Carried away by the touch and the scent of the slender form pressed close to his, he was enveloping her again in his disturbing caresses and this time Marianne was too weak and too much enslaved to fight against it. She recalled those dizzying hours in the prison. It could all happen again so easily. Jason was hers, wholly and completely, flesh of her flesh, the man she had chosen from all others, whom no one could replace. Why, then, should she refuse the thing he offered? Why not so with him, tomorrow, to his land of liberty? After all, he might not know it but her husband was dead: she was free.

In an hour she could be aboard the Witch. She could easily tell Benielli she was going to Turkey, when all the time the ship was really sailing to freedom in America, and she, Marianne, would be lying for the first time all night long in Jason's arms, rocked on the waves, and drawing a final curtain over her past life. She could take up her own life again from where it had left off at Selton Hall, at the moment when Jason had first begged her to go with him, and in a little while she would forget all the rest: the fear, the flights, Fouché, Talleyrand, Napoleon, France and the villa of the fountains where the white peacocks roamed but where no ghostly rider in a white mask would wake the echoes any more.

But once again, as it had done earlier, her conscience awoke, a conscience which was becoming a great deal more inconvenient than she would ever have thought possible. What would happen if, during the long journey to America, she were to find herself pregnant by another man? How would she be able to deal with the situation there, in a land where she would never be out of Jason's sight for a moment, for she refused categorically to deceive him? Assuming, of course, that he did not begin to suspect anything in the course of a voyage at least twice as long as that to Constantinople!

Besides, at the back of her mind she seemed to hear Arrighi's grave voice saying: 'Only you can persuade the Sultana to keep up the war with Russia, only you can calm her anger against the Emperor, because you, like her, are Josephine's cousin. She will listen to you…'

Could she really betray the trust of the man she had once loved and who had sincerely tried to make her happy? Napoleon was relying on her. Could she deny him this one last service which was so important to him and to France? The time for love was not yet. It was still the time to be brave.

Gently, but firmly, she pushed Jason away.

'No,' she said. 'I can't. I must go. I have given my word.' He stared at her incredulously, as though she had suddenly changed before his eyes into a different creature. His dark blue eyes seemed to withdraw more deeply beneath the black brows and Marianne's heart was wrung as she read the vast disappointment in them.

'You mean – you won't come with me?'

'No, my love, it's not that I won't come. All I am asking is for you to come with me for a little while, only a few weeks. A little delay, that's all. Afterwards, I shall be all yours, heart and soul. I'll go wherever you like, to the ends of the earth if I must, and I'll live exactly as you please. But I must carry out my mission. It is too important to France.'

'France!' he said bitterly. 'That's a good one! As though France, for you, didn't mean Napoleon.'

Pained as she sensed the underlying jealousy which still persisted, Marianne gave a little, hopeless sigh and her green eyes dimmed with tears.

'Why won't you understand me, Jason? Whether you like it or not, I love my country. I have scarcely begun to know it yet and the discovery is precious to me. It is a beautiful country, Jason, noble and great! And yet I shall leave it and without regrets or heartburnings, when the time comes to go with you.'

'But that time is not yet?'

'Yes… perhaps, if you will agree to take me to meet this queer Sultana who was born so near to your own land.'

'And you say you love me?' he said.

'I love you more than anything in the world because for me you are the world, and not only that but life and joy and happiness. It's because I love you that I won't steal away like a thief. I want to stay worthy of you.'

'Words, words!' Jason shrugged furiously. The truth is that you can't bring yourself to give up, all at once, all the glittering life that was yours as someone close to Napoleon! You're young, rich, beautiful – and a Serene Highness – of all the God-damned stupid, pompous titles! And now they've sent you on an embassy to a queen! What can I offer to match that? A fairly humble existence, and not altogether respectable at that, so long as neither of us are free of our matrimonial ties. I can understand your hesitating.'

Marianne regarded him sadly.

'You're so unfair! Have you forgotten that if it hadn't been for Vidocq I would have given all that up without a moment's thought? And believe me, this voyage isn't an excuse or anything, it's a necessity. Why won't you?'

'Because it's Napoleon who sends you. Do you understand? Because I owe him nothing but humiliation, imprisonment and torture! Oh, I know, he gave me a guardian angel but if the guards had bludgeoned me to death or I'd died of my wounds, do you think he would have grieved overmuch? He'd have expressed polite regret, and then turned to something else. No, Marianne, I have no cause to serve your Emperor. Indeed, if I agreed, I should feel a fool. As for you, you may as well know that if you lack the courage to say no now, once and for all, to all that has been your life up to this moment, you'll not find it tomorrow. When this mission is accomplished, you'll find another – or another will be found for you. I'm not denying a woman like you is a valuable asset.'

'No, I swear it! I'll go away at once!'

'How can I believe you? Back in Brittany, you asked nothing better than to flee this man, yet now you want to serve him at all costs! Are you even the same woman? The one I left would have committed any madness for my sake. This one is hidebound by respectability and won't kiss me for fear of the chambermaid's coming in! I can't help noticing it, you know.'

'What are you after? I swear to you I love you and only you, but you must take me to Turkey.'

'No.'

Uttered without anger, the word was none the less final.

'You refuse?' Marianne said dully.

'Precisely. Or rather, no. I give you the choice. I'll take you, but after that I shall sail alone for my own country.'

Marianne recoiled as though he had struck her, knocking over a small table and smashing a fragile piece of Murano glass. She sank on to the sofa where she had lain so short a while ago – a century, it seemed! She stared at Jason wide-eyed, as though seeing him for the first time. He had never looked so tall, so handsome – or so inflexible. She had believed his love was like her own, equal to anything, ready to suffer and endure anything for the sake of a few hours happiness, and how much more so for a lifetime of love. Yet now he could find it in his heart to offer her this ruthless choice.

'You could leave me – of your own will?' she asked incredulously. 'Leave me there and go away without me?'

He folded his arms across his chest and regarded her without anger but with a terrifying firmness.

'The choice is not mine, Marianne. It is yours. I want to know who is boarding the Witch tomorrow: the Princess Sant'Anna, official ambassadress of his Majesty the Emperor and King – or Marianne Beaufort.'

The sound of that name, coming so unexpectedly, when it had figured for so long in her dreams, cut her to the quick. She closed her eyes, her face as white as her dress. Her fingers curled and the nails dug into the silk upholstery, fighting off incipient panic.

'You're so hard…' she moaned.

'No. I only want to make you happy, in spite of yourself, if need be.'

Marianne gave a sad little flicker of a smile. The egotism of men! She could see it even in this man she adored, just as she had seen it in Francis, Fouché, Talleyrand, Napoleon, and even in the monster Damiani. All of them had this curious urge to make decisions about the happiness of the women in their lives, convinced that in this, as in so much else, they alone possessed the key to real wisdom and truth. They had both suffered so much from all that had come between them. Were the obstacles now going to come from Jason himself? Couldn't he subdue his overbearing pride for the sake of his love?

Once again there came the temptation, so powerful as to be almost irresistible, the temptation to give in, to cast herself into his arms and allow herself to be carried away, without further thought. She needed him so much, his strength and his man's warmth. Despite the mildness of the evening, she felt chilled to the heart. Yet, perhaps just because she had suffered so much to win this love, her pride restrained her on the very verge of yielding.

The worst of it was that she could not really blame him. From his man's point of view, he was right. But neither could she retract, or not without telling him the whole. And even then? Jason's feelings towards Napoleon had grown so very bitter!

Miserably unhappy, Marianne chose, none the less, the course that came most naturally: to fight.

She put up her head and met her lover's gaze squarely.

'I have given my word,' she said. 'It is my duty to go. If I abandoned my mission now, you might still love me as much – but you would have less respect for me. In my world, and in yours too, I think, we have always placed duty before happiness. My parents died for that belief. I will not disgrace it.'