She sighed deeply. ‘Very well. What does it matter now? What does anything matter?’
Tom took the first opportunity on his return to Belgrade to look up Maximilian Seinfeld at his hotel. The American greeted him with open arms.
‘Hey, buddy! It’s good to see you. How are you? You look a damn sight better than you did when I last saw you, that’s for sure.’
‘I’m well, thank you,’ Tom replied. ‘And I understand I owe my life to you. They told me in the hospital that you brought me through the enemy lines on the back of a donkey.’
‘Sure did! And a more ornery, cussed creature you could not find anywhere. And the donkey was pretty obstinate, too. I’m joking! You were in a bad way. I couldn’t just leave you.’
‘Well, I’m grateful,’ Tom said. ‘If there is ever any way I can repay you, you only have to ask.’
‘There’s no need. I’m just glad to see you up and about again. So, what have you been doing since we last met?’
Tom related events from his recovery up to the point where he found Leonora. Then he paused.
‘You found her?’ Max said. ‘Well, that’s just great! What was she doing?’
‘Well,’ Tom said, ‘this is where the story gets a bit . . . a bit sensitive.’ He went on to tell his companion what he had learned from her about the work she had done at Chataldzha and Adrianople. The one thing he omitted was the fact that she had dressed as a boy and the reason behind the deception.
When he finished Max whistled. ‘So this little lady worked single-handed nursing wounded men at Chataldzha, nursed typhus sufferers at Adrianople, and acted as interpreter between a Serbian officer and the Turks. Jeez, Tom, what a story! You wait till my readers get this. Is there any chance of an interview with the lady?’
Tom frowned. His plan was working, but he still had to tread carefully. ‘I doubt it. She is here in Belgrade but her brother, who is also her legal guardian, has instructed her to be discreet. He is afraid that it will damage her reputation if the story gets out.’
‘Damage! When people read what she has done she will be the toast of Belgrade. Can’t you arrange for me to have a few minutes with her?’
‘I don’t know . . . Her brother is my friend and I should not want to offend him.’ This was not strictly true, since Ralph had hardly spoken to him since they left Adrianople, and then only in terms of frosty civility. He let Max see him coming to a decision. ‘Very well. I will ask her to see you. But it will require the greatest discretion on your part. I do not want to be drawn into this.’
‘I understand,’ Max said. ‘You can rely on me.’
Leo took little persuasion to grant Max an interview. Her confinement to the hotel and the constant, oppressive presence of Magda, the ladies’ maid, who seemed to conceive her role as closer to that of a strict governess, were driving her to distraction. Two days later the
Baltimore Herald
carried a eulogistic article, detailing her adventures. The story was rapidly taken up by other American papers and then by papers all over Europe.
Ralph stormed into her room one morning, carrying a sheaf of papers.
‘What have you been saying? Who have you been talking to?’
‘What about?’ Leo asked innocently.
‘About your antics in Bulgaria! Did I not ask you to be discreet? What were you thinking of?’
Leo rose to her feet. ‘An American journalist picked up the story from somewhere and came to see me. I am not ashamed of what I did, even if you are, so I told him he could print it. Can I see what he has written?’
Ralph snatched the newspapers out of her reach. ‘No, you can’t! God knows what people here are going to think. How am I going to explain all this to my superiors when the word gets back to England? Really, Leo—’
He was interrupted by a knock at the door. A pageboy stood outside.
‘A message for Miss Malham Brown, sir.’
Ralph took it and handed it to Leo. ‘I imagine this is some sort of reaction to the article in the paper. You had better read it.’
Leo opened the envelope and drew out a card. Then she began to laugh.
‘What is it?’ her brother demanded.
‘Baroness Levinski requests the pleasure of my company at a reception this evening.’
Within days, Leo was inundated by a flood of invitations to receptions and balls. Ralph’s instruction to her to order dresses and have the bill sent to him rebounded on him, as he found himself paying for yet another ball gown, or afternoon dress, or riding habit.
Leo floated through the firmament of Belgrade’s beau monde like a visiting comet, admired and wondered at but unreachable. In spite of Tom’s discretion, rumours spread by the officers who had been with Prince Aleksander at Adrianople and had witnessed the denouement of the story began to spread. But this only added a titillating sense of the exotic and made her more sought after than ever. When it became known that there was no formal engagement between her and Tom she was ardently courted by six or seven eligible men and received their attentions with a cool indifference that only strengthened their passion. She was glad to be out of the hotel and able to meet people and the adulation she received was some balm to her wounded spirit but none of it seemed real. She had the impression that she had left her real self behind outside Adrianople and was unlikely ever to be reunited with it. She was haunted by the thought that one day soon Sasha would return to Belgrade and she dreaded the prospect of another encounter, yet at the same time it filled her dreams.
One evening at a reception her hostess came towards her, bringing a tall, handsome girl of about seventeen, whose dark hair and eyes proclaimed her relationship before the introductions were made.
‘Leonora, this is Adriana Malkovic. She has been longing to meet you.’
‘Indeed I have,’ the girl said, impulsively. ‘Ever since I read that you were at the siege of Adrianople. I wonder, did you meet my brother Aleksander?’
Leo had had time to prepare herself and she answered calmly, ‘Yes, I got to know him quite well.’
‘How is he?’ Adriana’s eyes were wistful. ‘It is so long since we saw him.’
‘He was well when I left. I have no reason to think that has changed. He is very . . . resilient.’
‘I envy you so much!’ the other girl exclaimed. ‘To be able to go out there, to be near him and to do such wonderful work.’
‘I was not the only one,’ Leo said. ‘There are many women there still, nursing the sick and wounded. Perhaps if you were to train as a nurse . . .’
Adriana rolled her eyes. ‘Sasha would never hear of it. He believes women should stay at home.’
‘I know.’ Leo felt a sudden warmth of fellow feeling for her. ‘Brothers! I have one too.’
‘I have met him,’ Adriana responded. ‘But he is charming.’
Leo looked across the room to where Ralph was being charming to two other young ladies. He turns it on like a tap, she thought. She turned back to Adriana. ‘Whereas your brother is not, because he has no need to charm. He has other, more admirable, qualities that bind people to him.’
Adriana held her eyes. ‘I see you do know him quite well.’
After that, Leo was not surprised to receive an invitation to take tea with the Dowager Countess Malkovic and her daughters, at the family’s town house. As she rang the doorbell it crossed her mind to wonder what she would do if Sasha was inside, and how he would react to her arrival. Of course, he was not there and she passed a pleasant enough afternoon, although she had constantly to guard her tongue while they questioned her about him. It was clear from the start that they all adored him and were hungry for every detail.
From that day on, she and Adriana became close friends. They went walking and riding together and met constantly at the opera, or concerts or balls. But for all the frenetic gaiety of the city, there was a growing undercurrent of anxiety. If the London Conference did not end with a conclusion agreeable to Serbia, then it would not be accepted and there would be no peace. If it decided in Serbia’s favour and awarded her most of Macedonia, then there would almost certainly be war with Bulgaria. And overall was the looming threat of the mighty Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had already annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina and resented Serbia’s growing influence in the region, and particularly her access to the sea via the port of Durazzo. After the euphoria of victory, the future was looking increasingly uncertain.
One morning when Leo was sitting at her writing desk, replying to invitations, Tom came in. After a few general remarks he said, ‘Leo, I’m worried about Ralph.’
‘Ralph is perfectly capable of taking care of himself,’ Leo responded tersely.
‘On a physical level, perhaps. He’s strong and brave and a match for anyone. But he’s not as clever as you, Leo, and he doesn’t always choose his friends very wisely.’
Leo put down her pen and turned to face him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Have you ever heard of Dragutin Dimitrijevic?’
‘The leader of the regicides? Yes, I was introduced to him the other day. No wonder his friends call him Apis, after the Egyptian god. I’ve never seen anyone who looked more like a bull.’
‘He’s the leader of a society that calls itself Unification or Death, otherwise known as the Black Hand. I came across some of them at Skopje and I didn’t like what I saw.’
‘What do they want to unify?’
‘As far as I have been able to discover their aim is a Greater Serbia, united with Bosnia and Croatia and independent of Austria-Hungary, and they are prepared to use any means to achieve it.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘Partly from Max. He keeps his ear pretty close to the ground. And from gossip I’ve picked up over the billiard table. The Black Hand is supposed to be a secret society but everyone knows who they are.’
‘Surely they are not contemplating another regicide?’
‘I wouldn’t put it past them, but King Petar has done what they wanted and made the army the most important element in the state. Max thinks he’s safe enough, but he wouldn’t be surprised if they are planning some act of provocation that will trigger a war with the Austrians.’
‘And you think Ralph is mixed up in this?’
‘I’ve seen him with Apis, and one or two of the others. I can imagine them appealing to Ralph. They have this heady mixture of intense patriotism and military glamour that would really catch his imagination.’
‘What can we do?’
‘The ideal would be to get him back to London and out of harm’s way. But as long as he’s attached to Prince Aleksander there’s no chance of that.’
‘Can you talk to him?’
‘He won’t listen to me any more.’
‘Or me.’
‘Then there is nothing we can do, except hope that his own common sense prevents him from getting mixed up in anything really dangerous.’
Leo sighed and shook her head. ‘I’m not sure that common sense is one of Ralph’s most obvious characteristics.’
As Tom said, there was nothing they could do except watch and hope. But that evening Leo decided to tackle her brother on another subject.
‘Ralph, I should like to ask you something.’
‘What about?’ he responded truculently.
‘Why are you so hard on Tom?’
‘Hard on him! I ought to have called him out and beaten him to a pulp after the way he behaved. He betrayed my trust.’
‘Oh, nonsense, Ralph!’ She had intended to remain calm and submissive, but it was not in her nature. ‘The only thing Tom is guilty of is not showing me up publicly, like you did.’
‘What was I supposed to do? Let that ridiculous charade continue?’
‘It would have avoided a nasty scene! But that isn’t the point. Let me explain why Tom acted as he did. I begged him to let me continue for a few days, or weeks longer. I wanted to stay until the siege was over. We all thought it couldn’t last much longer. He wasn’t happy about it but I blackmailed him into it.’
‘What do you mean, blackmailed?’
‘I told him that if he gave me away I would never even consider marrying him.’ She had prepared the lie carefully and it slipped glibly off her tongue. It had the desired effect. For the first time Ralph looked disconcerted. She pressed home her advantage. ‘Ralph, have you any idea what he went through to find me? Has he told you his story? He was arrested the first time he came here to Belgrade and nearly shot as a spy. He saw things on the battlefield around Kumanovo and Bitola that still give him nightmares and then he got ill and nearly died. And after all that, when he was recuperating in Athens and planning to travel to Italy, he got a letter from you asking him to go back into the lion’s jaws to look for me again. And he went, because you asked him to. How can you possibly say he betrayed you?’
‘Why didn’t he at least write and let me know you were safe?’
‘How could he? The only letters that went out from Adrianople were military despatches. Anyway, you wouldn’t have received the letter if he had written. You had already left England.’
‘And that was why he kept quiet, because you threatened not to marry him? I’m surprised he still wanted to.’
‘He did it because he cares for both of us. No one could be more loyal. And look how you have repaid him.’
Ralph folded his arms and walked away from her. The clock on the mantelpiece struck the half hour and he looked round. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the concert tonight?’
Leo knew she had done as much as she could. She got up and left him to brood over what she had said.
Later that night when Tom was preparing for bed Ralph tapped at his door.
‘I’d like a few words, if you don’t mind.’
‘Not at all. Come in.’
Ralph closed the door but he seemed in no hurry to broach whatever the subject was he wanted to discuss. Instead he wandered over to the dressing table and stood with his back to Tom, fiddling with items on the polished surface.
At length he said, ‘I’m surprised you are still here. Wouldn’t you prefer to go back to London?’