by Lynn Sheene
He cradled her ringers in his and brushed his lips over the back of her hand. He straightened, grip held, and admired her with a slight smile on his face.
She held his stare and examined him as he did her. He was dark. Lean, posture like a dancer, cigarette burning in his free hand. Polished hair, tanned skin and his eyes almost black in the shadows of his face. She saw lines around his eyes that weren’t there at the party eight months ago.
“Please.” He gestured toward the table, pulled out a chair for Claire to sit. He popped the champagne cork off the bottle and poured. “I hope you don’t mind we are dining in tonight. With certain business, I prefer to have a bit of privacy.”
Claire watched the bubbles rise in the golden liquid. The scent, like sunlight and berries, tickled her nose and made her mouth water. “We are honored you thought of La Vie en Fleurs for your business.”
He sat across from her, his gaze on the window. He squinted through the smoke as he exhaled.
Claire studied him as she drank. He wore the trappings of money and power well, like a fine suit. But, there was something roguish there. As if underneath that polished surface, she would find an altogether different beast. It made her want to scratch.
A waiter knocked and pushed in a wheeled cart loaded with covered silver trays. Claire held her breath as the meal was unveiled. Thinly sliced roasted lamb, potatoes swimming in a caramel brown sauce and a steaming baguette.
He leaned back, lit another cigarette and watched her eat, his food untouched. “Have you been in Paris for the entire, eh, reorganization?”
Claire nodded. “Why?”
He shrugged. “You attacked the lamb as if you hadn’t seen any lately. Forgive me. I am only making small talk.”
“And you. Have you been in Paris?”
He snubbed out his cigarette and met her eyes. “Occasionally. I travel frequently, on business. I also have a family home near Saint-Malo. It is a good place to pass the time, with family. And you?”
“No family. Came to France for love, why else? But then there was war and, well, things changed. Paris is my home now.” She glanced out the window as if the memory pained her.
The Comte examined her in the reflection. “There is always war, whether between countries or cities or men.” He held his glass in front of him as a toast. “We’re all soldiers in some manner. Only the foolish pretend otherwise.” With a dark smile he drank.
The conversation dribbled on, about the weather and the tides of war. The meal ended and the Comte guided Claire to the sofa to talk business as a white-coated attendant cleared the table, leaving a fresh bottle of champagne chilling in a silver bucket. For later, Claire knew it implied. The Comte offered her a sifter of brandy and slid close.
The heat of the drink warmed her throat and stomach. She leaned back against the sofa, turning her body to display her curves. She smoothed the dress over her thighs, showing more skin than hiding. His gaze followed her movements. Smiling, she stared deep into his dark eyes. He reached out a hand and cradled her cheek.
He may well be dangerous, but he was a man. Her fingers caressed the pale blue silk upholstery. His sheets would also be silk, breakfast would be fruit and champagne. Maybe she saw nothing to report. So what?
One hand on her cheek, the other traced her shoulder, down her bare arm to rest on her leg. His palm was warm on her thigh; his smooth fingers softly caressed bare skin. His dark eyes glittered. For the first time tonight, he looked hungry.
Claire leaned back, gently removing his hand as she smoothed the fabric back down against her leg. She knew better than to lay all her cards on the table. Not this fast. “Ah, mon Comte.” She ran her hand down his chest, firmly and slowly, pushing him back a few inches. “Please, tell me about this event.”
He sat back and examined her quizzically, his mind calculating a shift in the game. “A celebration for a friend in November. Here, in the hotel.”
“Magnifique. Is she a good friend?”
He raised an eyebrow, considered her real meaning. He nodded. “She is married now to the Minister of Finance. We have known each other for some time.”
The wife of the Minister of Finance. That was going to be a very expensive party. Claire took a sip of brandy to hide her excitement. “Have you established the theme? Colors?”
He refilled her glass, the smallest smile on his lips. “I cannot answer these questions. Perhaps after some discussion . . .” He reached for her.
She stared into his eyes, letting him envelop her. Madame needed this deal. And Claire needed to make it happen for her.
She heard a light knock on the side door.
The Comte paused. “Yes?”
“I have news,” a low voice said.
The Comte studied Claire for a moment. Finally he leaned back and stood. “Forgive me. Business.” He walked to the adjoining door and disappeared inside.
As the door clicked shut behind him, Claire slumped back into the couch. She stared up at the ceiling and tried to estimate the party costs over the fuzz of alcohol.
Low voices came through the door.
Claire walked to the mirror over the limestone fireplace mantel. She examined her reflection and frowned. She had looked better before leaving the house. Now, her eyes looked strained, her mouth tight.
Laurent’s words drifted up in her mind, riding on the smoke of the fire building in her stomach. Sure, the Resistance gave her papers, but they risked her life in return. Madame Palain gave her a new life. A place in the world where she could create a beauty that didn’t offer up regrets.
Claire glared at her reflection. Tonight was important. She owed it to La Vie en Fleurs. She smoothed the lock of hair over her brow. Like it or not, this was what she brought to the table.
In the mirror, she noticed the door into the next room swing open a crack. A corner of the bed, a dark wood desk against a damask fabric wall. She watched as the Comte picked up a phone from his desk, his back to her. He asked to be connected to Room 527.
I owe Madame, not them, Claire told the voice in her head that urged her to listen. She looked back at her reflection and pinched her cheeks to force color into her face.
The Comte dropped the phone into the cradle with a curse. A low voice—the visitor was still there, out of Claire’s sight. The Comte jabbed at the air with a slip of paper held in his hand. “We must report this tonight. It cannot wait.”
Claire glanced back at the couch, willed herself there, a drink in her hand. Instead, her gaze was locked into the mirror’s reflection. In the next room, the Comte impatiently crumpled the paper in his fist and dropped it into the trash can. Claire pulled her eyes away from him and turned toward the brandy on a silver tray near the sofa. She was refilling her glass when the Comte came through the door, pulling it firmly shut behind him. She caught his eyes and smiled.
His lips returned the smile, but his eyes were hard. He walked over to her, rested his palms lightly on her shoulders and brushed his lips against the curve of her neck. “I regret to say I must attend to—”
“Business?”
“Oui.” He glanced around the room. His gaze paused on the champagne in the bucket, then her. “Pressing business. It will take an hour, no more than two.”
It was an offer, Claire knew. Discreetly French. Would she like to be here when he returned?
She leaned in and kissed the Comte lightly, slowly on both cheeks. “I hope we can continue our discussion in the future.”
He studied her. “Next week?”
Claire smiled. “Next week, then.”
“You will want to freshen up,” he said, tilting his head toward the bottle. “I will send LeFevre up to procure a ride for you.”
He strode out into the hallway. She heard the visitor’s voice in the hallway, the Comte’s reply, then the voices faded away.
Claire drained her glass and slowly exhaled the warmth. The brandy was good, no doubt, but champagne was what she missed most of all. She glanced over at the bottle c
hilling in ice. It would fit in her coat pocket.
Her gaze was pulled toward the closed side door. Just beyond it, a crumpled piece of paper nestled in a trash can. Damn the Resistance, she thought through a flash of anger. She owed Madame. She wanted to owe them nothing.
But.
She had to know.
In three strides, she was at the door bent over the lock. It was old, the handle worn and the mechanism bent over the decades. Claire put her shoulder against the door and pushed hard. A grinding click and she was in the office, the crumpled note clenched in her hand. She smoothed it open on the desk with her palm.
In rough French script, hastily written and ink-smeared, Resistance groups converge for meeting in Paris 17-08. Leader coming from south. Carries names and plans.
Claire sucked in a breath and sank into the seat. Laurent said Odette was busy. A leader who knew all. And along the line a traitor who betrayed everything.
The door in the next room opened with a snap. Claire straightened, grabbing the phone in one motion. She faced the door as LeFevre entered. She eyed him with irritation. “So, you finally made it.” She flipped the handle back onto the receiver.
He cleared his throat, the same smirk. “So things did not work out?”
She rose from the seat, curving her body around the chair like a dancer. One hand slid across her bare skin in the vee of her dress, her fingers tugging gently at the fabric as though she might shrug the dress off.
The smirk disappeared as LeFevre stared at her fingers hooked on the dress’s neckline. Behind her body, the other hand crumpled the paper into a ball. She released the note from her hand over the trash as she walked toward LeFevre.
“Things worked out just fine. My car, please.” Claire retrieved her coat and the bottle of champagne. She smiled at him as she slid the bottle into a coat pocket.
He didn’t say another word as he led her downstairs. The waiting car was a plain sedan; the driver French, his pink Nazistamped permit displayed on the dash. Claire slid into the backseat. The interior was dark and smelled of burned oil and Gitanes.
17-08.
This leader was coming tomorrow. The scene played in her mind like a gangster movie. Odette stood in a deserted square. A car full of Resistance fighters bristling with guns turned onto the street. The leader in the backseat, swarthy, grim, chewed on a cigarette while he mulled over plans of attack. In the shadows, line after line of German soldiers, rifles ready. Odette would be lucky to die in the square. They all would be.
The brakes ground as the car pulled up to La Vie en Fleurs. Claire opened the door before the tires stopped, composing the report in her head. The driver called out Bonsoir, madame, but Claire didn’t look back as she slipped inside.
After this, she would damn well be even. She would have paid off her new life. Claire Badeau would be a free woman.
Claire’s hand trembled as she stuffed the scribbled note into the dentist’s mail slot. Addressed to Danielle, the script imprinted into the paper with the force of her pen, I have important news. We must speak. Evelyn.
It took too long to get here, slipping through the shadows after curfew, her pulse hammering, heels echoing like hammers on the bricks as she ran. The office was long closed. She only hoped Odette would get her letter in time.
The sky opened up and heavy drops of cold rain spattered the avenue. Claire looked up and down the street before she skittered across, choosing her steps over the puddles. Staying under the dark eaves, she hurried back to the shop.
Within an hour after the shop opened the next morning, a man called in an order. A large posy of white flowers. Delivered immediately to an address in Saint-Germain, the sixth arrondissement. An extra twenty francs if it is there in an hour. For Danielle.
Claire practically dashed from the shop, flowers in hand. She took the Métro to Vavin. The address, she discovered, was a café. Café des Trois Spiritueux. Odette sat at a table near the door, playing with a cup of coffee and an unlit Gitane. Claire took the empty chair across the table and dropped the posy on her folded napkin.
Odette stared down at the flowers. With a crooked smiled she held them up to her face and inhaled deeply. “It amazes me.”
“What does?”
“It is impossible to get a cup of real coffee, much less a fresh vegetable, in all of Paris, and yet you do this.” Odette cupped a snow-white blossom in her hand.
Claire shrugged and smoothed her skirt over her legs. “Madame orders from growers from the south, near Grasse. Besides—I took these from a bouquet going to a Kommandant Daecher’s mistress. Feel better?”
A smile played at the corner of Odette’s mouth. She signaled the waiter. “Something warm?”
Claire shook her head. She wanted to get this said and get out.
“You’ll sit and stir it around the same as I am. We need something to do.” Odette smiled her thanks as the waiter set a cup in front of Claire. “Now. Speak.”
“This is safe, here?” Claire looked around at the scattered tables; the diners leaned over their lunches.
Odette smiled grimly, her eyes flicked over the café. “You would be surprised at this place. Talk.”
Claire quickly ran through what she heard. The meeting in Paris. The leader from the south.
Odette’s face faded to a chalky grey. She reached for a cigarette. It took three tries to light it with trembling fingers. “It is true.”
“Now that you know, you can make adjustments, can’t you?”
Odette didn’t reply. Her face was composed but her eyes blinked fast as she thought. She focused on Claire, her lips pulled back to the slightest toothy smile. “Yes. We can.” Odette gathered the posy and stood. A nod to the waiter. “Come.”
Claire rose and followed her outside.
Odette pressed the flowers into Claire’s hands as they walked. She spoke under her breath. “You must take these flowers and meet someone, warn him.”
Claire stopped abruptly. She heard what the Nazis did to Resistánts . The torture, cutting, drowning, praying for death. “No.”
Odette flipped around to face her. “No?”
“I already risked too much. I’m not like you. I won’t go further.”
“Claire, you don’t understand. There is a traitor. They may know me. They see me and it’s over. There is no time to find someone else. You must.”
“You don’t understand, Odette. I heard something important. I told you. I kept my part of the bargain. No—you find another little soldier.” She shoved the flowers into Odette’s midsection.
Odette glared. Claire opened her fingers. The posy hit and bounced off the uneven bricks of the sidewalk. Flowers and petals burst from their ties and rolled into the street.
“You could have written everything down in your report last night, risking the traitor would see it. You didn’t. You came here today. You care, mon ami. You may not want to, but you do.”
Claire leaned in, her voice a harsh whisper. “Caring for something and dying for something are two completely different things. Don’t get them confused.”
“It would be a mistake to walk away from us.” Odette picked up the flowers. Her face was blank, eyes fixed on a single white ranunculus blossom she threaded back into the bouquet.
Claire’s anger snuffed out like a cigarette butt tossed in the snow. Would they kill her? Damn. They just might. But she wasn’t about to start following orders. “I could walk away, all right. Straight to the Ritz. The Comte would be pleased to see me. He enjoys a good chat. That would be a hell of a mistake too, wouldn’t it?”
Fear flickered in Odette’s eyes. “Yes. That would be.” She held the crumpled flowers out to Claire, a note of pleading crept into her voice. “Claire. This is more important than I can say. For all of us.”
“Oh? Grey too?” Claire said flatly.
Odette scowled.
Must have hit a nerve, Claire thought grimly. “Is it true? Did Grey go back to England, like Laurent said?”
Odette
sighed. Her lips pressed into a thin line. “He did.”
A cold sliver jabbed Claire in the chest. He was the same as all the other bastards she’d run across. And now Odette. Kind, genuine Odette demanded she risk her life for them, or what? Death?
Taking a deep breath, she plucked the posy from Odette’s hand and hooked it in the crook of her elbow. She was through with every last one them. After she saved this connard, she’d tell them all to go straight to hell. She might not wait until next week to see the Comte. She was getting so tired of wool scratching her raw she dreamed of silk in her sleep. “Tell me what I need to do.”
Less than an hour later, she climbed the stairs to the upper level of Gare Montparnasse to await the inbound train from Lyon. The concourse was huge; high ceilings beyond view, lines of tracks butted up against platforms accepting trains from all parts south.
She re-read her instructions from Odette, which were mercifully short. At 11:45 the train from Lyon would arrive. Among the passengers would be an older gentlemen wearing a redstriped scarf. He was called Christophe. She must get him safely to an address she memorized and tell him what she heard.
The hall was surprisingly crowded with families dressed to travel south. They could not be mistaken for summer holiday travelers, their clothes too worn, faces were too still, eyes averted from soldiers, from each other. They were the desperate Parisians with the right papers to join their families in the unoccupied zone, where the fascism was cloaked in the trappings of “Father Pétain” and people managed to keep a bit of the harvest away from the German army.
Claire pushed through the crowd toward the row of platforms. Nearly tripping over a stack of luggage, she bumped into the side of a soldier in feldgrau. He spun to face her, his arm poised to strike. He saw her, paused, then saw her. His arm dropped.
Claire watched his eyes run from her face to her feet and back up again. Wehrmacht Heer, regular German army. Not to say they wouldn’t kill you, but they didn’t seem to enjoy it quite as much as most of the SS. And for the Wehrmacht stationed in Paris, their most passionate conquests were usually more directed toward bedding French women than wiping out the existing world order.
