I shuddered in revulsion, but Rohm smiled. "You are a quick one, pigeon."

He pressed his hips against me, and I turned my leg so that he could feel my sock, glad that Wilhelm had stuffed it so tightly.

"After this dance," he said. "The dark room." He inclined his head toward the back of the room.

"As you wish." My stomach heaved. I had to get away from him, and soon.

We waltzed around the floor, and Rohm stared hypnotically into my eyes. He was an excellent dancer. Strong, in control. A natural leader.

After an eternity, the music ended. Rohm grabbed my hand and began to lead me back to the dark room. I knew what would happen in there if he found out who I was. And what would happen if he didn't.

Oliver appeared at Rohm's elbow. "You have a call, Captain," he said. "I believe it is from the Fhrer's office."

"Wait for me," Rohm said. I nodded and clicked my heels together, bowing the traditional soldier's farewell.

Rohm reached down and squeezed my bottom so hard I yelped. That would leave a mark. "Don't run off."

He swaggered to the bar.

"If you go to the leftmost dark room, Hannah," Oliver said quietly, "there is a back door that leads to the makeup rooms and out the back."

I was shocked into silence. Oliver recognized me. What if Rohm did too? I gulped.

"Hannah?" Oliver said. "You must hurry."

"Thank you," I said. "For everything."

Oliver smiled tightly. "I knew you would work things out. Your brother deserved that."

"When did you know he was dead?"

Oliver glanced over his shoulder at Rohm. "When he did not show up for work after the night at Wilhelm's I suspected the worst. Now go."

"I have a suitcase."

"I will tell Wilhelm to leave it by the front door. I don't know what you are planning, but leave at once. I cannot help you further. Rohm is a very dangerous man."

"Thank you," I said again.

"Your brother would have wanted me to help."

I walked to the leftmost dark room, my legs shaking. As I closed the front door, Rohm waved to me. There was no lock. In pitch darkness, I felt my way along the walls. My shoes stuck to the floor. I shuddered.

My hand found a door handle on the back wall. It was locked. I felt along the handle to see if I could unlock it from this side. My fingers were wet with sweat and slipped off the handle.

I took a deep breath to steady myself, and the front door opened. Rohm stood silhouetted in the light. I turned quickly, door handle hidden behind my back.

Rohm lit a candle and placed it on the bench. In the flickering glow his scarred face looked almost normal. He swiftly took two steps across the room and put his palm flat against the back door. There would be no escape that way. I released the door handle.

"Come," he said. "Kneel down."

I stared at him, unable to move. If I ran, I could not get away. His men were all around us. But I had to leave soon. All of my plans depended on it.

He pulled a cape off his shoulders and spread it on the sticky floor in a practiced, courtly gesture from another era. The room was so small that the cape covered the floor.

He took my left hand and gently pulled me away from the back door. We took an awkward step, and we were standing in the middle of the cape. He knelt and pulled me down to a kneeling position next to him. Even through the cloak, the wood was hard under my knees.

"I am not a barbarian," he said softly. He leaned forward and kissed me gently. I could not think. I was paralyzed. He held my wrist loosely.

He reached one hand up and ran it across my cheek, as gentle as a butterfly's wing. "You look like someone I loved much."

"I . . . I . . . I," I stuttered, realizing too late that I had forgotten to deepen it to sound like a man.

"But you of all people know that," he said with a sad look. "Hannah."

When I tried to lean back, his fingers tightened around my left wrist. "I came only to see Anton," I said.

"To see him, or to take him?" he asked. "I saw him leave. My man watches him even now."

I bowed my head so that he would not see my tears. I would show no weakness in front of him. Even now that I had lost.

"You are merely one woman, Hannah," he said. "I command many men. There is no shame in losing to a stronger adversary."

"Anton would say that a true warrior can defeat all his enemies, no matter how strong."

"He loves you very much," he said. "He thinks you are his mother."

"I did not tell him so." Until a few minutes ago.

"A boy needs a mother," he said. "I worshipped my mother. Ernst despised yours, though, didn't he?"

I stared at him in shock. Sorrow etched his face. "I don't know how Ernst felt about our mother."

"He loved you like a mother." Rohm caressed my bottom, and his eyes glazed over. "You look so much like him."

"Let me go." I struggled to keep my voice steady. I reached behind me and removed his hand from my bottom. He let me.

Never letting go of my wrist, he moved from a kneeling to a sitting position. He ran his eyes over my face thirstily. "Do you find me repulsive?" He licked his lips, the candlelight shining off his sweaty red face.

"No," I lied. I tried to pull my wrist free, but he tightened his hand around it. I cried out in pain.

"Do you want the boy?" he asked, ignoring my cry.

I nodded. He toyed with me like a cat with a mouse. I would not give him the satisfaction of watching me struggle in vain.

"Then be his mother." Rohm smiled as if he had found the solution to all of our problems.

A chill ran down my back. "How?"

"Marry me." He hauled me into his lap, one hand under my knees, the other behind my neck. His cock was hard against the backs of my thighs. The buttons of his uniform pressed against my bandages. Hot pain shot down my side from my wound.

"You will mother the boy, live in comfort and ease, and I will have a wife, to satisfy the party. You'd make a better party wife than an ex-prostitute. And your brother would have wanted you to take care of the boy. Marrying me solves many problems."

"It might solve problems. But it also creates them." I took a deep breath. Ursula would counsel me to accept the offer. Money, power, and the boy. But also Rohm, a brutal Nazi. I would rather take my chances on my own, with the money from the ruby.

"It doesn't have to." He peppered my neck with sweaty kisses.

I struggled to get out of his arms.

"You look so much like him," he said, in a dreamy voice. "If you would consent to wear that uniform sometimes, we might even produce children."

"I consent to none of this." My arms were pinned against his chest in a lover's embrace. He was so much stronger that he seemed not to notice that I struggled. He turned me around so that my back faced his stomach. He reached around to my belt buckle. "I don't need your consent, pigeon."

I struggled against him, but he was as implacable as stone. He pulled off my belt buckle, and I felt his strong fingers on the button to my trousers. Panic filled my mind, and I screamed. Rohm clapped his hand over my mouth and nose. I could not breathe.

"This doesn't have to be unpleasant," he said. "But it can be."

One hand held my mouth and with the other he stripped off my trousers and underwear. Tears ran down my cheeks onto his fingers.

He turned me around and looked into my panicked eyes. "I will let go of your mouth if you promise not to scream."

I nodded. After he let go of my mouth I gulped a few breaths of air.

He ran his hand up and down my naked legs and lay me down on his cloak. The wool was scratchy under my bottom. He seized both my wrists with one hand and undid his belt buckle. It made a muffled clink when he dropped it on the floor.

I closed my eyes, trying not to feel his hands on me, his body on me. "I have the letters," I blurted out.

His arms tightened around me. I could not breathe. Shooting pains ran up my side from my wound. Lights danced across my eyes. "Where?" he asked.

"Can't . . . talk," I croaked.

He loosened his arms, and I sucked in a lungful of air. Hot pain flashed across my chest, and I gasped. I pulled the letter out of my pocket. "Here is one."

Rohm snatched it out of my hand and skimmed it. "And the others?"

"They are in a safe place. A place where they will be published if I do not contact them in one hour." It was a week, but I did not want Rohm to know that.

"You have fire, pigeon."

"And I have your career. Probably your freedom. 'Ode to Bootsie's Cock' would read well in court."

He loosened his grip on my wrists. "The rhyme scheme is well thought out."

I sat and pulled my legs up under me. I longed to cover my nakedness.

"So." He smiled, devilishly. "Where are we now?"

"Let me go with Anton." My voice was ragged. "And I will destroy the letters." It hurt me to say those words. How could I live with Sarah, or myself, if Rohm gained more power?

"Marry me first," he said. "With photographers. Then I will let you both go."

"No." I shook my head. "I do not trust you."

"But I should trust you?"

"You have thousands of men to follow me, to keep me in line. I have only myself."

"And the letters."

I shrugged.

"I need to be seen as a father, even a husband right now. I can't give that up."

"Those letters make it clear that you are not."

He put one hand on my windpipe. "With blackmailers," he said. "You pay forever."

I jerked my head back, but he tightened his grip. "You have no time to break me," I said. "The afternoon papers go to press in an hour."

"An hour can last longer than you can imagine." His eyes glittered in the flickering candlelight.

I closed my eyes.

He released my windpipe, shaking his head. "I can't hurt you if I look at your face. I see Bootsie. It's as if he's in the room with us. Sometimes in the war . . ."

I rubbed my neck.

"I loved your brother," he said. "More than you can understand. He . . ."

I said nothing. There was nothing more for me to say. It was his game, now.

"He spoke of you." Rohm ran his fingertip across my eyebrows, one after the other. "He trusted you."

"He would not want you to hurt me."

Rohm's eyes were dreamy again. He cupped his hand around the back of my head and stroked my hair with his thumb, almost unconsciously. His eyes filled with tears.

"He's gone," he said. "Just like that."

"I miss him." I shifted on the scratchy wool cloak. I longed to be dressed again.

"As do I." Rohm stared into the candle flame. "He trusted you. Said you were honest. And a bad liar."

I smiled.

Someone knocked on the door. "Telephone," a voice said. "Urgent."

Rohm rolled his eyes. "Leave," he called out. The man did not knock again.