Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
MARSEILLE, FRANCE
“You know,” Marguerite said as she leaned against the exterior wall of the bistro Alliance had bought four months ago, “we could go inside one of these evenings. Sit at a table while you pretend you don’t want to see him.”
Zelie ignored her friend and edged a few inches closer to the window. It was, as she’d instructed it to be on Wednesday evenings, open. Not to let the sea air in on a sweltering summer night, but to let the music out.
When she’d used some of the funds from England to buy another business to use as a cover for Alliance, she’d opted for this bistro because she and Marcel had never come here.
And yet what had she done? Bought a piano for it.
And then sent a message to him to report there on Wednesdays to meet with Rivière.
But she was here, more often than not. Out of sight.
Because whatever she’d claimed, she needed it.
Those stolen moments, the reminders of why the fight was worth it.
A few minutes of peace each week as she listened to him play.
Of course, the peace was a lot more peaceful before Marguerite had arrived in Marseille with all her infuriating prodding.
“Could we at least put chairs out here?”
Breathing a laugh, Zelie rolled her head to the side to glare at her friend. “You don’t have to come.”
“And you don’t have to refuse to see the man you’re in love with just because you’re stubborn. But alas. Here you are in the alley, so here I am with you. Because I’m such a good friend.” Marguerite blew out a long stream of smoke.
Zelie batted it away. And didn’t take up the argument. What was the point? When Marguerite had shown up at her door in the small hotel closer to Toulon than to Marseille that was her new headquarters, the first thing she’d done was wrap Zelie in a tight embrace.
And the second thing had been to point a finger at her nose and say, “That man is in love with you, and you’re an idiot if you’re turning him away.”
Zelie had tried to play the fool about what man Marguerite meant, but her friend had rolled her eyes.
“Perhaps the one who hunted me down in Paris and told me in no uncertain terms that I had to come to Marseille before you completely shut yourself off? Perhaps the one who had such concern in his eyes when he said you’d closeted yourself away in your hotel room and never said more than a few words to anyone?
Perhaps the man who begged me to come be your friend because you wouldn’t let him be one anymore? ”
For good reason. She couldn’t trust herself around him, as she’d so disastrously proven. It was enough to hear him play in the alley. Just as it was enough to look at the stars every night and send her love to Blaise and Elise.
A lie, on both counts. But one she couldn’t afford to call herself on.
That had been in April. She’d expected Marguerite to head back to Paris long ago, but instead she’d stayed on as Zelie’s personal courier, traveling all over Free France for her, from sector to sector.
She was good at it, able to talk herself out of any situation with her innocent appearance and easy chatter.
“Couldn’t we at least go up to the back room?”
Although the chatter had its drawbacks too. Zelie sighed. “Go ahead.” She checked her watch. Twenty minutes until they were to meet Léon, who’d just arrived back in France from Algiers. Every time she met with him, she had to fight down her anger at his bringing Navarre into the conspiracy.
But MI6 loved him. Loved having his perspective. Loved all the connections he’d made in North Africa. Bringing him into the fold had pleased her handlers more than anything else she’d done since Navarre’s arrest.
Her friend put out her cigarette. “That’s all right. I prefer to see your face while he’s playing. You get this dreamy expression—”
“Oh, stop.” Laughing, she presented her back to Marguerite, resting her shoulder against the sun-warmed orange stucco of the building.
Her reasons for never wanting another romantic entanglement hadn’t changed. Her resolve, on the other hand, wavered far too often. I love you, Zelie, but it doesn’t come with strings. Nothing to create a tangle, he’d claimed. Just there, whenever she needed him.
She hadn’t meant to test him, had intended to let his infatuation die its natural death.
Her own feelings she could keep tamped down, stored safely away.
She’d thought. But three times now, she’d slipped.
Been where she’d known he’d be. Let him see her.
Let the warmth of his smile, the light in his eyes wash over her.
Let the magnet of his presence pull her closer.
Three times, she’d meant only to exchange pleasantries and had instead ended up in his arms, kissing him senseless.
Not his fault—he’d promised not to kiss her again, not to mention that first one, and he hadn’t gone back on his word. Not until she did, and then he held her tenderly, kissed her passionately.
And, when sense returned and she cursed herself and pulled away, he always gave her that knee-melting, dimpled smile and let her go.
Infuriating man.
Her eyes slid shut as he played Chopin’s Ballade No. 3 in A-Flat Major. One of her favorites, which she’d mentioned once. No doubt that was why he played it. For her. Did he know she was out here? Hope she was?
Enough. She pushed off the wall and moved to the back door.
Smells from the busy kitchen made her stomach growl, but she ignored it and slipped up the stairs, into the little flat over the restaurant.
The couple running the bistro lived up here, but the small second bedroom had been converted into a space that could be either a meeting room or a place for a traveling agent to sleep.
At the moment, a small table dominated the space, chairs on each side. Zelie headed for her usual one—back to the window, face toward the door—but paused when she saw a piece of paper folded at her place.
She should sweep it off the table, throw it away. She already knew what it would say.
But because she had no sense at all when it came to Marcel, she picked it up, flipped it open.
And her lips turned up despite herself. Instead of words this time, he’d left his message in dots and dashes.
.--- . / - .----. .- .. -- .
Je t’aime. I love you.
He’d drawn a shooting star in the corner, as he always did. And signed it with a stamp he’d found somewhere of a small bird, in green ink. Greenfinch. As if she didn’t know exactly who’d left her messages all over the place.
Marguerite, of course, was looking at it over her shoulder. “Aww. I can’t even read Morse code, but I bet I know what it says.”
Zelie folded the paper and slipped it into her handbag. “It says, Mind your own business, Marguerite.”
Her friend laughed and pulled out a chair. “Funny. Didn’t look like that many letters.”
“Shorthand.” Zelie sat too and tried to tell herself she wasn’t straining to hear the piano below.
That she wasn’t hoping he’d come up here for some reason, and Marguerite would excuse herself, and he’d ask her something inane like “How have you been?” and leave her no choice but to throw herself into his arms again.
There was something wrong with her. Why couldn’t she stick to her resolve where he was concerned?
Two minutes before the scheduled start of the meeting, the back door opened again. Marguerite went to the stairs, and given the fact that she didn’t ask whoever it was to leave, it must be Léon. Zelie stood.
He entered with a nod, his salt-and-pepper hair as well-groomed as ever, the wire rims of his spectacles gleaming. He was tall, thin, studious looking . . . but as much a military man as Navarre had been, and he carried himself with that familiar rigidity. “Evening, Honey Badger.”
“Kestrel.” She smiled, nodding toward the briefcase he set on the table. “That your luggage for your holiday in London?”
He snorted a laugh and opened the case, pulling out a thick file. “No, I left that below. This is a copy of what I intend to give them, though.”
She took it, opened it, but even as her eyes scanned over the list of names that could be of use to MI6 in Algeria, her mind wandered to the scheduled drop tonight.
The Brits’ new aircraft, called Lysanders, were light enough to land in a small field and take off again, which meant they didn’t just parachute supplies in anymore.
They actually landed, which opened up a whole new opportunity to send her agents, like Léon, to London for a week or two at a time.
Blaise would have gone wide-eyed with awe and begged to be on a welcoming committee, just to get a closer look at those planes.
She cleared her throat, pulled her thoughts back on track. “You’ve reviewed everything for your trip?”
He nodded, somber. “I’ll represent you well, Patronne.” Pausing, he studied her. “Navarre spoke of you in the most glowing of terms, you know. Said how until he recruited you, this whole thing was just a mental experiment. But you made it possible. Made it reality.”
She darted a look at his face but then focused on the papers again.
In the months since Léon officially joined Alliance, they’d only met in person twice before now, always with other agents present.
In the back of her mind, she’d wondered if this old chum of Jean’s was only here because of his memory.
If he thought Navarre had been an idiot for leaving it all in her hands.
“We both know Jean didn’t value Alliance all that highly. ”
A breath blustered from his lips, and he leaned forward. “Can you ever forgive me?”
That brought her gaze back up, locking on to his. “For what?”
“Drawing him into that conspiracy.” Léon shook his head, brows pinched.
He flicked his gaze briefly to Marguerite, then back to Zelie.
“We wanted an easy fix. Action. It . . . it shouldn’t have taken the execution of one of us for the rest of us to see our mistake.
I distracted him from the work he should have been doing—this work. ”
She closed the folder again, wishing she could make the emotions vanish as easily. “Do you honestly believe this is the better work?”
“Now?” He nodded. Sighed. “But it’s not the sort we’re used to. Can you understand that? There’s no . . . no glory in it, no praise, no medals, no promotions.”
Marguerite breathed a laugh. “And perhaps that’s why it took a woman to run it—we’re used to being the unseen forces behind the scenes. The ones that keep the world turning while all you men are parading about with your chests puffed out.”
Eyes wide, Zelie opened her mouth, not sure exactly how to chide her friend for such audacity . . . and then didn’t bother, when Léon laughed.
Amusement twinkled behind his glasses as the laughter died down to a smile. “You may be onto something there, Chamois.” Marguerite’s handle was for the goat-antelopes she’d watched frolic in the Alps at her summer home as a child.
Zelie relaxed. And looked at Navarre’s old friend with new eyes.
“I can forgive you. And I trust that you’ll represent us well in London.
” She splayed a hand over the closed folder.
“Though I still don’t know how they honestly expect us to help them take North Africa.
It seems as ambitious now as it did when Navarre told me of your original plan. ”
Léon granted that with a tilt of his head. “There are still so many assets there we could put into play—but the Brits and Americans aren’t going to be relying on seizing a few key government positions. They’re thinking numbers, if I guess aright. Force. A whole campaign, not a conspiracy.”
What would Navarre have thought of it? He certainly had believed North Africa was pivotal to the Allies’ plan . . . and to an eventual retaking of France. Perhaps he’d been right in that part, even if he’d chosen the wrong way to go about it.
But perhaps this was the right way. Perhaps if Alliance could give the Allies what they needed, they could do this.
Not just as a tribute to their founder .
. . but it could still be one. She nodded.
“Tell them we’ll do whatever they need us to.
I trust you’ll have the insight they need into who should rally what French troops remain. ”
Though he shrugged, Léon didn’t look as though he doubted himself. “I’ll offer whatever I know.” Standing, he said, “I’ll check in when I get back. The hotel?”
“The hotel. Go with God, Kestrel.”
He gave a grinning salute and left the room, briefcase in hand.
They waited for him to leave and then followed a few minutes later. Dusk was falling, casting the brick alleyway in shadows that were more atmospheric than deep. She cast her eyes heavenward, willing a few stars to be visible, though she knew it was far too early.
Just a glimpse. That was all she needed. A glimpse to remind her of her children. The belief that they were waiting for a glimpse too, in Geneva.
She jumped when a figure straightened from a slouch on the wall beside the window she’d staked out earlier. Her heart thudded. Leapt. Wept. “Marcel?” True to his word in January, he had never sought her out. Not once.
Which meant something must be wrong.