Chapter Eight #3
“Then don’t tell him.” He wanted to say she should, could, that if this English bloke was to be trusted, he needed to learn the same lesson as the rest of them and commit to answering to her.
But the tension around her mouth told him she wasn’t ready to hear that, not when it meant all of MI6 learning the truth.
“Let him think you’re the chief of this particular station—it isn’t as though you don’t have plenty of other female chiefs throughout France.
” He touched a hand to her back to urge her forward.
Not just down the short hallway, but into this next step.
She puffed her cheeks out with air and then let them deflate.
“Maybe I’m feeling territorial. Or defensive.
I understand we’ll need instruction on the new equipment, but they said he’d train our recruits on general methodology too.
Have we really done such a lousy job, that they need to send someone to train us? ”
He had no idea, of course. But she didn’t ask the question because she wanted an expert answer.
She asked because she needed reassurance.
“I imagine it’s more like an orchestra. MI6 is like the violin section—concert pitch.
France like the clarinets—a B-flat pitch.
A bit of transposition is required for the notes you read to match what you play, otherwise you’ll all think you’re playing a C, but some of you will be playing a B-flat.
And we all know how that would sound. Like utter chaos. ”
“Disastrous on a stage and even more so in intelligence.” She nodded, a bit of the anxiety in her eyes fading. “It’s a good analogy.”
“Really? I thought it was pretty horrible, but it was the best I could come up with off the cuff.”
She sent him a smile. “You’ve already proven yourself adept at improvisation.
And really, it’s a good point. They have a set way of doing things.
So do we. This training isn’t to teach us the basics, but rather to make certain our methodology is a close-enough match to theirs that we can communicate well.
” She paused, stretched up on her toes, and kissed his cheek.
“Thank you. That was exactly what I needed to realize.”
It was impossible to go a day in France without someone kissing his cheeks—her doing so shouldn’t have inspired him to come up with a few more bad analogies to earn another.
“Did you want us there when he arrives?” Even if they weren’t, she wouldn’t be alone.
There were always agents in residence, couriers coming and going, people snagging an empty bed or a couch for a few hours of sleep before they moved on to their next mission.
And Zelie always in the center of it all, the axis around which they turned.
Gathering the intel on what everyone had observed the Germans doing in their own slice of France, sifting through it, sending dispatches, doling out questionnaires with the questions that England most wanted answered about German movements.
How she kept it all straight was beyond him.
Her own orchestra, he supposed. She the maestro.
“Would you?” A maestro who still couldn’t seem to fathom that all eyes were on her, right where they belonged. “I know it’s an inconvenience, you’d have to stay at the villa overnight. The plane won’t come until full dark. You’re likely tired after three days of auditions . . .”
“I wouldn’t have offered if I weren’t willing.” He proved it with a smile.
“Hurry up, old man,” Gustave taunted from the door to Marcel’s office. “La patronne’s cook will have food, and I’m starving.”
“You’re always starving.” Zelie had clearly gotten to know his cousins well while Marcel was in Germany. It still took him by surprise at odd moments.
Emile stepped from the room with Marcel’s briefcase in hand. “Do you need anything else? I want to spend some time with Marie after dinner, before the drop tonight, so we need to get going.”
Juste ciel, they were still as impatient as they’d been as boys.
“Let me pack my own things, Em. You won’t die of starvation in two minutes, either of you, and Marie will wait five minutes for you, I daresay.
” He jogged the last few steps, pulled the briefcase from Emile’s hand, and moved into his office.
It didn’t take him long to gather all the judging forms from the last few days, shuffle them into a neat pile, and slide them into his case.
He grabbed the key ring he’d put in his desk drawer and locked the door behind him when he stepped out again.
Zelie cast a glance at his head. “Do you never wear a hat?”
His cousins both sniggered like idiots. Of course. “Never,” Emile said.
“It would mess up his hair,” Gustave added, oh-so-helpfully. Complete, of course, with a feminine affectation and exaggerated bounce of his hand near his own tight-cropped locks.
Vivi cackled with laughter. Zelie pressed her lips against a smile.
Marcel shook his head and led the way toward the exit.
“Careful, boys. I know all your secrets too. Emile, who would always flip over the game board and storm off rather than lose. Gustave, who was convinced a monster lived under the cellar steps. And which of you was it, again, who slept with his teddy bear until he was nineteen?”
Laughter followed him out the door.