darkened. Damn the man. He should never have allowed even the merest cordiality to have sprung up between them. They were enemies. Oppressor and oppressed. A second ago de Valmy had lied to him and there could only have been one reason for such a lie. Now, amiably, he was trying to gain his sympathy for an accident that, if it had happened to him, would have filled him with equal regret and frustration.

  He glanced at his watch and rose to his feet. ‘It is eleven o’clock and I still have work to do,’ he said abruptly. ‘Goodnight, Comte de Valmy.’

  Swiftly he strode from the room, wishing that he had never entered it. First of all Lisette de Valmy had disconcerted him so profoundly that even now his chest felt tight, as if an iron band constrained it. Then Henri de Valmy had lied to him and all his doubts and suspicions as to Lisette’s activities had been re-awakened. He wanted the Resistance groups all along the coastline routed out, watched and questioned. He wanted any information, however slight, that would give him a clue to the enemies’plans. But he did not want to see Lisette and her father escorted to Gestapo headquarters at Caen. Never, even when he had served at the Russian front, had he longed so intensely for the war to be over.

  He stared sombrely down at the long table and the large scale maps of Calvados spread open upon it. Away to the east was Deauville. Deauville, where Henri de Valmy had played polo. He wished to God that polo was still being played there. That there were no mines deforming the beach. No pill-boxes frowning out over the elegant Promenade des Planches. He knew grimly that he would never play there. That Lisette de Valmy would never cheer him on from the stands, a ridiculously large summer hat on her cloud of dark hair, a pretty silk dress enhancing her slender figure. He swore savagely under his breath. His task was to make sure that Deauville remained firmly under German occupation. Polo belonged in another world. A world he sometimes doubted he would ever see again.

  Lisette had fled to her room blindly, self-disgust and loathing weighing her down like a tangible force, crushing the breath from her body, choking her sobs as she slammed the door of her room shut behind her, leaning her weight against the centuries-smooth wood, sliding down against it, her arms hugging her shaking body.

  She wanted him. Dear God in Heaven, she wanted him. Wanted to feel his hard, lean body against hers. To feel the spring of wheat-gold hair against the palms of her hands. To hear the dark, rich voice murmuring her name. She pressed her hands to her face, fighting for calm. She wasn’t sane. She couldn’t be. She was in the grip of hysteria. If she waited for a little while, the moment of madness would surely pass. She would realise that she would no more long to copulate with a German than with a pig.

  One moment passed, and then another. The violent trembling that had overtaken her like a seizure steadied. She found that she could breathe without having to gasp for air. She leaned her head against the wood and waited for the relief of laughter at her foolishness. It did not come. Only the truth faced her. Unbelievable. Unacceptable. Unendurable.

  She never knew how long she sat there, huddled on the floor, her back against the door. Her mother came and knocked and asked if she was all right. If she needed an aspirin. She had replied yes to the first question and no to the second, and had made no effort to open the door. After a little while her mother had gone away and she had remained, unmoving, in the darkness.

  She had never been in love, but she knew that it wasn’t love that was devastating her now. How could it be? She hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words to him, and those had been angry and scathing.

  She hugged her knees tighter against her chest. It was surely what the Bible referred to as sinful lust. She shuddered. Nothing she had ever heard or read had prepared her for it. It was as if her body were completely divorced from her mind. Logic and sanity screamed that never, ever, could she bear to be touched by a man who had occupied her country; her home. Yet if she closed her eyes and thought of him, heat surged through her and she found herself wondering what it would be like to touch his skin, inhale the male fragrance of him, to see the hard, grey eyes grow dark with passion.

  At last, unsteadily, she rose to her feet. She alone knew her despicable secret No one else knew, nor would they ever know. She would continue to live and behave as if the truth had never been brought home to her. He was her enemy and he would remain her enemy. She would treat her physical weakness as if it were a disease. She would fight it; conquer it; and one day she would be free of it. Slowly she undressed and climbed into bed, staring into the darkness for hour after hour, painfully coming to terms with the knowledge that there existed within her a person she had never even remotely imagined. Only when the night sky pearled to grey, presaging dawn, did she finally fall into a restless, troubled sleep.

  ‘Marie’s niece makes a commendably fine omelette,’ her father said two days later at breakfast. He glanced across at his daughter as he spoke. She had been looking extremely pale lately, almost ill. ‘Are you sure you won’t have one, Lisette?’

  She nodded, continuing to sip at her chicory, ignoring the warm croissants on her plate.

  A shaft of worry troubled him. ‘Are you feeling well, Lisette? Do you still have your headache?’

  ‘No Papa. Please don’t look so anxious.’

  ‘But you’re not eating properly, Lisette. You’re bound to feel unwell unless you eat. Isn’t there anything at all that you would like for breakfast?’

  He sounded so concerned that she managed a wry smile. ‘A cup of genuine coffee instead of this ghastly chicory.’

  He grinned ruefully. ‘I’m afraid even Elise can’t manage that.’

  ‘Elise. Is that her name? I haven’t seen her yet. What is she like?’

  Young, he wanted to say. Too young for what she has to do.

  The reality of her arrival had filled him with fresh doubts and fears.

  ‘Pretty,’ he said, and pushed his plate away, his appetite lost.

  They sat together silently, both wanting to discuss the girl’s arrival and its implications, but too conscious of the danger of being overheard to do so.

  ‘I think I’ll cycle into the vil
lage this morning,’ she said at last. ‘The daffodils are out in the woods. They look glorious.’

  His eyes met hers. What she was really saying was that she hoped to see Paul Gilles and let him know that Elise had arrived safely and without arousing suspicion.

  ‘Yes,’ he said unhappily, aware again of frustration and impotence; ‘The forsythia has bloomed early. I think I’ll go and cut some for indoors. A blaze of colour will cheer us up.’

  The linden trees flanking the drive were already beginning to take on a verdant haze. The tight green buds were unfurling and the fresh, clean scent of spring was strong in the air. Once out in the open she could breathe more easily. There was no chance here of suddenly rounding a corner and being confronted by him.

  She cycled down the long, gravelled drive, surprising a grey squirrel that scampered quickly out of her path. The late February wind had softened to a breeze. It blew refreshingly against her face, tugging at her hair, tinging her pale cheeks with a hint of colour. At the end of the drive she swung left towards the village, free-wheeling down through the beech woods to the high-hedged lanes of Sainte-Marie.

  The village was in sight when the chauffeur-driven Horch came down behind her, hard and fast. She pulled over as far as she could towards the steeply banked hedgerow but the powerful car gave her no room. Her front wheel swerved, ramming into the grassy bank and sending her flying from the saddle. The bike fell heavily against her, the handlebar gouging her thigh, slithering to the ground, leaving a hideous trail of blood in its wake.

  Through a sea of pain she was aware that the car had screamed to a halt; that someone was running to her aid.

  ‘Sind Sie schon gut?’

  The harsh voice was familiar but the words made no sense. There was a ringing in her ears and colours and shapes zigzagged crazily.