Lucien's attention, however, was not fixed on the man who temporarily held the finances of the nation in his hands, but rather on the companion opposite at a table of about six people, a willowy, tall woman with dark hair and low-cut dress which revealed exceptionally fine shoulders and a long neck set off by a single strand of some of the most gigantic diamonds I had ever seen in my life. She was young; in her early twenties, and even from a distance made the rest of the table seem drab in comparison. All those around her were men, mainly in middle age, and it was clear that all conversation was dominated by the desire to catch her attention.

I looked at her briefly, turned away, then turned to look again.

'Rude to stare,' Lucien said in my ear with an amused chuckle. 'Quite a picture, is she not?'

His mistress, whose name I never knew, scowled and sank lower into depressed silence. Poor thing, the contrast between the two was too great to be ignored.

'Who is she?'

'Ah, what a question! Who indeed? That is the famous Countess Elizabeth Hadik-Barkoczy von Futak uns Szala.'

'Oh,' I said. 'That's the one, is it? I've been hearing about her.'

'The sensation of the season. Conquered Paris with a speed and aplomb which the Prussian army never managed. To put it another way, she has cut a swathe through polite society, broken the heart of every man who has come within a hundred metres of her, and left her rivals looking old, coarse and thoroughly shop-soiled. Every woman in the city hates her, of course.'

'I'm fascinated.'

'So is everyone else.'

'So tell me more.'

'There is a great deal of gossip and nothing of substance. She is a widow, it seems. Tragic story; newly married and husband falls off a horse and breaks his neck. Wealthy, beyond a doubt, and came to Paris because – no one knows why. She moves in the very best society, and will, no doubt, shortly marry a duke, or a politician or a banker, depending on her tastes. Does she have a lover? No one knows. She is as enveloped in mystery as – well, as you are, but (if you will forgive me for saying so) she is very much more beautiful.'

'I would like to meet this woman.'

Lucien snorted. 'I would like to take tea with Queen Victoria,' he said, 'and that won't happen either. Everyone knows of her, some have been in the same room with her, few have met her.'

'So what's the secret?'

He shrugged. 'Who knows? She is no more beautiful than many a woman. She is said to be charming and witty. But so are many people. I do not know. She is one of those people whom others wish to be with.'

'In that case,' I said with a grin, 'I will ask her.'

And I got up from the table and walked straight across to her table. I coughed to get her attention as I bowed to the Minister and smiled as she looked at me.

'Good evening, Principessa,' I said, in a discreet voice loud enough to heard by those sitting nearby. 'May I pay my compliments to the most beautiful woman in France?'

'When you discover her, you may,' she said with a flash of the eye.

There I bowed, and retired, pleased with my success, and walked back to my table.

'I can't believe you did that,' Lucien said with something between shock and reproof.

'She's a woman, not Pallas Athene,' I replied, and returned to my meal, which now tasted very much better than it had before, and spent the rest of the evening being pleasant to his mistress, who seemed grateful for my attention.

I got back to my hotel some three hours later and there, waiting for me at the desk, was an envelope. Inside was a single piece of paper on which was written. 'Tomorrow. Two p.m. Villa Fleurie.'

CHAPTER 8

'I liked the principessa part,' she said when we met. 'It adds to the mystery. It is all round Biarritz already that being Hungarian is merely a subterfuge, and that I am in reality a Neapolitan princess living incognito for fear of my husband.'

I shook my head. 'You don't look in the slightest bit Neapolitan.'

'I don't speak Hungarian either,' she replied. 'What do you want?'

Her brusqueness was understandable. I must have been one of the very last people in the world she wanted to meet.

Her circumstances had changed as much as her appearance, which is to say the alteration was total. She was living in an elegant new villa a few hundred yards from the Hôtel du Palais, in the midst of the most fashionable part of the town. This had been built some five years previously by a banker, who rarely used it and rented it out for a prodigious sum when he was not there. It was furnished tastefully and discreetly, and Virginie – or rather Elizabeth, as I must now call her – fitted into it as perfectly as did the hand-made furniture, and hand-blown glass in the art-nouveau style then coming into fashion. Neither the house, nor she, had any connection to the over-blown gaudiness normally associated with the grandes horizontales, for whom vulgarity was part of the allure.

The same went for her behaviour, which I had briefly witnessed the previous evening. Some of her sort would try to win attention by throwing diamonds across a restaurant for the pleasure of seeing the men scrabble to find them, or to see the disdain and fury on the faces of their women at the demonstration of how easily such men could be commanded. Others talked in loud voices, or stood up to dance on their own, making a spectacle of themselves through their display. They promised gratification, but for one night only. This woman implicitly offered far more than that.

Even the way she sat was impressive. Undoubtedly she was on edge, nervous, a little frightened. How could she not be? Yet there was not a sign of it on her face, or in her posture. Her self-control was extraordinary; superhuman, almost.

'I don't want anything,' I said simply. 'I recognised you and could not deny myself the pleasure. That is all.'

'All?'

I thought. 'I suppose not. I was curious. And, I may say, deeply impressed by your achievement. I wished to congratulate you, in a way. As well as renew an acquaintance.'

She allowed herself a small smile. 'And what are you doing here?'

'I am a journalist, of sorts.'

She raised a finely plucked eyebrow. 'Of sorts? That sounds as though you are really nothing of the sort.'

'No, Truly. I work for The Times. In a few days I will be able to show you a story about the anthracite market to prove it.'

'I don't believe you.'

'I don't believe you are a Hungarian countess either. We both have our secret past. Which is in the past and should remain there. Although I am curious to know where you got your name. Elizabeth Hadik?'

'Barkoczy von Futak uns Szala,' she completed for me.

'Quite a mouthful. You don't think something more straightforward might have been better?'

'Oh, no,' she said. 'The longer the name, the better it is. Besides, such a person existed, I met her mother once. She told me she had once had a daughter who would have been about my age had she lived. So I decided to bring her back to life.'

'I see.'

'I will do no more for you,' she said suddenly.

'I haven't asked you to. Nor was I going to, tempting though the prospect is. I have no doubt that my masters, if I had any, of course, would disapprove thoroughly of my weakness. But I have never had a taste for forcing people to do things. I believe my treatment of you in the past was perfectly straightforward and honourable.'

She nodded.

'Let it remain so. But I would like to know how you managed your rise to fortune since we last met. Your circumstances were somewhat different then.'

She laughed, and even though there was absolutely not one jot of difference on her face, I could sense that she was relaxing. She believed me and, up to a very limited point, trusted me. Which was justifiable; as I spoke the words I meant them. But, in the back of my mind I knew that, one day, I might have to betray that trust. I did not like blackmail, but I knew enough of the world to know how well it worked. I say in my defence only that I hoped it would never be necessary.