A piercing chirp had made him stop and turn and there she was behind him, on the bank again, wet fur comically spiked, staring at him with intelligent black eyes. Black eyes he could have sworn were asking where on earth he thought he was sloping off to. The moment he started back towards her, calling her name, she turned, yipped in satisfaction and dived into the water.
He never saw her again.
In a busy and danger-filled life, he’d scarcely thought about her until this moment of parting raised the same choking pain.
‘Very well. Message received, cabby! Look, wait here with the young lady, will you, while I go and announce us. I’ll be a few minutes.’
The door was opened by a butler as he approached.
‘Captain Swinburne? Good evening, sir. Her Highness is expecting you. Will you come up to the drawing room?’
He followed the butler down the spacious hallway and up the stairs. They made towards an open door through which filtered smoky, autumnal music — a Chopin nocturne, he thought. When they entered, the pianist abandoned her piece and came smiling to greet him. A striking-looking Russian woman in her fifties, dark hair streaked with grey, she made a reassuring impression on him: friendly and … yes, he would have said — motherly. Somehow, he hadn’t expected motherly. Or small.
Sherry was offered and politely refused. He declined to take a seat by the fire. Facing him across the rug in front of the fireplace, the princess came straight to the point. ‘You have her, Captain? Our Anna?’
‘Miss Petrovna is waiting in the taxi, Your Highness, and eager to see you. I wanted to have a word with you in private before I leave her in your hands.’
She listened intently as he moved through his account. He confirmed that the girl had been found close to death on the doorstep of the British consul in Murmansk in northern Russia. On recovering sufficiently, she had begged to be given a passage to Britain where she knew members of her family were living. The consul had wired Swinburne aboard his ship, which was patrolling the Arctic waters, and he’d agreed to take her on board and bring her back to Portsmouth where he was due to call in for a refit in the autumn.