Chapter Twenty-One
Twenty-One
ANNECY, FRANCE
TWENTY MILES FROM THE SWISS BORDER
Zelie gave them each another long embrace—her mother, her daughter, her son—and forced herself to take a step away, open the back door of the car they’d be driving into Switzerland. Tears wanted to blur her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them. Wouldn’t let this final vision of them be distorted.
This could be the last time she ever saw any of them. She knew that. She wanted the memory to be perfect.
Elise pouted, but she didn’t understand yet that this was anything more than their usual separation, so she slid into the back seat and clutched the doll Mathilde Laurent had given her to her chest. Zelie smoothed a hand over her daughter’s silky blonde hair, pressed one last kiss to the top of her head. “I love you. I’ll miss you.”
Elise barely glanced at her. “I want to stay with you. At Tante Mathilde’s house. I want Marcel to keep teaching me piano.”
“I know, mon chou.” How had he done it? Burrowed his way into her children’s hearts in a few short weeks?
She’d tried to tell herself it was the piano lessons for Elise, the way he treated Blaise as an equal, but could that really account for the way her daughter always attached herself to his side, how her son had begun to look to him for approval when he said something during a family meal?
She didn’t blame them for liking him. How could she? She liked him too. And she didn’t blame him for being his usual caring, encouraging self around them. Was that not why she’d known such relief when she realized he had been the one to go in search of them?
Even so, her chest ached, because that meant one more loss her children would have to suffer.
Marcel wasn’t going to be a permanent part of their lives.
When she got back to Marseille tonight and collected the last of her things from his aunt and uncle’s house, she intended to tell him that someone else would be meeting him weekly.
That she had to focus on rebuilding, expanding, gathering exactly what MI6 needed from her.
There was no more time for music in bistros, heartfelt conversations, or dinners at wherever she next set up Alliance.
And by the time the war was over, he’d have moved on. Which was exactly as it should be, even if the thought did send a pang through her.
“We’ll find you a piano teacher in Geneva,” Maman said to Elise. “Not as talented a one as Marcel, I grant you. But think how you’ll impress him when next you see him and you can play so many more songs!”
Despite the grin Elise flashed her grandmother, Zelie sighed and sent her mother a What are you doing? look. That would not help disentangle her baby’s heart from Marcel.
Maman kissed Zelie’s cheeks, wiped at her own, and pulled her in for a tight embrace. “I’ll take care of them, Zee. With my life.”
“I know. Thank you, Maman.” She hugged her close. There was so much yet to say. No time left for saying it. So she settled for, “I love you.”
With a sniff, Maman turned to the driver’s door.
Which left only Blaise. Zelie turned to her son, still amazed that this had been his idea, and drew him in again. “I am so proud of you, Blaise.”
His arms wrapped around her, squeezed. “I’m proud of you. Don’t worry about us. I’ll take care of Elise.”
“I know you will.” He’d sprouted up to her nose since October.
She kissed his forehead and then rested hers on it.
He could be taller than her, next time she saw him.
If she saw him again. “I love you. Every night, when you look outside, find the moon and know I’m looking at it too and saying I love you. ”
Blaise grinned, shook his head. “There are nights the moon hides its face. I’ll think it when I see the stars. You do the same. We love you. I’m proud to be your son.”
Her precious boy. She smoothed his hair down too and stepped away. “Go with God. Mind your grand-maman.”
“Go with God, Maman.”
She turned back to her Citroen before she could convince herself to linger any longer, keeping her shoulders straight by sheer force of will. She would drive away, not look back.
As if she could. She sat there, instead, while Maman turned her old Peugeot back onto the road and watched until they were out of sight. Then she rested her forehead on the steering wheel and let the sobs come.
Soon, she would drive back to Marseille. She would let herself into Charlotte and Germain Laurent’s house one last time. Pack up her few belongings, sleep in the narrow bed that had been her betrayer’s, and put everyone’s precarious future firmly in the Lord’s hands.
Tomorrow, she’d drive out to the small hotel owned by an agent’s brother and see if perhaps it could be their new headquarters. Reach out to the remaining sectors, the Maquis, perfect strangers, and start rebuilding.
What she wanted to do was the one thing she wouldn’t—find Marcel and let him soothe the ache inside.
Marcel sat at the table in his aunt’s kitchen reviewing sheet music he was considering for the orchestra’s spring lineup.
Lothar would be stopping by on Wednesday morning to approve his selections .
. . though at this rate, he’d have to help him choose.
Familiar as he was with all the music, he couldn’t think about any of it.
Couldn’t weigh the pros and cons of each.
All he could think about was Blaise and Elise, who had, he prayed, made it safely into Switzerland by now with Lizette.
And Zelie, who would be feeling their loss so much more deeply than he was.
His aunt and uncle and parents were all next door, playing a game with a few other neighbors. Marcel knew that Zelie would come here, gather her things, and close herself off to mourn. He knew she’d leave tomorrow and not look back, focusing instead on her next steps for Alliance.
He couldn’t let her grieve alone though.
When the front door opened, he sat up straight, listening. Definitely Zelie’s light tread on her new cork-soled shoes from Spain. He shuffled his music back into a pile and stood just as she turned into the kitchen.
“Oh.” Surprise saturated her voice, along with something else he couldn’t put his finger on. Wariness? Relief? “I didn’t expect you to be here.”
He offered a small smile as she clutched at her lapels. “I won’t stay long. Just wanted to make sure you were all right. How did things go in Vichy?” The easier question, he knew.
She nodded and shrugged out of her coat, though when he reached to help her, she stepped clear of him as if his nearness scalded her and draped it over the back of a chair. “Better than expected. They believed my story and accepted the half million. Slapped my wrist and let me go.”
Marcel let his hands fall to his sides and moved to the workbench, leaning against it to give her space. Then folded his arms, anchoring his hands to keep from reaching for her. “I knew you’d succeed. And today?” This he asked quietly, knowing it would have been the harder of the two tasks.
Her throat bobbed, and she focused her gaze on the table. “I saw them on their way this morning. Now, I . . . I just have to trust they made it safely. Maman will send a wire to the hotel tomorrow with a question about rates, to let me know they’re with her friend.”
He knew the plan. Prayed that telegram would come on schedule. “But how are you?”
Her fingers curled around the back of a chair. “I’m fine. I have to be.”
“Oh, Zelie. No, you don’t.” Not right now, not with him.
“I do. This was the right choice, the best way to keep them safe today and give them a future tomorrow.”
“Yes.” He couldn’t keep his arms folded, though he caught himself before he stepped toward her. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. You’re allowed to feel it.”
“Don’t you see?” Her head snapped toward him, gaze burning .
. . and clouding with tears. “I can’t. I can’t, or it will break me, and I cannot afford any more cracks.
There’s too much at stake, too much to do, and I .
. . I . . .” A wild shake of her head, but it did nothing to keep the tears from streaming, her shoulders from shaking with sobs.
He didn’t mean to move. But how could he see her fall apart without trying to bring comfort?
A few steps and he was at her side, though then he stopped, hand outstretched.
He had to offer . . . but her signals had been clear.
She didn’t want him, not outside the careful box she’d been building since her return.
Here, and no farther. This, and no more.
So he let his hand hover over her arm and forced out a half-broken, “May I?”
When she turned those weeping eyes on him, met his gaze, something inside him came undone. When she turned into him, wrapped her arms around his waist, buried her face in his shoulder, he felt her grief in his own soul.
“What if it’s all for nothing?” Her fingers dug into his back. “What if I fail, can’t rebuild? What if they find us all out and kill everyone? What if this is a fool’s errand, and I’m not clever enough to hold the pieces together, and I’ve sent my children away for nothing?”
“Zelie. It’s not for nothing. Even if we fail, it’s a worthy fight.
Freedom is always worth sacrificing for.
” When she tilted her face up, he found himself reaching to smooth back the hair still half clinging to his shirt, tucking it behind her ear.
“And if you’re not clever enough, then no one is.
If you can’t rebuild it, then it can’t be done. ”
When her arms shifted, he expected her to pull away.
But instead, one of her hands settled on his cheek, caressed.
Then she was pulling his head down, rising up on her toes.
Heaven help him, she was all fire, bright and hot, and he’d be nothing but ashes in a moment.
But he kissed her back, because how could he not, when love for her crashed through him like raging cymbals, fortississimo?
Pulled her close, because how could he not take this one chance to do so?
Will you love her as I love her? When it means letting her go instead of caging her in? Will you love her when it means saying goodbye, if it’s for her good? For yours? For the people you fight for?
Questions he’d been asking himself ever since Blaise had insisted she send them away. He had much to learn, about faith and love both, from a ten-year-old boy. Could he give up his will, as she’d done? If it meant giving up her?
But if he didn’t . . . would he ever really have her at all?
She kissed him as if she’d been dreaming of it too, as if she needed his touch as desperately as he needed hers. But he felt the shift a moment later, as thought bullied its way forward.
Let her go. The command echoed through his own weary soul, seconds before she went taut.
Obeying was the hardest thing he’d ever done. But he let his arms fall, so that when she reeled back, chest heaving, he offered no resistance. Though when he saw the mask she wrestled into place, he shook his head. “Don’t.”
She spun toward the table again. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Grief. I know that’s all it was.” Not all he wanted, but he wasn’t going to fool himself, certainly not at her expense.
The out he offered didn’t seem to be enough though. She squeezed her eyes shut, dragged in a breath, squared her shoulders. “You’ll be reporting to Rivière from now on.”
What? His nostrils flared. He would let her go. He would be whatever she needed him to be, whatever God wanted him to be—but would she really cut him off completely? “I’m not asking anything of you, Zelie.”
At least she met his gaze now. “I didn’t say you were.”
“You’re acting like it.” He straightened too but was careful not to crowd her, not to stand between her and the door. “Let’s get something straight right now.”
When her chin came up like that, it only made him want to kiss her again. “What?”
“I love you.”
She shook her head, challenge in her eyes as if she expected to reason him out of it. “Marcel—”
“I’m not finished. I know very well that loving you is like trying to catch a shooting star—I can never keep up, and if ever I did, I’d be burned. Yet even knowing that, I can’t stop chasing. Can’t stop wishing. Can’t stop loving you for the flash of light you are in the darkness.”
She turned her face away, fingers curling into her palms.
He held out a hand toward the door. “I’m not going to stop you.
I’m never going to hold you back. I won’t mention that kiss or ever ask for another and will never, never distract you from your calling because I know with absolute certainty that God wants to use you to help our people.
I love you, Zelie, but it doesn’t come with strings. You can still just be my friend.”
“No. I can’t.” She edged back, toward the exit to the hall.
“Don’t you see? Even having you for a friend is too distracting.
I don’t have time anymore for dinners at bistros, for conversation, for music.
I need to focus on expanding Alliance. Finding those inroads in North Africa. No more distractions.”
A recipe for overwhelm and disaster, that. He shook his head. “Even my SS overseer knows a soldier still has to take time for what feeds one’s soul. It isn’t a distraction—it’s a reminder of what you’re fighting for. Building for. What we’re trying to save.”
“I’m not like you!” She slashed a hand through the air, a fire in her eyes that looked more like fear than passion. “I can’t balance the two, I can’t divide myself anymore.”
Was this what Gabriel had felt, when Marcel had said he couldn’t just rejoin an orchestra?
Zelie, when Navarre’s wife had said she just wanted to focus on her children?
This horrible feeling of being judged and found lacking?
Wrong? He shoved his hands into his pockets.
That let her go still reverberated inside him.
He nodded, eased back, away from her another step. “All right. Do what you must. Know that I’m praying for you, every day. And if ever you need a friend or a shoulder or”—he chanced a smile—“a nocturne or an aria, I’m here. I’ll always be here, waiting. Loving you in whatever way you need.”
A glint, now, in her eyes. “Until you don’t anymore.”
And just like that, a portamento—a slide from one note to another. From calm determination to heartbreak. Not by her, but for her. “That’s not going to happen.”
“It will.”
“Try me and see.”
She shook her head and moved toward the door.
He didn’t try to stop her, as he’d promised. But he couldn’t resist saying, “I’m not like Jacques.”
She paused, half into the darkened hallway. Turned her head without actually looking at him. “I know. But I’m still like me.”
A moment later, she was gone. And he wondered if he’d ever see her again.