“Never mind. I’ve been hungrier.”

“Listen,” she said. “You must go away, immediately. If you leave now you can escape.”

“Why should I escape? I want to kidnap Orlov.”

She shook her head. “It’s impossible now. He has armed bodyguards, the house is patrolled by policemen and by nine o’clock there will be a hundred and fifty men searching for you.”

He smiled. “And if I escape, what will I do with the rest of my life?”

“But I won’t help you commit suicide!”

“Let’s sit on the grass,” he said. “I have something to explain to you.”

She sat with her back against a broad oak tree. Feliks sat in front of her and crossed his legs, like a Cossack. Dappled sunlight played across his weary face. He spoke rather formally, in complete sentences which sounded as if they might have been rehearsed. “I told you I was in love, once, with a woman called Lydia; and you said: ‘That’s my mother’s name.’ Do you remember?”

“I remember everything you’ve ever said to me.” She wondered what this was all about.

“It was your mother.”

She stared at him. “You were in love with Mama?”

“More than that. We were lovers. She used to come to my apartment, alone-do you understand what I mean?”

Charlotte blushed with confusion and embarrassment. “Yes, I do.”

“Her father, your grandfather, found out. The old Count had me arrested; then he forced your mother to marry Walden.”

“Oh, how terrible,” Charlotte said softly. For some reason she was frightened of what he might say next.

“You were born seven months after the wedding.”

He seemed to think that was very significant. Charlotte frowned.

Feliks said: “Do you know how long it takes for a baby to grow and be born?”

“No.”

“It takes nine months, normally, although it can take less.”

Charlotte’s heart was pounding. “What are you getting at?”

“You might have been conceived before the wedding.”

“Does that mean you might be my father?” she said incredulously.

“There’s more. You look exactly like my sister, Natasha.”

Charlotte’s heart seemed to rise into her throat and she could hardly speak. “You think you are my father?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Oh, God.” Charlotte put her face in her hands and stared into space, seeing nothing. She felt as if she were waking from a dream and could not yet figure out which aspects of the dream had been real. She thought of Papa, but he was not her papa; she thought of Mama, having a lover; she thought of Feliks, her friend and suddenly her father…

She said: “Did they lie to me even about this?”

She was so disoriented that she felt she would not be able to stand upright. It was as if someone had told her that all the maps she had ever seen were forgeries and she really lived in Brazil; or that the real owner of Walden Hall was Pritchard; or that horses could talk but merely kept silent by choice; but it was much worse than all those things. She said: “If you were to tell me that I am a boy, but my mother always dressed me in girl’s clothing… it would be like this.”

She thought: Mama… and Feliks? That made her blush again.

Feliks took her hand and stroked it. He said: “I suppose all the love and concern that a man normally gives to his wife and children went, in my case, into politics. I have to try to get Orlov, even if it’s impossible, the way a man would have to try to save his child from drowning, even if the man could not swim.”

Charlotte suddenly realized how confused Feliks must feel about her, the daughter he had never really had. She understood, now, the odd, painful way he had looked at her sometimes.

“You poor man,” she said.

He bit his lip. “You have such a generous heart.”

She did not know why he should say that. “What are we going to do?”

He took a deep breath. “Could you get me inside the house and hide me?”

She thought for a moment. “Yes,” she said.

He mounted the horse behind her. The beast shook its head and snorted, as if offended that it should be expected to carry a double weight. Charlotte urged it into a trot. She followed the bridle path for a while, then turned off it at an angle and headed through the wood. They went through a gate, across a paddock, and into a little lane. Feliks did not yet see the house: he realized she was circling around it to approach from the north side.

She was an astonishing child. She had such strength of character. Had she inherited it from him? He wanted to think so. He was very happy to have told her the truth about her birth. He had the feeling she had not quite accepted it, but she would. She had listened to him turn her world upside down, and she had reacted with emotion but without hysteria-she did not get that kind of equanimity from her mother.

From the lane they turned into an orchard. Now, looking between the tops of the trees, Feliks could see the roofs of Walden Hall. The orchard ended in a wall. Charlotte stopped the horse and said: “You’d better walk beside me from here. That way, if anyone should glance out of a window, they won’t be able to see you very easily.”

Feliks jumped off. They walked alongside the wall and followed it around a comer. “What’s behind the wall?” Feliks asked.

“Kitchen garden. Better not talk, now.”

“You’re marvelous,” Feliks whispered, but she did not hear.

They stopped at the next corner. Feliks could see some low buildings and a yard. “The stables,” Charlotte murmured. “Stay here for a moment. When I give you the signal, follow me as fast as you can.”

“Where are we going?”

“Over the roofs.”

She rode into the yard, dismounted, and looped the reins over a rail. Feliks watched her cross to the far side of the little yard, look both ways, then come back and look inside the stables.

He heard her say: “Oh, hello, Peter.”

A boy of about twelve years came out, taking off his cap. “Good morning, m’lady.”

Feliks thought: How will she get rid of him?

Charlotte said: “Where’s Daniel?”

“Having his breakfast, m’lady.”

“Go and fetch him, will you, and tell him to come and unsaddle Spats.”

“I can do it, m’lady.”

“No, I want Daniel,” Charlotte said imperiously. “Off you go.”

Marvelous, Feliks thought.

The boy ran off. Charlotte turned toward Feliks and beckoned. He ran to her.

She jumped onto a low iron bunker, then climbed onto the corrugated tin roof of a lean-to shed, and from there got onto the slate roof of a one-story stone building.

Feliks followed.

They edged along the slate roof, moving sideways on all fours, until it ended up against a brick wall; then they crawled up the slope to the ridge of the roof.

Feliks felt dreadfully conspicuous and vulnerable.

Charlotte stood upright and peeped through a window in the brick wall.

Feliks whispered: “What’s in there?”

“Parlormaids’ bedroom. But they’re downstairs by now, laying the breakfast table.”

She clambered onto the window ledge and stood upright. The bedroom was an attic room and the window was in the gable end, so that the roof peaked just above the window and sloped down either side. Charlotte moved along the sill, then cocked her leg over the edge of the roof.

It looked dangerous. Feliks frowned, frightened that she would fall. But she hauled herself onto the roof with ease.

Feliks did the same.

“Now we’re out of sight,” Charlotte said.

Feliks looked around. She was right: they could not be seen from the ground. He relaxed a fraction.

“There are four acres of roof,” Charlotte told him.

“Four acres! Most Russian peasants haven’t got that much land.”

It was quite a sight. On all sides were roofs of every material, size and pitch. Ladders and strips of decking were provided so that people could move around without treading on the slates and tiles. The guttering was as complex as the piping in the oil refinery Feliks had seen at Batum. “I’ve never seen such a big house,” he said.