The Secrets of the Notebook: A royal love affair and a woman’s quest to uncover her incredible family secret. Eve Haas

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СКАЧАТЬ said after a few minutes. ‘It has been handed down through the generations. It is the only proof we have that Emilie and the Prince had a life together and that that is where we came from. When I am no more, this book will be yours to keep and to pass on to the next generation. But you mustn’t do anything about it. Remember Eve, there is nothing more to find out. Nothing else has been written, nothing else exists, so don’t go looking for it. All we know is what we have learned by word of mouth. Apart from a little portrait of Charlotte’s mother, Emilie, which your Uncle Freddy has, this book is all that exists from that time. I wanted you to know that you have blue blood flowing in your veins, that is all. Just be content with that.’

      In all my innocence I couldn’t immediately accept what he was saying, but I knew enough not to press him any more and I was privileged to think that I had been chosen to be the keeper of such a precious and mysterious heirloom, to be the one to pass the secrets on to the next generation of our family. I adored my father above anything else, but he was sensitive, and a man whose word I respected. If he didn’t want me to go looking for any more information about our family’s past then I would not question his wishes any further. My father passed the pocket-book to my mother, who promptly put it back into the old yellowing envelope it had come from and slipped the green ribbon over it. Then she left the room. We met again a few minutes later in the kitchen where I was washing up the breakfast things.

      Caressing my hair, Mother quietly whispered in my ear, ‘The King wouldn’t allow it, but August went against his wishes and married Emilie anyway.’

      The events of my childhood in Berlin had taught me just how dangerous it could be to be related to the wrong people or to anger those who held the power of life and death in their hands. To be considered to have the wrong blood flowing in your veins could mean instant arrest and who knew what fate after that. No Jewish family living in Europe during those times wanted to draw attention to themselves in any way at all. The secret to survival was to be as discreet and inoffensive as possible. Going around claiming to be directly descended from one of the wealthiest and most powerful royal families in all history, as I later found out they were, was likely to annoy more people than it would enchant or intrigue, but I still ached to find out more about what sounded like a real-life fairy tale.

      My father must have chosen me to give the book to because he knew that I would be captivated by the romance of the story and believed that I would pass the story on to any children I might have, just as he was passing it on to me. He must have believed that the precious book would be in safe and loving hands with me and I still feel touched and honoured to have been chosen to carry the secret on for the next generation. Sitting at the breakfast table that day, however, I had no idea just what an extraordinary journey that little keepsake would eventually take me on, a journey back in time, across closed and dangerous borders to uncover secrets that had been carefully hidden and closely guarded for over a century.

The SECRETS of the NOTEBOOK

      Contents

       Title Page Dedication Epigraph Prologue The Secrets Of The Notebook Chapter One: Goodbye Berlin – Hello Hampstead Chapter Two: Granny Anna – No News From Prague Chapter Three: Meeting Emilie Chapter Four: The Call To Adventure Chapter Five: Return To Berlin Chapter Six: Crossing The Border Chapter Seven: At The Castle Walls Chapter Eight: Charming The Minister Chapter Nine: The Disappearing Passports Chapter Ten: The Opening Of The Archives Chapter Eleven: My Great, Great Grandfather – Prince August Of Prussia Chapter Twelve: Gottschalk Chapter Thirteen: Finding Emilie Chapter Fourteen: Going To The Ball Chapter Fifteen: An Assassin In The Palace And The Disappearance Of Victor Chapter Sixteen: The Death Of The Prince Chapter Seventeen: A Humble Plea Chapter Eighteen: An Offer To Spy Chapter Nineteen: Calling Their Bluff Chapter Twenty: The Prince In England Chapter Twenty One: Visiting August Chapter Twenty Two: An Ally In Berlin Chapter Twenty Three: A Poisonous Legacy Chapter Twenty Four: Finding Charlotte Chapter Twenty Five: The Final Piece Of The Puzzle Chapter Twenty Six: Tracking Down Isadore And Charlotte Chapter Twenty Seven: The Vanished Palace Chapter Twenty Eight: A Letter From The Grave Epilogue: Visiting Anna Acknowledgements About the Author Copyright About the Publisher

       1

       GOODBYE BERLIN – HELLO HAMPSTEAD

      MOST OF THE early years of my life were spent in the political turmoil of Berlin. I was born on my father’s birthday, 26 June 1924. My mother went into labour in a state of shock, having been informed by her sister, Fridl, that the Berlin evening paper had announced that my father had been fatally injured that day in a car accident.

      In fact my father was not dead, but instead was fighting for his life in a convent in the middle of nowhere. He had been travelling on business from our home in Breslau, which was then in Germany but is now in Poland, when his car was forced off the road by a heavily laden haywain steered by a woman in a red headscarf. Startled by the unexpected sound of an engine the carthorse had reared up. My father loved driving his new Buik 24-54, so he was at the wheel despite the fact that he had his chauffeur with him. He swerved to avoid the flailing hooves and rolled off the road into a ditch, ending up on its side. The chauffeur was thrown clear but my father was trapped inside with a fractured skull and a broken arm and leg.

      Clambering to his feet, the chauffeur waved down the next car to pass by, but the driver refused to take ‘a dying man’. The next vehicle to pass was a lorry loaded with bricks and the driver agreed СКАЧАТЬ