Bloodline Read Online Free

his pocket with a careless gesture and a moment later was walking out the door.
    Anton Roffe was relieved. He experienced a slight sense of guilt and distaste for what he had done and yet he knew it had been the only solution. Anna would be unhappy at being deserted by her groom, but it was better to have it happen now than later. He would try to see to it that she met some eligible men her own age, who would at least respect her if not love her. Someone who would be interested in her and not her money or her name. Someone who would not be bought for twenty thousand marks.
    When Anton Roffe arrived home, Anna ran up to greet him, tears in her eyes. He took her in his arms and hugged her, and said, “Anna, liebchen, it’s going to be all right. You’ll get over him—”
    And Anton looked over her shoulder, and standing in the doorway was Walther Gassner. Anna was holding up her finger, saying, “Look what Walther bought me! Isn’t it the most beautiful ring you’ve ever seen? It cost twenty thousand marks.”
    In the end, Anna’s parents were forced to accept Walther Gassner. As a wedding gift they bought them a lovely Schinkel manor house in Wannsee, with French furniture, mixed with antiques, comfortable couches and easy chairs, a Roentgen desk in the library, and bookcases lining the walls. The upstairs was furnished with elegant eighteenth-century pieces from Denmark and Sweden.
    “It’s too much,” Walther told Anna. “I don’t want anything from them or from you. I want to be able to buy you beautiful things, liebchen.” He gave her that boyish grin and said, “But I have no money.”
    “Of course you do,” Anna replied. “Everything I have belongs to you.”
    Walther smiled at her sweetly and said, “Does it?”
    At Anna’s insistence—for Walther seemed reluctant to discuss money—she explained her financial situation to him. She had a trust fund that was enough for her to live on comfortably, but the bulk of her fortune was in shares of Roffe and Sons. The shares could not be sold without the unanimous approval of the board of directors.
    “How much is your stock worth?” Walther asked.
    Anna told him. Walther could not believe it He made her repeat the sum.
    “And you can’t sell the stock?”
    “No. My cousin Sam won’t let it be sold. He holds the controlling shares. One day…”
    Walther expressed an interest in working in the family business. Anton Roffe was against it.
    “What can a ski bum contribute to Roffe and Sons?” he asked.
    But in the end he gave in to his daughter, and Walther was given a job with the company in administration. He proved to be excellent at it and advanced rapidly. When Anna’s father died two year’s later, Walther Gassner was made a member of the board. Anna was so proud of him. He was the perfect husband and lover. He was always bringing her flowers and little gifts, and he seemed content to stay at home with her in the evening, just the two ofthem. Anna’s happiness was almost too much for her to bear. Ach, danke, lieber Gott, she would say silently.
    Anna learned to cook, so that she could make Walther’s favorite dishes. She made choucroute, a bed of crunchy sauerkraut and creamy mashed potatoes heaped with a smoked pork chop, a frankfurter and a Nuremberg sausage. She prepared fillet of pork cooked in beer and flavored with cumin, and served it with a fat baked apple, cored and peeled, the center filled with airelles, the little red berries.
    “You’re the best cook in the world, liebchen,” Walther would say, and Anna would blush with pride.
    In the third year of their marriage, Anna became pregnant.
    There was a great deal of pain during the first eight months of her pregnancy, but Anna bore that happily. It was something else that worried her.
    It started one day after lunch. She had been knitting a sweater for Walther, daydreaming, and suddenly she heard Walther’s voice, saying, “My God, Anna, what are you doing, sitting here in the